Nature in Emerson: Power and Values

The core categories Emerson uses to express the concept of nature include natura naturans and nature naturta, the former refers to the dynamic nature, the latter refers to the generated nature. In addition, Emerson’s God, soul, spiritual laws, and reason are all closely related to the concept of nature. When Emerson explains the concept of nature, he often uses the category of power. The power that Emerson talks about mainly includes creative and transformative power, which are both closely related to the concept of value. In this chapter, I mainly focus on two aspects. One is the relationship between nature and power, which includes both creativity and transformative power; the other is the relationship between power and value, and this value refers to the ultimate value, that is, truth, goodness, and beauty.