“HE is,” said Matthew Arnold of Emerson, “the friend and aider of those who would live in the spirit.” These well-known words are perhaps the best expression of the somewhat vague yet powerful and inspiring effect of Emerson’s courageous but disjointed philosophy.
马修·阿诺德在谈及爱默生时曾说：“他是那些崇尚精神生活者的良师益友。”对爱默生那种颇具胆识但并不成体系的哲学思想而言，阿诺德这句名言也许恰好揭示了其略显模糊但影响极大的启迪作用。 虽然出身于新英格兰一家牧师世家，爱默生却觉得连当时最为自由的牧师职位对他来说也是羁绊，于是他从容而无畏地辞弃了神职，成了当时最伟大的世俗传道者，但依然保持其一如既往的志趣和言辞风格。从他在大学时代写出《伦理哲学之现状》那篇文章开始，他就一直专注于探究人类行为，而不论其关注的对象是古代诗人、科学细节，还是晨报报道的事件，他都会设法从中汲取教益，并用他明快而华丽的语言风格透彻讲解，使之成为规劝世人向往更为高尚、更为自由之生活的训喻。
Descended from a long line of New England ministers, Emerson, finding himself fettered by even the most liberal ministry of his day, gently yet audaciously stepped down from the pulpit and, with little or no modification in his interests or utterances, became the greatest lay preacher of his time. From the days of his undergraduate essay upon “The Present State of Ethical Philosophy” he continued to be preoccupied with matters of conduct: whatever the object of his attention—an ancient poet, a fact in science, or an event in the morning newspaper—he contrives to extract from it a lesson which in his ringing, glistening style he drives home as an exhortation to a higher and more independent life.
纵观历史，对其祖辈所信奉的加尔文主义，爱默生是最主要的反对者之一。加尔文教严格的教义宣扬人已堕落，不可能不靠神助而自然趋于完美，必须靠急迫而持久的努力才能跻身于上帝的选民行列，赢得那原本不配的恩赐。爱默生则从一开始就假定，一个人只要能拥有其天生的美德，便可成为近乎于神的完人。加尔文教徒认为，人越自我完美便会越远离其本性，因此只能靠神恩的作用变得更加完美。与之相反，爱默生则认为人越自我完美便越接近其本性。当有人被庄严的音乐或感人的演说深深打动时，我们常常会听到这样的感叹：“这几乎使我超越自我。”而爱默生则很可能会说：这种影响可以使我们回归自我。
Historically, Emerson marks one of the largest reactions against the Calvinism of his ancestors. That stern creed had taught the depravity of man, the impossibility of a natural, unaided growth toward perfection, and the necessity of constant and anxious effort to win the unmerited reward of being numbered among the elect. Emerson starts with the assumption that the individual, if he can only come into possession of his natural excellence, is the most godlike of creatures. Instead of believing with the Calvinist that as a man grows better he becomes more unlike his natural self (and therefore can become better only by an act of divine mercy), Emerson believes that as a man grows in excellence he becomes more like his natural self. It is common to hear the expression, when one is deeply stirred, as by sublime music or a moving discourse: “That fairly lifted me out of myself.” Emerson would have said that such influences lift us into ourselves.
因为爱默生频频论及的一个基本概念就是“自然”，即这个“我们像大地卧于大气温柔怀抱那样存在于其中的自然”；这自然或曰“超灵”，它不仅“把每个人独特的自我都包容其中并使之相互融合”，而且“往往会浸入我们的思想和行为之中，形成我们的智慧、德性、力量和美。”这便是爱默生在要求我们顺从自我们并接受一切有益影响时所说的那种动机—— 那种追求上天所赐并与生俱来之完美的崇高动机。
For one of Emerson's most fundamental and frequently recurring ideas is that of a “great nature in which we rest as the earth lies in the soft arms of the atmosphere,” an “Over-Soul, within which every man's particular being is contained and made one with all other,” which “evermore tends to pass into our thought and hand and become wisdom and virtue and power and beauty.” This is the incentive — the sublime incentive of approaching the perfection which is ours by nature and by divine intention — that Emerson holds out when he asks us to submit us to ourselves and to all instructive influences.
爱默生说的这个“被人类至善至美之心所爱的”自然就环绕在我们周围，她爱用我们身边较为简单的形式诱使我们去感知其最为幽远而恢宏的法则。“人往往会从系鞋带这样的小事中发现大自然最遥远之处相联系的规律。”人就这样“把天地万物置于脑中”。无论是通过发现普遍自然规律来证明其拥有可驾驭宇宙之创造意识的科学家，还是将树木视为“尚未完善之人”并认为它们“似乎在哀叹其被囚禁于土地的命运“的诗人，都会因为感知到”有机或无机的世间万物对心灵之巨大而深刻的影响”而回归自我。
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 shoe without recognizing laws which bind the farthest regions of nature.” Thus man “carries the world in his head.” Whether he be a great scientist, proving by his discovery of a sweeping physical law that he has some such constructive sense as that which guides the universe, or whether he be a poet beholding trees as “imperfect men,” who “seem to bemoan their imprisonment, 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.”
爱默生还能笔翰如流地跨越时空，让常人难以连属的名物彼此相连，用“过去”来证明自信自立之必要和始终服从直觉之必需。他认为这种独立自主对学生尤为重要，因为莘莘学子很容易慑于“过去”的名流大家，从而“尽信书中之言”。而只要我们记住吾辈亦人，这种盲从就不应该也不可能发生。因此爱默生说，当我们发现自己果真不能认同“过去”时，我们必须与之决裂，而不必在意其代言人声望有多高。但“过去”通常不会令我们失望，它往往有助于我们追求自我完美。因为“过去”有许多天才人物，而天才人物几乎都能不断意识到自己与“超灵”之间的关系。由此可见，天才实际上比我们更接近我们的自我。所以我们每每得靠近那些更具天赋者替我们说出我们意欲言说而无从言说的思想。鉴于此，面对任何至言宏论，我们所感到的都不应该是自卑，更不应该是沮丧，而应该是对“作者读者天性相通”之重新认识。因此当我们以游历或其它方式接触“过去”时，必须记住“天地甚小，唯人乃大”，否则便不能从中受益或发觉新知。
Ranging over time and space with astonishing rapidity and binding names and things together that no ordinary vision could connect, Emerson calls the Past also to witness the need of self-reliance and a steadfast obedience to intuition. The need of such independence, he thought, was particularly great for the student, who so easily becomes overawed by the great names of the Past and reads “to believe and take for granted.” This should not be, nor can it be if we remember what we are. When we sincerely find, therefore, that we cannot agree with the Past, then, says Emerson, we must break with it, no matter how great the prestige of its messengers. But often the Past does not disappoint us; often it assists us in our quest to become our highest selves. For in the Past there have been many men of genius; and, inasmuch as the man of genius has come nearer to being continually conscious of his relation to the Over-Soul, it follows that the genius is actually more ourselves than we are. So we often have to fall back upon more gifted souls to interpret for us what we mean but cannot say. Any supreme triumph of expression, therefore, should arouse in us not humility, still less discouragement, but renewed consciousness that “one nature wrote and the same reads.” So it is in travel or in any other form of contact with the Past: we cannot derive any profit or see any new thing except we remember that “the world is nothing, the man is all.”
社交的益处与之相似。较之对自然的观照和对过去的反思，在与某些人的交往中，我们更能看清这种与我们自己的相似之处，并从对这种相似性的感知中领悟到真正的朋友“堪称自然的杰作”。不过在其他篇什里，爱默生又多次告诫我们交友切莫“过从甚密”。与人相交虽不乏礼尚往来、意气相投，但切不可屈意顺从，或亦步亦趋。我们须利用社交关系来加深“对我们天命高贵的记忆”，而决不可将其淡忘。
Similar are the uses of Society. More clearly than in Nature or in the Past, we see in certain other people such likeness to ourselves, and receive from the perception of that likeness such inspiration, that a real friend “may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.” Yet elsewhere Emerson has more than once urged us not to be “too much acquainted”: all our participation in the life of our fellows, though rich with courtesy and sympathy, must be free from bending and copying. We must use the fellowship of Society to freshen, and never to obscure, “the recollection of the grandeur of our destiny.”
若要理出点头绪，以上便是爱默生最为津津乐道的一些理念，无论其文章涉及什么主题，这些理念都会在字里行间一再重复。虽说爱默生在一定程度上卷入过当时的各种对后世影响甚微或毫无影响的运动，但今天捧读其著作，我们却几乎感觉不到那个时代和地域的局限。他文中往往会有这样一些段落，倘若我们读其希腊语文本，很可能会一位是出自古希腊人之手。他当初避开布鲁克农场的原因是他认为傅里叶“虽然面面俱到，但却忽略了一个细节，那就是活生生的人”，正是这种见识使他避开了许多与此相似的分心旁骛，没去探讨那些也许到21世纪就会被人遗忘的问题。此可谓爱默生散文之为文之道，即依循先例从诸如友谊、真理=迷信和荣誉等世间永恒的事物中提炼其“遐想幽思“的主题。由此可见，爱默生笔力的源泉之一在于其无所不及。
Such, in some attempt at an organization, are a few of Emerson, s favorite ideas, which occur over and over again, no matter what may be the subject of the essay. Though Emerson was to some degree identified, in his own time, with various movements which have had little or no permanent effect, yet as we read him now we find extraordinarily little that suggests the limitations of his time and locality. Often there are whole paragraphs which if we had read them in Greek would have seemed Greek. The good sense which kept him clear of Brook Farm because he thought Fourier “had skipped no fact but one, namely life,” kept him clear from many similar departures into matters which the twenty-first century will probably not remember. This is as it should be in the essay, which by custom draws the subject for its “dispersed meditations” from the permanent things of this world, such as Friendship, Truth, Superstition, and Honor. One of Emerson, s sources of strength, therefore, is his universality.
爱默生笔力的另一源泉在于其文本之异常简练=论列阐释之旁征博引和出人意表。的确，他将其妙语连珠的天赋发挥得淋漓尽致，以至于读者有时会希望读到一段悠然平缓的寻常话语。不过他总能使我们保持阅读趣味，这不仅因其令人惊叹的阐述习惯，还因其令人难忘的凝练风格。他喜欢在明快的单句中从现在跃到遥远的过去，使通常彼此无涉的姓氏或名号相连，令异教徒和基督教徒并肩，让凡夫俗子和神祗相聚，譬如他那个关于“西庇阿、锡德尼、华盛顿以及所有对美之崇尚都言行一致的纯洁勇者”的句子。
Another source of Emerson, s strength is his extraordinary compactness of style and his range and unexpectedness of illustration. His gift for epigram is, indeed, such as to make us long for an occasional stretch of leisurely commonplace. But Emerson always keeps us up—not less by his memorable terseness than by his startling habit of illustration. He loves to dart from the present to the remotest past, to join names not usually associated, to link pagan with Christian, or human with divine, in single rapid sentences, such as that about “Scipio, and the Cid, and Sir Philip Sidney, and Washington, and every pure and valiant heart, who worshiped Beauty by word or by deed.”
若有人无视上述这些值得称赞的特性，仍觉得爱默生的思想因过于含糊或不成体系而难以使其信服，认为要是有几则明确的信条供其认同遵循，他们也许就会成为爱默生的追随者，那他们务必记住两点：一是爱默生希望弘扬的是独立之精神，而非信徒的盲从；而是当人们认为某个体系僵化得令人窒息而对其心生厌恶时，他们很可能会走向另一个极端。爱默生之所以大步走向那个极端，是因为他置身于一个以思想热情张扬著称的时代。他未将思想体系化或未对其设置樊篱，则说明他遵从这样的理念：真正重要的并不在于用精确的术语、巧妙的手法及细致的推论来建构一种因其缜密严谨而为人接受的哲学体系，而在于能说服每个人都套上自己那乘马车，驶向他心目中最明亮的那颗星。
If, in spite of all these admirable qualities, Emerson, s ideas seem too vague and unsystematic to satisfy those who feel that they could perhaps become Emersonians if there were only some definite articles to sign, it must be remembered that Emerson wishes to develop independence rather than apostleship, and that when men revolt from a system because they believe it to be too definite and oppressive, they are likely to go to the other extreme. That Emerson did go so far toward this extreme identifies him with a period notable for its enthusiastic expansion of thought. That he did not systematize or restrict means that he was obedient to the idea that what really matters is not that by exact terminology, clever tactics and all the niceties of reasoning a system of philosophy shall be made tight and impregnable for others to adopt, but rather that each of us may be persuaded to hitch his own particular wagon to whatever star for him shines brightest.
爱默生与哲学（节选）
马修·阿诺德在谈及爱默生时曾说：“他是那些崇尚精神生活者的良师益友。
”对爱默生那种颇具胆识但并不成体系的哲学思想而言，阿诺德这句名言也许恰好揭示了其略显模糊但影响极大的启迪作用。
虽然出身于新英格兰一家牧师世家，爱默生却觉得连当时最为自由的牧师职位对他来说也是羁绊，于是他从容而无畏地辞弃了神职，成了当时最伟大的世俗传道者，但依然保持其一如既往的志趣和言辞风格。
从他在大学时代写出《伦理哲学之现状》那篇文章开始，他就一直专注于探究人类行为，而不论其关注的对象是古代诗人、科学细节，还是晨报报道的事件，他都会设法从中汲取教益，并用他明快而华丽的语言风格透彻讲解，使之成为规劝世人向往更为高尚、更为自由之生活的训喻。
纵观历史，对其祖辈所信奉的加尔文主义，爱默生是最主要的反对者之一。
加尔文教严格的教义宣扬人已堕落，不可能不靠神助而自然趋于完美，必须靠急迫而持久的努力才能跻身于上帝的选民行列，赢得那原本不配的恩赐。
爱默生则从一开始就假定，一个人只要能拥有其天生的美德，便可成为近乎于神的完人。
加尔文教徒认为，人越自我完美便会越远离其本性，因此只能靠神恩的作用变得更加完美。
与之相反，爱默生则认为人越自我完美便越接近其本性。
当有人被庄严的音乐或感人的演说深深打动时，我们常常会听到这样的感叹：“这几乎使我超越自我。
”而爱默生则很可能会说：这种影响可以使我们回归自我。
因为爱默生频频论及的一个基本概念就是“自然”，即这个“我们像大地卧于大气温柔怀抱那样存在于其中的自然”；这自然或曰“超灵”，它不仅“把每个人独特的自我都包容其中并使之相互融合”，而且“往往会浸入我们的思想和行为之中，形成我们的智慧、德性、力量和美。
”这便是爱默生在要求我们顺从自我们并接受一切有益影响时所说的那种动机—— 那种追求上天所赐并与生俱来之完美的崇高动机。