1、 第第 5 卷卷 爱默生文集爱默生文集 百年哈佛 50 部经典 英文版 Harvard Classics 第 5 卷 爱默生文集 2/507 总目录总目录 第第 1 卷卷 富兰克林自传富兰克林自传 第第 2 卷卷 柏拉图对话录：辩解篇、菲多柏拉图对话录：辩解篇、菲多篇、克利多篇篇、克利多篇 第第 3 卷卷 培根论说文集及新阿特兰蒂斯培根论说文集及新阿特兰蒂斯 第第 4 卷卷 约翰米尔顿英文诗全集约翰米尔顿英文诗全集 第第 5 卷卷 爱默生文集爱默生文集 第第 6 卷卷 伯恩斯诗歌集伯恩斯诗歌集 第第 7 卷卷 圣奥古斯丁忏悔录圣奥古斯丁忏悔录 第第 8 卷卷 希腊戏剧希腊戏剧 第第 9 卷卷
2、论友谊、论老年及书信集论友谊、论老年及书信集 第第 10 卷卷 国富论国富论 第第 11 卷卷 物种起源论物种起源论 第第 12 卷卷 普卢塔克比较列传普卢塔克比较列传 第第 13 卷卷 伊尼亚德伊尼亚德 第第 14 卷卷 唐吉坷德唐吉坷德 百年哈佛 50 部经典 英文版 Harvard Classics 第 5 卷 爱默生文集 3/507 第第 15 卷卷 天路历程天路历程 第第 16 卷卷 天方夜谭天方夜谭 第第 17 卷卷 民间传说与预言民间传说与预言 第第 18 卷卷 英国现代戏剧英国现代戏剧 第第 19 卷卷 浮士德浮士德 第第 20 卷卷 神曲神曲 第第 21 卷卷 许婚的爱人许婚
3、的爱人 第第 22 卷卷 奥德赛奥德赛 第第 23 卷卷 两年水手生涯两年水手生涯 第第 24 卷卷 伯克文集伯克文集 第第 25 卷卷 穆勒文集穆勒文集 第第 26 卷卷 欧洲大陆戏剧欧洲大陆戏剧 第第 27 卷卷 英国名家随笔英国名家随笔 第第 28 卷卷 英国与美国名家随笔英国与美国名家随笔 第第 29 卷卷 比格尔号上的旅行比格尔号上的旅行 第第 30 卷卷 科学论文集：物理学、化学、科学论文集：物理学、化学、天文学、地质学天文学、地质学 百年哈佛 50 部经典 英文版 Harvard Classics 第 5 卷 爱默生文集 4/507 第第 31 卷卷 切利尼自传切利尼自传 第第
4、32 卷卷 文学和哲学名家随笔文学和哲学名家随笔 第第33卷卷 古代与现代著名航海与旅行记古代与现代著名航海与旅行记 第第 34 卷卷 法国和英国著名哲学家法国和英国著名哲学家 第第 35 卷卷 见闻与传奇见闻与传奇 第第 36 卷卷 君王论君王论 第第 37 卷卷 17、18 世纪英国著名哲学家世纪英国著名哲学家 第第 38 卷卷 物理学、医学、外科学和地质物理学、医学、外科学和地质学学 第第 39 卷卷 著名之前言和序言著名之前言和序言 第第 40 卷卷 英文诗集（卷）从乔叟到格英文诗集（卷）从乔叟到格雷雷 第第 41 卷卷 英文诗集（卷）从科林斯到英文诗集（卷）从科林斯到费兹杰拉德费兹杰
5、拉德 第第 42 卷卷 英文诗集（卷）从丁尼生到英文诗集（卷）从丁尼生到惠特曼惠特曼 第第 43 卷卷 10001904 第第 44 卷卷 圣书圣书(卷一卷一):孔子孔子 希伯来书希伯来书 基基百年哈佛 50 部经典 英文版 Harvard Classics 第 5 卷 爱默生文集 5/507 督圣经督圣经()第第 45 卷卷 圣书圣书(卷二卷二)基督圣经基督圣经()第第 46 卷卷 伊丽莎白时期戏剧（卷）伊丽莎白时期戏剧（卷）第第 47 卷卷 伊丽莎白时期戏剧（卷）伊丽莎白时期戏剧（卷）第第 48 卷卷 帕斯卡文集帕斯卡文集 第第 49 卷卷 史诗与传说史诗与传说 第第 50 卷卷 哈佛经典
6、讲座哈佛经典讲座 百年哈佛 50 部经典 英文版 Harvard Classics 第 5 卷 爱默生文集 6/507 第第 5 卷卷 爱默生文集爱默生文集 INTRODUCTORY NOTE RALPH WALDO EMERSON was born in Boston,Mass.,on May 25,1803,the son of a prominent Unitarian minister.He was educated at the Boston Latin School and at Harvard College,from which he graduated at eighteen
7、.On leaving college he taught school for some time,and in 1825 returned to Cambridge to study divinity.The next year he began to preach;and in 1829 he married Ellen Tucker,and was chosen colleague to the Rev.Henry Ware,minister of the historic church in Hanover Street,Boston.So far things seemed to
8、be going well with him:but in 1831 his wife died,and in the next year scruples about administering the Lords Supper led him to give up his church.In sadness and poor health he set out in December on his first visit to Europe,passing through Italy,Switzerland,and France to Britain,and visiting Landor
9、,Coleridge,Wordsworth,and,most important of all,Carlyle,with whom he laid the foundation of a life-long friendship.On his return to America he took up lecturing,and he continued for nearly forty years to use this form of expression for his ideas on religion,politics,literature,and philosophy.In 1835
10、 he bought a house in Concord,and took there his second wife,Lidian Jackson.The history of the rest of his life is uneventful,as far as external incident is concerned.He traveled frequently giving lectures;took part in founding in 1840 the Dial,and in 1857 the Atlantic Monthly,to both of which he co
11、ntributed freely,and the former of which he edited for a short time;introduced the writings of Carlyle to America,and published a succession of volumes of essays,addresses,and poems.He made two more visits to Europe,and on the earlier delivered lectures in the principal towns of England and Scotland
12、.He died at Concord on April 27,1882,after a few years of failing memory,during which his public activities were necessarily greatly reduced.百年哈佛 50 部经典 英文版 Harvard Classics 第 5 卷 爱默生文集 7/507 At the time of Emersons death,he was recognized as the foremostwriter and thinker of his country;but this re
13、cognition had come only gradually.The candor and the vigor of his thinking had led him often to champion unpopular causes,and during his earlier years of authorship his departures from Unitarian orthodoxy were viewed with hostility and alarm.In the Abolitionist movement also he took a prominent part
14、,which brought him the distinction of being mobbed in Boston and Cambridge.In these and other controversies,however,while frank in his opinions,and eloquent and vigorous in his expression of them,he showed a remarkable quality of tact and reasonableness,which prevented the opposition to him from tak
15、ing the acutely personal turn which it assumed in relation to some of his associates,and which preserved to him a rare dignity.Recognition of his eminence has not been confined to his countrymen.Carlyle in Britain and Hermann Grimm in Germany were only leaders of a large body of admirers in Europe,a
16、nd it may be safely said that no American has exerted in the Old World an intellectual influence comparable to that of Emerson.The spirit and ideas which constitute the essence of his teaching are fully expressed in the essays contained in this volume.The writings here produced belong to the earlier
17、 half of his literary activity;but it may fairly be said that by 1860 Emerson had put forth all his important fundamental ideas,the later utterances consisting largely of restatements and applications of these.Thanks to the singular beauty and condensation of his style,it is thus possible to obtain
18、prom this one volume a complete view of the philosophy of the greatest of American thinkers.THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR AN ORATION DELIVERED BEFORE THE PHI BETA KAPPA SOCIETY，AT CAMBRIDGE，AUGUST 31,1837 MR.PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN:I greet you on the recommencement of our literary year.Our anniversary is one
19、 of hope,and,百年哈佛 50 部经典 英文版 Harvard Classics 第 5 卷 爱默生文集 8/507 perhaps,not enough of labor.We do not meet for games of strength or skill,for the recitation of histories,tragedies,and odes,like the ancient Greeks;for parliaments of love and poesy,like the Troubadours;nor for the advancement of scien
20、ce,like our contemporaries in the British and European capitals.Thus far our holiday has been simply a friendly sign of the survival of the love of letters amongst a people too busy to give to letters any more.As such,it is precious as the sign of an indestructible instinct.Perhaps the time is alrea
21、dy come when it ought to be,and will be,something else;when the sluggard intellect of this continent will look from under its iron lids,and fill the postponed expectation of the world with something better than the exertions of mechanical skill.Our day of dependence,our long apprenticeship to the le
22、arning of other lands,draws to a close.The millions that around us are rushing into life cannot always be fed on the sere remains of foreign harvests.Events,actions arise,that must be sung,that will sing themselves.Who can doubt that poetry will revive and lead in a new age,as the star in the conste
23、llation Harp,which now flames in our zenith,astronomers announce,shall one day be the pole-star for a thousand years?In this hope I accept the topic which not only usage,but the nature of our association,seem to prescribe to this day,the AMERICAN SCHOLAR.Year by year we come up hither to read one mo
24、re chapter of his biography.Let us inquire what light new days and events have thrown on his character and his hopes.It is one of those fables which,out of an unknown antiquity,convey an unlooked-for wisdom,that the gods,in the beginning,divided Man into men,that he might be more helpful to himself;
25、just as the hand was divided into fingers,the better to answer its end.The old fable covers a doctrine ever new and sublime;that there is One Man,present to all particular men only partially,or through one faculty;and that you must take the whole society to find the whole man.百年哈佛 50 部经典 英文版 Harvard
26、 Classics 第 5 卷 爱默生文集 9/507 Man is not a farmer,or a professor,or an engineer,but he is all.Man is priest,and scholar,and statesman,and producer,and soldier.In the divided or social state these functions are parcelled out to individuals,each of whom aims to do his stint of the joint work,whilst each
27、 other performs his.The fable implies that the individual,to possess himself,must sometimes return from his own labor to embrace all the other laborers.But,unfortunately,this original unit,this fountain of power,has been so distributed to multitudes,has been so minutely subdivided and peddled out,th
28、at it is spilled into drops and cannot be gathered.The state of society is one in which the members have suffered amputation from the trunk,and strut about so many walking monstersa good finger,a neck,a stomach,an elbow,but never a man.Man is thus metamorphosed into a thing,into many things.The plan
29、ter,who is Man sent out into the field to gather food,is seldom cheered by any idea of the true dignity of his ministry.He sees his bushel and his cart,and nothing beyond,and sinks into the farmer,instead of Man on the farm.The tradesman scarcely ever gives an ideal worth to his work,but is ridden b
30、y the routine of his craft,and the soul is subject to dollars.The priest becomes a form;the attorney,a statute-book;the mechanic,a machine;the sailor,a rope of a ship.In this distribution of functions the scholar is the delegated intellect.In the right state,he is Man Thinking.In the degenerate stat
31、e,when the victim of society,he tends to become a mere thinker,or,still worse,the parrot of other mens thinking.In this view of him,as Man Thinking,the theory of his office is contained.Him Nature solicits with all her placid,all her monitory pictures;him the past instructs;him the future invites.Is
32、 not,indeed,every man a student,and do not all things exist for the students behoof?And,finally,is not the true scholar the only true master?But the old oracle said,“All things have two handles:beware of the wrong one.”In life,too often 百年哈佛 50 部经典 英文版 Harvard Classics 第 5 卷 爱默生文集 10/507 the scholar
33、 errs with mankind and forfeits his privilege.Let us see him in his school,and consider him in reference to the main influences he receives.I.The first in time and the first in importance of the influences upon the mind is that of Nature.Every day,the sun;and,after sunset,Night and her stars.Ever th
34、e winds blow;ever the grass grows.Every day,men and women,conversing,beholding and beholden.The scholar is he of all men whom this spectacle most engages.He must settle its value in his mind.What is Nature to him?There is never a beginning,there is never an end,to the inexplicable continuity of this
35、 web of God,but always circular power returning into itself.Therein it resembles his own spirit,whose beginning,whose ending,he never can find,so entire,so boundless.Far,too,as her splendors shine,system on system shooting like rays upward,downward,without centre,without circumference,in the mass an
36、d in the particle,Nature hastens to render account of herself to the mind.Classification begins.To the young mind,everything is individual,stands by itself.By and by it finds how to join two things,and see in them one nature;then three,then three thousand;and so tyrannized over by its own unifying i
37、nstinct,it goes on tying things together,diminishing anomalies,discovering roots running under ground,whereby contrary and remote things cohere,and flower out from one stem.It presently learns that since the dawn of history there has been a constant accumulation and classifying of facts.But what is
38、classification but the perceiving that these objects are not chaotic,and are not foreign,but have a law which is also a law of the human mind?The astronomer discovers that geometry,a pure abstraction of the human mind,is the measure of planetary motion.The chemist finds proportions and intelligible
39、method throughout matter;and science is nothing but the finding of analogy,identity,in the most remote parts.The ambitious soul sits down before each refractory fact;one after another reduces all strange constitutions,all new powers,to their class and their 百年哈佛 50 部经典 英文版 Harvard Classics 第 5 卷 爱默生
40、文集 11/507 law,and goes on forever to animate the last fibre of organization,the outskirts of nature,by insight.Thus to him,to this school-boy under the bending dome of day,is suggested that he and it proceed from one root;one is leaf and one is flower;relation,sympathy,stirring in every vein.And wha
41、t is that Root?Is not that the soul of his soul?A thought too bold,a dream too wild.Yet when this spiritual light shall have revealed the law of more earthly natures,when he has learned to worship the soul,and to see that the natural philosophy that now is,is only the first gropings of its gigantic
42、hand,he shall look forward to an ever-expanding knowledge as to a becoming creator.He shall see that Nature is the opposite of the soul,answering to it part for part.One is seal and one is print.Its beauty is the beauty of his own mind.Its laws are the laws of his own mind.Nature then becomes to him
43、 the measure of his attainments.So much of Nature as he is ignorant of,so much of his own mind does he not yet possess.And,in fine,the ancient precept,“Know thyself,”and the modern precept,“Study Nature,”become at last one maxim.II.The next great influence into the spirit of the scholar is the mind
44、of the Pastin whatever form,whether of literature,of art,of institutions,that mind is inscribed.Books are the best type of the influence of the past,and perhaps we shall get at the truthlearn the amount of this influence more convenientlyby considering their value alone.The theory of books is noble.
45、The scholar of the first age received into him the world around;brooded thereon;gave it the new arrangement of his own mind,and uttered it again.It came into him life;it went out from him truth.It came to him short-lived actions;it went out from him immortal thoughts.It came to him business;it went
46、from him poetry.It was dead fact;now it is quick thought.It can stand and it can go.It now endures,it now flies,it now inspires.Precisely in proportion to the depth of mind from which it issued,so high does it soar,so long does it sing.百年哈佛 50 部经典 英文版 Harvard Classics 第 5 卷 爱默生文集 12/507 Or,I might s
47、ay,it depends on how far the process had gone of transmuting life into truth.In proportion to the completeness of the distillation,so will the purity and imperishableness of the product be.But none is quite perfect.As no air-pump can by any means make a perfect vacuum,so neither can any artist entir
48、ely exclude the conventional,the local,the perishable from his book,or write a book of pure thought that shall be as efficient in all respects to a remote posterity,as to contemporaries,or rather to the second age.Each age,it is found,must write its own books;or rather,each generation for the next s
49、ucceeding.The books of an older period will not fit this.Yet hence arises a grave mischief.The sacredness which attaches to the act of creationthe act of thoughtis transferred to the record.The poet chanting was felt to be a divine man:henceforth the chant is divine also.The writer was a just and wi
50、se spirit:hence-forward it is settled,the book is perfect;as love of the hero corrupts into worship of his statue.Instantly the book becomes noxious;the guide is a tyrant.The sluggish and perverted mind of the multitude,slow to open to the incursions of Reason,having once so opened,having once recei
