“ Why do men feel that the natural history of man has never been written, but he is always leaving behind what you have said of him, and it becomes old, and books of metaphysics worthless? ”
Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Over-Soul (1841). copy citation
| Author | Ralph Waldo Emerson |
|---|---|
| Source | The Over-Soul |
| Topic | writing books |
| Date | 1841 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | in "Essays: First Series" |
| Note | |
| Weblink | https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Essays:_First_Series/The_Over-Soul |
Context
“but how did we find out that it was mean? What is the ground of this uneasiness of ours; of this old discontent? What is the universal sense of want and ignorance, but the fine inuendo by which the soul makes its enormous claim? Why do men feel that the natural history of man has never been written, but he is always leaving behind what you have said of him, and it becomes old, and books of metaphysics worthless? The philosophy of six thousand years has not searched the chambers and magazines of the soul. In its experiments there has always remained, in the last analysis, a residuum it could not resolve. Man is a stream whose source is hidden.”
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