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Emerson Reading Notes
The American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) is not often mentioned in the philosophical discussion on
the superhuman, but he is important because he draws on Aristotle’s philosophy of the superhuman to develop both a
view of genius and the superhuman condition, and because Emerson develops a rich philosophical view of
selfovercoming.
Emerson develops this view of self-overcoming especially in his essay “Circles” where he writes that human beings self-
evolve by identifying their limitations and then seeking to overcome those limitations. This phenomenon appears in all
spheres of culture: for example, in education the student passes from grade to grade, overcoming limitations on
ignorance. The scholar too recognizes her limitations and seeks to transcend these by improving her mind. The athlete
recognizes his limitations and seeks to better his time in a race, or improve his skills on the court, or increase his
strength, etc. The same phenomenon appears in medicine as well, for example, in surgery where new techniques evolve
to improve the practice of surgery, and there appears to be no absolute limit on their potential improvement. In music
great musicians seek to create more beautiful and sublime music, and in poetry poets seek to overcome the
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achievements of poets past. Humanity has improvement built it into its very structure, and this improvability, according
to Emerson, is fundamentally unlimited. There is apparently no limit on the potential for the development of humanity
through time. There is no limit to humanity’s self-evolution in intelligence, poetry, music, athletics, technology, and
medicine.
Emerson also portrays each individual as possessing a unique kind of genius. Everyone is given some set of gifts and
capacities to be developed over a lifetime. Everyone possesses a unique voice to be expressed either in writing or in
music or in art or some other medium. Everyone, for Emerson, is potentially superhuman because everyone possesses
gifts which can never be fully actualized. They can be developed over a lifetime with training, but even if someone were
to live for hundreds of years, these gifts still could not be fully developed. In fact, Emerson in his Journals and
Miscellaneous Notebooks, volume V, actually sums up his whole philosophy with this very claim about the unlimited
potentiality of every single man and woman: “In all my lectures, I have taught one doctrine, namely, the infinitude of
the private man” (JMN V, 380).
Like Dante in the Monarchia, Emerson thinks that these powers of the individual stem from one singular species mind
whose nature it is to develop over history by education. Within this picture of historical education, great individuals
serve as teachers. Emerson calls these great individuals by several different names, but all mean more or less the same
thing: the great man or great woman, the genius, the godlike man, the representative man or woman, the “gods
among men,” angels, the demigods, and sometimes simply “gods.” Emerson thinks of humanity as divided into the
truly great, and everyone else. The truly great are extremely gifted individuals who create masterpieces of art,
philosophy, politics, science, mathematics, architecture, poetry, etc., and humanity develops because they guide
humanity. Emerson highlights especially Homer, Moses, Plato, Aristotle, Dante, Michelangelo, Montaigne,
Shakespeare, Newton, Kant, and Goethe.
Emerson portrays these individuals using the same terminology and the same definition Aristotle uses to describe the
god among men (or superhuman), but Emerson does not think of these individuals as actual superhumans: they are
godlike, but they are not truly gods among men, as Aristotle portrays them, even though, again, Emerson uses this very
phrase, “gods among men,” from Aristotle’s Politics III.13 (drawing also on Aristotle’s Politics I.2 and Politics III.17). For
example, in his essay “Character,” Emerson writes:
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“It happens now and then, in the ages, that a soul is born which has no weakness of self—which
offers no impediment to the Divine Spirit—which comes down into nature as if only for the benefit
of souls, and all its thoughts are perceptions of things as they are, without any infirmity of earth.
Such souls are as the apparition of gods among men, and simply by their presence pass judgment
on them.” 1
Emerson in his essay “Thoreau” also quotes from Aristotle’s discussion in the Politics III.13, and describes his old friend
Henry David Thoreau using Aristotle’s analysis of the god among men. But again Aristotle uses this definition for the
superhuman, and Emerson uses it for the great man or genius. Emerson writes:
“Aristotle long ago explained it, when he said, ‘One who surpasses his fellow citizens in virtue, is
no longer a part of the city. Their law is not for him, since he is a law unto himself.’ ” 2
Notice also that in his essay “Self-Reliance” Emerson draws on Aristotle for his definition of the great genius. Emerson
defines the genius as law unto himself or herself:
“And truly it demands something godlike in him who has cast off the common motives of
humanity, and has ventured to trust himself for a taskmaster. High be his heart, faithful his will,
clear his sight, that he may in good earnest be doctrine, society, law to himself, that a simple
purpose may be to him as strong as iron necessity is to others.” 3
Some think of self-reliance as a property of woodsmen or industrialists, but Emerson seems to have in mind especially
the great geniuses of history. Right near the beginning of his essay “Self-Reliance” Emerson names as quintessentially
self-reliant souls Moses and Plato and Milton, Moses from the Old Testament, Plato the Athenian philosopher, and
Milton the English author of Paradise Lost, all great minds of history. Emerson’s Aristotelian geniuses or demigods are
the truly self-reliant souls of history because they actualize their potentiality beyond everyone else and because they
take themselves as intellectual laws unto themselves. They are intellectual laws unto themselves because they teach
themselves the nature of their genius and shape that genius in some isolation from the rest of society.
These geniuses appear in society and know themselves to be different from society. They find society to be conformist,
and they find conformity repellent. That is one of the early and most important ideas in the essay “Self-Reliance,” and
one of the most important ideas in Emerson’s philosophy. “Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist,” writes
Emerson, which really means, Whoso would be a self-reliant genius whether man or woman must feel by nature an
opposition to the practices of assimilation of society which would thwart the development of genius. Society, for
Emerson, seeks its own equality and unity and identity, much as Aristotle writes of society in his Politics III.13 and III.17.
Society opposes itself to greatness and genius, for Aristotle, and Emerson follows Aristotle in this respect, and holds
that society (unconsciously) actually opposes through conformity the full flowering of every genius in society. But,
again, occasionally one soul or a few souls appear in society who find conformity so problematic, and simply cannot
bring themselves to conform, and speak out against conformity, they speak with éclat (or brilliance), writes Emerson,
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against conformity and in favor of their genius and self-reliance. Society then ostracizes them, just as society ostracizes
the god among men in Aristotle’s philosophy.
Aristotle in the Politics III.13 identifies two mutually exclusive possible lives for the god among men in society. Either
society ostracizes the demigod and the demigod becomes a hermit in the wilderness, or the demigod becomes
absolute monarch. Emerson, however, combines these two lives in his philosophy, and makes one a condition for the
other. The genius speaks with éclat, undergoes ostracism, lives more or less in isolation as a hermit (but not necessarily
literally as a hermit in the wilderness), and then takes herself as law of mind, teaches herself her own genius, creates a
masterpiece, and this masterpiece reshapes human history, and she and humanity to follow understand her to be a
truly great soul, and even a queen of history.
Emerson explicitly describes the ostracized genius as a hermit throughout his writings. For example, in “Literary Ethics”
Emerson speaks of the “dear hermitage of nature,”4 and describes the life of the poet as the life of a hermit (even if the
poet lives in the city): “The poets who have lived in the cities have been hermits still.”5 Emerson in “The Over-Soul”
similarly speaks of the genius as living apart form society: “He must greatly listen to himself, withdrawing himself from
all the accents of other men’s devotion.”6 And in his Journals Emerson also speaks of his own solitude: “I study the art of
solitude: I yield me as gracefully as I can to my destiny” (JMN, volume III, 501). Similar passages can be found
throughout his essays and lectures and journals.
Emerson also describes the hermit genius as a natural absolute monarch throughout his writings, and these kings are
the same gods among men or goddesses among women who appear in society and speak with éclat and undergo
ostracism to become a genius hermit. For example, Emerson in his early essay “The American Scholar” claims that the
true kings of the world are the geniuses who reshape the human imagination:
“Not he is great who can alter matter, but he who can alter my state of mind. They are the kings
of the world who give the color of their present thought to all nature and all art, and persuade
men by the cheerful serenity of their carrying the matter, that this thing which they do, is the
apple which the ages have desired to pluck, now at last ripe, and inviting nations to the harvest.
The great man makes the great thing.” 7
Once again, Emerson in “The Over-Soul” identifies the self-reliant geniuses (or selfsufficient, in Aristotle’s terms) as
natural royalty, following Aristotle’s view of the superhuman as natural royalty.
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“For they are in their own elevation, the fellows of kings, and must feel the servile tone of
conversation in the world. They must always be a godsend to princes, for they confront them, a
king to a king, without ducking or concession, and give a high nature the refreshment and
satisfaction of resistance, of plain humanity, of even companionship, and of new ideas. They leave
them wider and superior men. Souls like these make us feel that sincerity is more excellent than
flattery.” 8
Emerson makes the same point in his essay “Progress of Culture” where he claims that the geniuses of history like
Dante and Michelangelo and Shakespeare and Goethe are the true kings of history:
“Wit has great charter. Popes and Kings and Councils of Ten are very sharp with their censorships
and inquisitions, but it is on dull people. Some Dante or Angelo, Rabelais, Hafiz, Cervantes,
Shakspeare, Goethe, Béranger, Bettine von Arnim, or whatever genuine wit of the old inimitable
class, is always allowed. Kings feel that this is that which they themselves represent; this is no
red-kerchiefed red-shirted rebel, but loyalty, kingship. This is real kingship, and their only titular.” 9
These hermit-genius-kings of history are, for Emerson, humanity’s teachers, and one can see this point simply by
looking at the structure of education itself: students at university study the great works of Homer, Plato, Aristotle,
Dante, Shakespeare, Newton, Goethe, and Emerson himself in order to learn about humanity and the world. Education
is essentially a kind of hero worship, for Emerson, and these individuals are set above humanity. They guide humanity
and they reshape society and the course of history. Emerson famously describes this guiding and reshaping (and self-
overcoming) by the genius kings using the imagery of self-evolving and self-enclosing circles.
Emerson seems to use imagery drawn from Dante’s Commedia in order to portray this movement of education. Dante
portrays himself as descending and ascending through circles, almost like layers of an onion, one after another,
beginning first in the middle, on the surface of the earth, then descending to the center, and then returning to the
middle, then ascending to the outermost sphere. At the end of the Purgatorio and the beginning of the Paradiso, Dante
begins his ascent through Paradise, after a process he calls “transhumanization.” Virgil has guided Dante this far, and
now a new godlike teacher, Beatrice, takes over the education of Dante. So, just as Virgil guided Dante through
descending circles of Hell, and then up through ascending circles on the mountain of Purgatory, now Beatrice flying
with Dante will guide him through self-enclosing circles of superhuman genius in Heaven. Emerson effectively moves
that imagery into history (and he seems to think that Dante already says this too), so that one godlike soul creates a
masterpiece, and that masterpiece basically serves as a “circle” or a sphere. After the circle is created, then humanity
inhabits it, lives in it, believes in it, masters it, and understands itself as living in this circle, until along comes another
great genius who sees an opening in the circle, and then creates a new circle which actually encloses the last one, and
then humanity follows behind the genius, and inhabits the new circle, until yet another genius comes along. For
example, Aristotle creates a circle of physics, basically creating physics itself, and humanity inhabits the world Aristotle
creates, but then along comes Galileo, who creates a new circle, and then along comes Newton who creates a new
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circle, and then along comes Einstein, and then quantum mechanics, and so on. In poetry the same sort of development
seems to occur, and Dante even seems to portray himself as surpassing Virgil, his great master, while incorporating
within Dante’s own poetry the poetry of Virgil, as Virgil incorporated within his own poetry Homer’s poetry. Humanity
develops by following the masters of their disciplines, and learning from them. This process, for Emerson, goes on
without end. It will never stop: but there is a visible if not final goal in view for humanity, which seems to be the
superhuman condition.
Emerson in “Circles” on self-evolving circles as follows:
“The life of man is a self-evolving circle, which, from a ring imperceptibly small, rushes on all sides
outwards to new and larger circles, and that without end. The extent to which this generation of
circles, wheel without wheel will go, depends on the force or truth of the individual soul. For, it is
the inert effort of each thought having formed itself into a circular wave of circumstance, – as, for
instance, an empire, rules of an art, a local usage, a religious rite, – to heap itself on that ridge,
and to solidify, and hem in the life. But if the soul is quick and strong, it bursts over that boundary
on all sides, and expands another orbit on the great deep, which also runs up into a high wave,
with attempt again to stop and to bind. But the heart refuses to be imprisoned; in its first and
narrowest pulses, it already tends outward with a vast force, and to immense and innumerable
expansions.” 10
Emerson in “Circles” denies the presence of any final circle:
“There is no outside, no enclosing wall, no circumference to us. The man finishes his story, – how
good! how final! how it puts a new face on all things! He fills the sky. Lo! on the other side rises
also a man, and draws the circle around the circle we had just pronounced the outline of the
sphere.” 11
Emerson in “Circles” describes the power of the genius to create the new circle:
“Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet. Then all things are at risk. It is as
when a conflagration has broken out in a great city, and no man knows what is safe, or where it
will end. There is not a piece of science, but its flank may be turned to-morrow; there is not any
literary reputation, not the so-called eternal names of fame, that may not be revised and
condemned. The very hopes of man, the thoughts of the heart, the religion of nations, the
manners and morals of mankind, are all at the mercy of a new generalization.” 12
Emerson in “Circles” again describes the genius’s power to create a new circle.
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“In common hours, society sits cold and statuesque. We all stand waiting, empty, – knowing,
possibly, that we can be full, surrounded by mighty symbols which are not symbols to us, but
prose and trivial toys. Then cometh the god, and converts the statues into fiery men, and by a
flash of his eye burns up the veil which shrouded all things, and the meaning of the very furniture,
of cup and saucer, of chair and clock and tester, is manifest. The facts which loomed so large in
the fogs of yesterday, – property, climate, breeding, personal beauty, and the like, have strangely
changed their proportions. All that we reckoned settled, shakes and rattles; and literatures, cities,
climates, religions, leave their foundations, and dance before our eyes.” 13
Again these geniuses who create the circles of humanity are truly great and godlike, but they are not superhuman, and
they all seem to possess a certain equality. The geniuses do not become greater through time, and they all seem to be
members of one unique family of geniuses, distributed through time, an image Emerson likely draws from Aristotle’s
Politics III.17 where Aristotle imagines a royal family of superhumans. But these geniuses so often speak of a higher and
superhuman condition, and point to this superhuman condition as a natural ideal of humanity, even if it is never
achieved. Certainly Homer describes a world permeated by superhumans like Achilles and Hercules, and Aristotle
describes the superhuman condition in vivid philosophical detail, and later Dante describes himself transhumanizing
into a superhuman, and Emerson following all of these thinkers also describes the superhuman condition as an ideal. In
his lecture “The Powers and Laws of Thought” Emerson writes that the whole species contains a kind of living sketch of
the superhuman condition, which no one has come up to, and perhaps no can ever hope to come up to, because that
sketch is a regulative ideal: it is something that guides the development of humanity, but can never be fully achieved.
“I must think we are entitled to powers far transcending any that we possess; that we have in the
race, the sketch of a man which no individual comes up to; and, I from deficiency of certain points
in the organization of each, which are found complete in some others. Let those masters who have
shown what of highest the human brain can achieve in each function, be collectively the model.
Shall we draw the portrait from the mediocre, or from the best?” 14
Emerson also portrays the superhuman as the goal of nature in his poem “The Song of Nature.” This poem contains
twenty-one stanzas and is sung by Nature herself. Nature sings of all the days of time, all of her creations from the
beginning of time, the planets the Earth, the animals, and human beings, but her one goal is to create the superhuman,
and yet she cannot create this being. Somehow Nature is limited. She would create the superhuman, but she cannot;
apparently she requires the assistance of humanity to shape itself into the superhuman.
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But he, the man-child glorious,—
Where tarries he the while?
The rainbow shines his harbinger,
The sunset gleams his smile.
My boreal lights leap upward,
Forthright my planets roll,
And still the man-child is not born,
The summit of the whole.” 15
There is something tragic in Emerson’s view in this poem, for Nature cannot create what she most desires to create.
Perhaps Emerson implies that more than nature will be required to create to what nature desires to creates, which may
be taken as technology. That, of course, is an interpretation, but perhaps a reasonable one.
Citations 1Emerson, “Character” (North American Review, April 1866), Uncollected Prose Writings, Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, vol. X, 452. 2Emerson, “Thoreau” (Atlantic Monthly, August 1862), Uncollected Prose Writings, Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, vol. X, 427. 3Emerson, “Self-Reliance,” Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, vol. II, 42-43. 4Emerson, “Literary Ethics,” The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, vol. I, 110. 5Emerson, “Literary Ethics,” The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, vol. I, 109. 6Emerson, “The Over-Soul,” The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, vol. II, 174. 7 Emerson, “The American Scholar,” The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, vol. I, 64. 8 Emerson, “The Over-Soul,” The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, vol. II, 172. 9 Emerson, “Progress of Culture,” Letters and Social Aims, Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, vol. VI, 114. 10 Emerson, “Circles,” Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, vol. II, 180-181. 11 Emerson, “Circles,” Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, vol. II, 181. 12 Emerson, “Circles,” Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, vol. II, 33. 13 Emerson, “Circles,” Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 184. 14 Emerson, Mind and Manners of the Nineteenth Century, Lecture I: “The Powers and Laws of Thought” 6 June 1848, in The Later Lectures of Ralph Waldo Emerson, vol. I, 150. 15 Emerson, “Song of Nature,” Poems: A Variorum Edition, The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, vol. IX, 455-456.
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