'Tis a short sight to limit our faith in laws to those of gravity, of chemistry, of botany, and so forth. Those laws do not stop where our eyes lose them, but push the same geometry and chemistry up into the invisible plane of social and rational life, so that, look where we will, in a boy's game, or in the strifes of races, a perfect reaction, a perpetual judgment keeps watch and ward.
Interpretation
Emerson encourages expanding our understanding of laws beyond the physical sciences to include social and moral principles.
In this quote, Emerson emphasizes the importance of recognizing that the laws governing nature and science are not separate from the laws that govern human behavior and society. He suggests that just as gravity and chemistry operate in the physical world, similar principles can be applied to moral and social interactions, highlighting that they are interconnected and influence our lives continuously.
In practice
In a philosophical discussion about the nature of reality, one might use this quote to illustrate the interconnectedness of different laws of life.
It is plain that there is no separate essence called courage, no cup or cell in the brain, no vessel in the heart containing drops or atoms that make or give this virtue; but it is the right or healthy state of every man, when he is free to do that which is constitutional to him to do.
Few people have any next, they live from hand to mouth without a plan, and are always at the end of their line.
Men cease to interest us when we find their limitations
Tis the good reader that makes the good book; a good head cannot read amiss: in every book he finds passages which seem confidences or asides hidden from all else and unmistakeably meant for his ear.
The world belongs to the energetic.
Hast thou named all the birds without a gun?
I'm afraid that in the United States of America today the prevailing doctrine of justification is not justification by faith alone. It is not even justification by good works or by a combination of faith and works. The prevailing notion of justification in our culture today is justification by death. All one has to do to be received into the everlasting arms of God is to die.
We mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honour.
Some men think the Earth is round, others think it flat; it is a matter capable of question. But, if it is flat, will the King's command make it round? And, if it is round, will the King's command flatten it?
This tyrant, whose sole name blisters our tongues,Was once thought honest.
The secret story is the one we'll never know, although we're living it from day to day, thinking we're alive, thinking we've got it all under control and the stuff we overlook doesn't matter.
Religion, you know, enters very deep; in reality it is the deepest impression I have in speaking to people, that they are or that they are not of my religion.
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