of inquiry in Plato. The true philosopher according to him is above all things a lover of truth. And this conception is carried over into the scheme of the Platonists, who make the highest end of all human knowledge the vision of the eternal unity of all things, the One. Thus Proclus explains that the mania, or the inspiration belonging to the lover, "receiving the soul united, conjoins this one of the soul to the gods, and to intelligible beauty." 1

That is, by living with a divine unity the soul realizes the highest possible experience. And this according to Emerson would mean the re-creation of the world. Hence in the closing section of Nature, "Prospects," he turns to the need of re-creating the world as the prospect that lies before each one after he has come to understand the meaning of nature and its relation to the mind of man. But at this point Emerson's thought passes over to a consideration of his second great theme, soul: and hence the final solution of the meaning of nature cannot be arrived at until this theme has been carefully explained.

1 Quoted by Iamblichus, On the Mysteries, 356.

TH

CHAPTER III

SOUL

HROUGHOUT his treatment of nature Emerson relates his subject to soul. His themes of symbolism and correlation of mind and matter recognized the dependence of nature upon spirit or mind. His conception of the method of nature leads him to maintain the divine character of the energy which nature reveals in ceaseless operation in her realm. And his hope of the restoration of nature to her primary and eternal beauty is based upon his belief in the purification of the soul as the means to effect the change.

It was natural, then, as he was at work on his first book, Nature, that he should have contemplated the writing of another essay which he was to entitle Spirit. His plan as later developed did not, however, assign this new idea to a second essay but found a place for it in the original work. The seventh chapter of Nature is thus entitled "Spirit," the theme of which is indicated in its opening

paragraph: "And all the uses of nature admit of being summed in one, which yields the activity of man an infinite scope. Through all its kingdoms, to the suburbs and outskirts of things, it is faithful to the cause whence it had its origin. It always speaks of Spirit." 1 In Emerson's conception of spirit, then, is to be found his final teaching on the meaning of existence; in revealing the nature of soul all his deepest thinking ends.

His favorite authors were rich in schemes of speculation on this subject. Plato had placed the metaphysics of the soul on a commanding eminence in his Phado, Phædrus, Republic and Timæus. Plotinus had left a group of Enneads that carried the speculations of Plato into the high realm of rational mysticism in which the soul of man is in actual contact with the soul of the highest principle of all things, the One; and in his theories of a universal Intellect and a Soul of the Universe he had given the form for all the speculation of the Platonists on the nature of soul. The attention which Emerson gave to such speculation even in its most mystical flights testifies to the closeness and the sympathy with which he read his Platonic sources.

1 Complete Works, I., 61.

Soul in Emerson is an all-embracing term. It means God. It is also conceived as an intellectual energy, or pure intellect. And at times Emerson conceives it as the very life of the universe under the form of a world soul. Roughly speaking, his division corresponds to the three principles of the Platonists which are often spoken of as the Platonic trinitythe One, Universal Intellect, and Universal Soul. These three are conceived as the absolute hypostases of things and are all found in the soul of man. Emerson thus was able to dignify his conception of the human soul by relating it to these great principles. Of psychology in the scientific acceptance of the term in present-day philosophy Emerson has practically nothing to say; but of Soul as a divine presence in man and the universe he has left much in his most characteristic work.

Owing to his teachings on this subject he has come to be regarded as a seer and out of his central conception arises the great power which his writings generate in the lives of his readers. In order to show the importance of Platonism in his doctrine of the soul, then, it will be best to follow the threefold division of his idea: Soul as God, or the Over-Soul;

Soul as Intellect; and Soul in the universe, or the World-Soul.

I.

THE OVER-SOUL.

The ground of all his teaching on soul is to be found in his doctrine of a Universal Mind, which is the sovereign agent common in its entirety to all men. "There is one mind," so his statement runs, "common to all individual men. Every man is an inlet to the same and to all of the same. He that is once admitted to the right of reason is made a freeman of the whole estate. What Plato has thought, he may think; what a saint has felt, he may feel; what at any time has befallen any man, he can understand. Who hath access to this universal mind is a part to all that is or can be done, for this is the only and sovereign agent." 1

1

In Cudworth is found a conception quite similar to this of Emerson's. To confute the theories of atheism Cudworth lays down the principle "that there can be but one only original mind, or no more than one understanding Being self-existent; all other minds whatsoever partaking of one original mind; and be1 Complete Works, II., 3.