Nature, which he says"is loved by what is best in us, is all about us, inviting our perception of its remotest and most cosmic principles by surrounding us with its simpler manifestations." A man does not tie his shoes without recognizing laws which bind the farthest regions of nature." Thus man "carries the world in his head." Whether he be a great scientist, providing by his didcovery of a sweeping physical law that he has some such constructive sense as that which guides the universe, ot whether he be a poet beholding trees as "imperfect men," who "seem to bemoan their imprionment, rooted in the ground," he is being brought into his own by perceiving "the virtue and pungency of the influence on the mind of material objects, whether inorganic or organized."
译文:
哲学与爱默生(节选2)
如爱默生所言，“尽善之处即真我，真我至爱之物即自然”。自然规律，甚微如尘埃，甚广如洪荒，但无不蕴涵于俭约的自然现象之中，需要人们的发现和探索。纵然是穿鞋这一小小的生活事实，也有它自身的规律，尽管其规范的是自然世界之边缘。当一个人系鞋带的时候，他就有意识地践行了这一规律。于是，“心之所在，思维所在，世界所在”。成就卓越的科学家，多愁善感的诗人，莫不如此。对于前者而言，若发现一种全面的自然法则，则深谙诸如宇宙运动变化之规律。而后者，悲惋于树木被禁锢于泥土，如“不完美的人”于桎梏之中不能自拔。这两种人受到无机世界和有机世界事物的启发，无论此种启发是有实效的抑或是痛苦的，他们都已从“自我”走向了“真我”。