Transcendentalism, as viewed by its disciples, was a pilgrimage from the idolatrous world of creeds and rituals to the temple of the Living God in the soul. It was a putting to silence of tradition and formulas, that the Sacred Oracle might be heard through intuitions of the single-eyed and pure-hearted.
William Henry Channing, quoted in P. Miller (ed.),
The American Trancendentalists. Their Prose and Poetry (New York, 1957).
(Definition of to transcend: from the Latin
transcendere, to climb across, thus to journey beyond the limits of everyday habits.)
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.