'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?
Satan hasn't a single salaried helper; the Opposition employs a million.
It isn't true that convicts live like animals: animals have more room to move around.
There is little difference between the Zulu warrior who smeared bis body with lion's fat and the modern woman who dabs hers with expensive perfume. The one was trying to acquire the courage of the king of beasts, the other is attempting to acquire the irresistible sexuality of flowers. The underlying principle is the same.
Our brain is mapping the world. Often that map is distorted, but it's a map with constant immediate sensory input.
Society is the picnic certain individuals leave early, the party they fail to enjoy, the musical comedy they find not worth the price of admission.
We've got a thing called the 'tall poppy syndrome' in New Zealand, where if anyone is doing really well, it's quite common to try and bring them down - like, cut them down and say, 'You've been to the moon? So what? I mean, plenty of people have been to the moon.'
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