Ralph Waldo Emerson's Opinions Revealed in His Essay Nature

As explained throughout “Nature,” Ralph Waldo Emerson believes that mind and matter are dependent upon each other, coexisting in an evident relationship in which each is a matching half that relies on the other to be complete. In Chapter V, he refers to matter and mind together as a marriage (Emerson 1119). Emerson states that “the intellectual and the active powers seem to succeed each other in man, and the exclusive activity of the one, generates the exclusive activity of the other…each prepares and certainly will be followed by the other” (Emerson 1113). In other words, mind and matter perpetually chase each other in a cyclic pattern, continually creating new means for the other to expound upon. Emerson also says that “matter is a phenomenon, not a substance” (Emerson 1129), which simply clarifies his definition of matter and allows the audience to fully comprehend his opinions stated in “Nature.”