Sir....Related to your tag; rather than Emerson...You should govern yourself as the only person wise enough concerining your own affairs to do so well... To be governed by any other is to be kept stupid, as the powerless do not rate education, and the stupid are more easily kept in awe and dependency...

I agree to an extent with Fido that the emphases in the link destroy the flow of text.

However, I think it's absurd to think that there's something wrong with reading an important work along with critique.

Fido, without going into polemics about stupidity and dependency, what are you actually saying?

Can I ask what you are talking about Fido? It is tagged as Emerson because Nature is written by Ralph Waldo Emerson. I find this piece to be one of the greatest pieces ever written. Anyone that reads this piece will be a better individual as a result.

What caught my eye was the line: I would rather be governed by one wise person than by millions of stupid ones.... We can hardly avoid the later in any event, but only self government with protections will limit the damage of millions...As Debs said: I would rather vote for something and not get it than not vote for it and get it.... When we rely upon government out of our control to give us what they think we need we will not get what we truly need which is control of our own affairs, with out which not, will our long term interests be served...Sorry, I got distracted from your thread...

I should just change my signature to avoid the conflict that keeps arising. Notice the word wise. One wise leader suggests benevolent leader. Millions of stupid people suggests mob rule.

Majority rule is still rule, and not government, certainly not self government...The ideal is control over your own affairs, and limits on control of other in affairs affecting only them... Because people will not give up their control of others they are controlled by others. So we are ruined by halves... If you only need to sway half, what is the point of justice for all???

I have not read it all yet but for what i have i thank you.

Oh what a wonderful coincidence.

I rather recently started reading a collection of RWE's Selected Writings and am enjoying them quite a bit. I just happened upon this form today (as I was looking for a forum on Montaigne) and couldn't help but want to toss some comments in here.

Nature is a fantastic read, he captures sentiment I've long felt, but had no words. He reverences all things Nature (and this comes out in virtually all he writes). I marked several passages I thought were significant and thought I'd share them. As I've lately come to abhor petty squabbling and negativity, I'm only sharing what I really liked in "Nature". Some of it I patently disagreed with, some I nodded passively and other parts were flat-out hilarious. So here's some of the most positive sentiments I found in the essay:[INDENT] "Nature never wears a mean appearance. Neither does the wisest man extort her secret, and lose his curiosity by finding out all her perfection" Chap 1[INDENT]This is a rather deep-feeling thought; as if to hold something in such high station that one might know they'd lose that sense of wonder to dissect and learn its secrets. He communicates this well - and no, I don't agree that disenchantment necessarily follows our investigations. But its nicely expressed
[/INDENT]"The greatest delight which the fields and woods minister, is the suggestion of an occult relation between man and the vegetable. I am not alone and unacknowledged. They nod to me, and I to them. The waving of the boughs in the storm, is new to me and old. It takes me by surprise, and yet is not unknown. Its effect is like that of a higher thought or a better emotion coming over me, when I deemed I was thinking justly or doing right". Chap 1[INDENT]This one blew me out of the water; I've felt this a thousand times and not yet have I seen the intimated essence of this emotion expressed. Nope, I can't explain it; except perhaps to say that this "nodding" speaks to perhaps an ingrained understanding - not quite conscious - of this community of life of which we're just one part; that perhaps we can take solace and comfort in that knowledge (e.g., My Brother, the Pumpkin!)
[/INDENT]"The wise man shows his wisdom in separation, in gradation, as his scale of creatures and of merits is as wide as nature. The foolish have no range in their scale, but suppose every man is as every other man. What is not good they call the worst, and what is not hateful, they call the best" Chap 5 (Discipline)[INDENT] This is superbly phrased and speaks to me personally as I've come to recognize the widespread and long-lasting detriments caused by two-dimensional thinkers (i.e., "It is white or it is black-there is no grey"). When something is "good", that's not to say there is no 'bad' or undesirable part of it; no thing is of the utmost, through-and-through purity. Life exists in degrees of gradients for our moral judgments, beauty, depth, meanness, happiness, perceptions and on to infinity. It is the lack of recognizing this complexity - this gradation - that leads to snap judgments, friction, conflict and pain. I think he did great in his description.
[/INDENT]In Chap 6, "Idealism" he pontificates a bit on the true philosopher and true poet, elucidating their unique ability to see "truth" and express it with honesty, saying, "... in both cases, that a spiritual life has been imparted to nature; that the solid seeming block of matter has been pervaded and dissolved by a thought; that this feeble human being has penetrated the vast masses of nature with an informing soul, and recognized itself in their harmony."[INDENT]Brilliant phrasing; the intonation given by his analogy of the surrounding world (being the 'block of matter') being penetrated by the describing, praising or philosophizing mind. What an excellently-illustrative way of describing the poet's and philosopher's process.

[/INDENT]"Yet this may show us what discord is between man and nature, for you cannot freely admire a noble landscape, if laborers are diffing in the field hard by. The poet finds something ridiculous in his delight, until he is out of the sign of men", Chap 7, "Spirit"[INDENT]How true is this? Whether by socialization (that visually caressing a scene is somehow overtly-effeminate) or by some ingrained desire to admire the natural in our own private thoughts, I find this to be particularly true.

[/INDENT]And lastly... "Empirical science is apt to cloud the sight, and, by the very knowledge of functions and processes, to bereave the student of the manly contemplation of the whole... [it] is arrived at by untaught sallies of the spirit, by a continual self-recovery, and by entire humility" Chap VIII, Prospects[INDENT]If you spend any time with RWE, you'll find that he's very big on the revealing nature of Intuition. That through it truth can be found (and not dissected) and so on. I found in this passage the intuitive inspiration to be wonderfully described as an "untaught sally" of the spirit. Very nice letters
[/INDENT][/INDENT]There's much more, but these struck me as particularly worth sharing.

Thanks