He
never lost his spirituality, but Ralph Waldo Emerson did leave his position as
a minister in the Unitarian Church, even though he grew up the son and grandson
of ministers. Soon after breaking with the ministry, he took a trip to England,
where he met the famous poet William Wordsworth and his circle of intellectuals.
His conversations with these people, along with his studies of the philosophies
of Buddhism, Hinduism, and other world religions, led Emerson to write his most
famous essay, "Nature", at the age of thirty-three. In this essay he developed
the concept of transcendentalism, whose main principle is "the mystical unity
of nature". Transcendentalism became one of America's greatest contributions to
philosophy and literature and Ralph Waldo Emerson is often thought to be one of
this country's first true promoters of environmentalism.
Biography
© Larry Auld
