He connects his
exhortation to self-reliance with the law working in nature for
conservation and growth,--to wit, that 'Power is in nature the essential
measure of right,' and that 'Nature suffers nothing to remain in her
kingdom which cannot help itself.' The same strain is constantly
audible. Nature on every side, within us and without, is for ever
throwing out new forms and fresh varieties of living and thinking. To
her experiments in every region there is no end. Those succeed which
prove to have the best adaptation to the conditions. Let, therefore,
neither society nor the individual check experiment, originality, and
infinite variation. Such language, we may see, fits in equally well with
democracy in politics and with evolution in science. If, moreover,
modern science gives more prominence to one conception than another, it
is to that of the natural universe of force and energy, as One and a
Whole. This too is the great central idea with Emerson, repeated a
thousand times in prose and in verse, and lying at the very heart of his
philosophy. Newton's saying that 'the world was made at one cast'
delights him. 'The secret of the world is that its energies are
_solidaires_.' Nature 'publishes itself in creatures, reaching from
particles and spicula, through transformation on transformation to the
highest symmetries. A little heat, that is, a little motion, is all that
differences the bald dazzling white and deadly cold poles of the earth
from the prolific tropical climates.
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