Natural history of intellect, and other papersEmerson, Ralph Waldo
Philosophy
Natural history of intellect, and other papers
Emerson, Ralph Waldo
American essays -- 19th century; Boston (Mass.); Intellect; Memory; Michelangelo Buonarroti, 1475-1564; Milton, John, 1608-1674
The Instinct begins at this low point, at the surface of the earth,
and works for the necessities of the human being; then ascends step
by step to suggestions which are when expressed the intellectual and
moral laws.
The mythology cleaves close to nature; and what else was it they
represented in Pan, god of shepherds, who was not yet completely
finished in godlike form, blocked rather, and wanting the
extremities; had emblematic horns and feet? Pan, that is, All. His
habit was to dwell in mountains, lying on the ground, tooting like a
cricket in the sun, refusing to speak, clinging to his behemoth ways.
He could intoxicate by the strain of his shepherd’s pipe,—silent yet
to most, for his pipes make the music of the spheres, which because
it sounds eternally is not heard at all by the dull, but only by the
mind. He wears a coat of leopard spots or stars. He could terrify
by earth-born fears called _panics_. Yet was he in the secret of
nature and could look both before and after. He was only seen under
disguises, and was not represented by any outward image; a terror
sometimes, at others a placid omnipotence.
Such homage did the Greek, delighting in accurate form, not fond of
the extravagant and unbounded, pay to the inscrutable force we call
Instinct, or nature when it first becomes intelligent.
The action of the Instinct is for the most part negative, regulative,
rather than initiative or impulsive. But it has a range as wide as
human nature, running over all the ground of morals, of intellect,
and of sense. In its lower function, when it deals with the apparent
world, it is common-sense. It requires the performance of all
that is needful to the animal life and health. Then it requires a
proportion between a man’s acts and his condition, requires all that
is called humanity; that symmetry and connection which is imperative
in all healthily constituted men, and the want of which the rare and
brilliant sallies of irregular genius cannot excuse.
* * * * *
If we could retain our early innocence we might trust our feet
uncommanded to take the right path to our friend in the woods. But we
have interfered too often; the feet have lost, by our distrust, their
proper virtue, and we take the wrong path and miss him. ’Tis the
barbarian instinct within us which culture deadens.
We find ourselves expressed in nature, but we cannot translate it
into words. But Perception is the armed eye. A civilization has tamed
and ripened this savage wit, and he is a Greek. His Aye and No have
become nouns and verbs and adverbs. Perception differs from Instinct
by adding the Will. Simple percipiency is the virtue of space, not of
man.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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