“In this refulgent summer, it has been a luxury to draw the breath of life. The grass grows, the buds burst, the meadow is spotted with fire and gold in the tint of flowers.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson’s first line of his speech places his speech within certain philosophical boundaries. Noticing the natural world around him exemplifies the Transcendentalist call to renew oneself by finding solitude in nature. Poetic and indulgent, his language in the first paragraph is meant to draw the listener in, as it portrays lush and colorful imagery of abundant nature in motion.

“What am I? and What is? asks the human spirit with a curiosity new-kindled, but never to be quenched.”

This quote marks Emerson’s transition from discussion of the natural world to discussion of the inner world. This is a key moment in Emerson’s structure, as he oscillates between the outer and inner world for the rest of the essay.

“These facts have always suggested to man the sublime creed, that the world is not the product of manifold power, but of one will, of one mind; and that one mind is everywhere active, in each ray of the star, in each wavelet of the pool; and whatever opposes that will, is everywhere balked and baffled, because things are made so, and not otherwise.”

This quote reveals Emerson’s primary theme of the Inherent Virtue of All Beings because it invokes the oneness of all living things. He uses natural imagery of the star and the pool to make this idea appear vast (from heaven to the earth) and immutable. He believes that whatever opposes this oneness is working against man and God and therefore contrary to nature. This philosophy of “one mind” is a driving theme in all his work and a core tenet of Transcendentalist thought.

“The doctrine of the divine nature being forgotten, a sickness infects and dwarfs the constitution. Once man was all; now he is an appendage, a nuisance. And because the indwelling Supreme Spirit cannot wholly be got rid of, the doctrine of it suffers this perversion, that the divine nature is attributed to one or two persons, and denied to all the rest, and denied with fury.”

Emerson’s argument against the Overemphasis of the Divinity of Jesus is based in the problem of de-emphasizing the role of man in divine work. He uses the metaphor of a “sickness” to critique Unitarian thought to the highest degree, generating controversy amongst his audience. Here, he complains that divinity has only been granted to a few, which makes man less than he really is. His use of doctrine refers to his own doctrine that men are fully divine, in opposition to the church’s doctrines.

“One would rather be ‘A pagan, suckled in a creed outworn,’ than to be defrauded of his manly right in coming into nature, and finding not names and places, not land and professions, but even virtue and truth foreclosed and monopolized.”

Emerson quotes William Wordsworth’s poem, “The World Is Too Much With Us” (1807), to introduce a doctrine of paganism (non-Christian beliefs) that is closer to nature than the current doctrines of the church. While Emerson does not uphold pagan beliefs any more than Wordsworth did, he wishes that Christianity had a deeper appreciation and connection to the natural world. He juxtaposes manmade construct of “land” with natural earth to suggest that people have imposed ideas on what is already inherently virtuous.

“Now do not degrade the life and dialogues of Christ out of the circle of this charm, by insulation and peculiarity. Let them lie as they befell, alive and warm, part of human life, and of the landscape, and of the cheerful day.”

Emerson here is arguing against the meddling of priests with the teachings of Jesus. He makes it clear it is not the original teachings that are all wrong but the interpretation of modern Christians. Jesus’s original teachings, before interpretation, were more in line with Emerson’s naturalistic understanding of divine virtue. He imbues Jesus’s “life and dialogues” with sensory qualities such as warmth to ground them in humanity.

“The true preacher can be known by this, that he deals out to the people his life,—life passed through the fire of thought.”

The theme of the Ineffectiveness of Modern Teachings is summarized in this passage. Emerson asks the soon-to-be preachers to consider their own opinions and beliefs when speaking to their congregations. The word “true” aims to evoke a reaction in his original audience by insinuating that those preachers who only quote traditions are not remaining true to the intentions of their teachings.

“If no heart warm this rite, the hollow, dry, creaking formality is too plain, than that he can face a man of wit and energy, and put the invitation without terror. In the street, what has he to say to the bold village blasphemer? The village blasphemer sees fear in the face, form, and gait of the minister.”

This section calls into question the point of a preacher who is unable to teach from his own life experience. Emerson sees him as weak-willed and inert and of no use against opposition to the faith. The intention of Emerson is to show that one who does preach from his soul is no preacher at all. He uses a plethora of adjectives—not least in the triplet of “holly, dry, creaking”—to conjure these images in the mind of the reader.

“Man is the wonderworker.”

Emerson invokes biblical imagery by comparing humanity to Jesus and his miracles. Emerson is placing Jesus, God, and man on the same footing in this passage. He is not demoting Christ as a worker of miracles as much as he is stating that man, in the same way as Christ, has authority in the divine realm. This is an unusually short sentence in the speech, conveying one of the most controversial points in a stark way to ensure that its meaning is clear.

“Yourself a newborn bard of the Holy Ghost,—cast behind you all conformity, and acquaint men at first hand with Deity. Look to it first and only, that fashion, custom, authority, pleasure, and money, are nothing to you,—are not bandages over your eyes, that you cannot see,—but live with the privilege of the immeasurable mind.”

This passage contains the formal title of his speech and reinforces the divinity of all things and their inherent virtue. By calling ministers “holy bards” he places them in the same category as Jesus, the Buddha, and other great prophets. Furthermore, “acquaint men at first hand with Deity,” a variation of the essay’s official title, invokes the body using the image of the “hand” and suggests that godliness exists among earthly things.

“Society’s praise can be cheaply secured, and almost all men are content with those easy merits; but the instant effect of conversing with God, will be, to put them away.”

The passage aligns with the Transcendentalist idea of self-reliance: Man must rely on himself, and the divine within himself, instead of others. This follows a passage in which Emerson calls for a demoting of preachers who are too formal. This is his justification for such a statement. If a preacher is only preaching for commendation, then they have taken the easy, yet godless, path.

“The remedy to their deformity is, first, soul, and second, soul, and evermore, soul. A whole popedom of forms, one pulsation of virtue can uplift and vivify.”

The “deformity” in this passage is the deadweight of religious conventions, and Emerson uses this evocative word to convey his disgust for current practices. His answer is reliance on the divine soul. He calls out the fervor for rules and precepts and argues that one only needs virtue—his term for reliance on the divine soul—instead. The repetition of the word “soul,” a term he uses over 40 times in his speech, is a mnemonic device to solidify his main argument.

“You would compliment a coxcomb doing a good act, but you would not praise an angel. The silence that accepts merit as the most natural thing in the world, is the highest applause. Such souls, when they appear, are the Imperial Guard of Virtue, the perpetual reserve, the dictators of fortune. One needs not praise their courage,—they are the heart and soul of nature. O my friends, there are resources in us on which we have not drawn.”

The final line of this passage is the small encouragement that Emerson offers to his audience. While much of his speech has spoken of their ineffectiveness, he begins to offer in the final passages solutions. Here, he offers encouragement that they already have what they need to become virtuous teachers, if only the attempt to connect to it. His direct address to “friends” reinforces the positive tone of this passage.

“The Hebrew and Greek Scriptures contain immortal sentences, that have been bread of life to millions. But they have no epical integrity; are fragmentary; are not shown in their order to the intellect.”

Considered one of Emerson’s most blasphemous statements, this passage comes at the end of the speech, right before calling for a new teacher willing to take up his philosophical argument. The passage suggests that even the Bible can intellectually ineffective. This opens the door wide criticism but also for a new generation of preachers to teach new precepts. He uses the metaphor of “bread of life” from John 6:35 to convey the Christianity of his views despite their controversial aspects.