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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
This 3 page paper discusses the commencement address Ralph Waldo Emerson gave to the Cambridge Divinity School in 1838. Bibliography lists 1 source.
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3 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_HVDivAdd.rtf
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probably have agreed with him but a much larger number would no doubt have been incensed. This paper discusses the address, and what he was trying to tell the students.
Discussion He begins his talk, as one might expect from a Transcendentalist, with a discussion of the beauties of nature, and how man becomes a child again, and the "huge
globe a toy" as he contemplates the rich diversity before him (Emerson). Then he considers that an even more "secret, sweet and overpowering beauty" will appear when man opens his
"heart and mind ... to the sentiment of virtue" (Emerson). He learns that there are no bounds to his being, and that he is born "to the perfect" even though
he may now be evil and weak (Emerson). When man thus comes to an understanding of what is right, whether he arrives at it by inspiration or intellect, he says
to God: "... save me: use me: thee will I serve, day and night, in great, in small, that I may be not virtuous, but virtue" (Emerson). Emerson is saying
that a man who knows what is right, and does what is right, is not merely virtuous, he is virtue itself. He is obviously encouraging the graduates to find this
quality in themselves. Then he drops his bombshell. He says that a mans character "is always known. Thefts never enrich; alms never impoverish; murder will speak out of stone walls"
(Emerson). If a man lies, even a white lie, it will reflect in a persons character, but "speak the truth, and all nature and all spirits help you with unexpected
furtherance" (Emerson). That is, speaking the truth will lead a man to perfection, which then becomes the law of society (Emerson). This idea, that man can seek perfection, has always
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