Ralph Waldo Emerson - Art

A true announcement of the law of creation if a man were found worthy to declare it, would carry art up into the kingdom of nature and destroy its separate and contrasted experience.  As soon as beauty is sought not for religion and love but for pleasure, it degrades the seeker………..

Proceeding from a spiritual heart, it will raise to a divine use the railroad, the insurance office, the joint stock company, our law, our primary assemblies, our commerce, the galvanic battery, the electric jar, the prism and the chemist's retort in which we seek now only an economical use....

When its errands are noble and adequate, a steam boat bridging the Atlantic between Old and New England and arriving at its ports with the punctuality of a planet – is a step of man into harmony with nature.   When science is learned in love, and its powers are wielded by love, they will appear the supplements and continuations of the material creation.