Book 1, Nature, Addresses & Lectures : Chapter 5, Final Lectures & More Summary and Analysis

There are two further lectures in this Book 1. There is the Transcendentalist and The Young American which comes after it. The first of these was also given at the Masonic Temple in Boston in 1842. This one runs from pages 193 - 209 inclusive. Emerson states that the transcendentalist is a form of idealist. He goes on to recouch a conception that has existed for thousands of years. The materialist believes in facts and in the powers of the senses. The idealist believes in the precedence of the consciousness, of mind, of idea. This view can be found in Plato: Emerson here does not note that both Aristotle and Jesus Christ taught that the two are inseparable and cannot be found except in their conjunction though each can be called...