Essay on Nature by Ralph Waldo Emerson, published 1803-1882

Page 176

natura naturans vs. natura naturata

In Aristotelian terms natura naturans would be form and activity, and natura naturata would be matter. These terms were probably first used by Averroës, the Arabian commentator on Aristotle; later, Nicolas Cusanus, Giordano Bruno and Spinoza employed the same distinction. Natura naturata, or nature passive, is used by pantheistic philosophers to distinguish the universe in its ultimate, unitary significance from the universe as aggregate of objects.

Essay on Experience by Ralph Waldo Emerson, published 1803-1882

Page 74

The consciousness in each man is a sliding scale, which identifies him now with the First Cause, and now with the flesh of his body; life above life, in infinite degrees. The sentiment from which it sprung determines the dignity of any deed, and the question ever is, not what you have done or forborne, but at whose command you have done or forborne it.

Fortune, Minerva, Muse, Holy Ghost, — these are quaint names, too narrow to cover this unbounded substance. The baffled intellect must still kneel before this cause, which refuses to be named, — ineffable cause, which every fine genius has essayed to represent by some emphatic symbol, as, Thales by water, Anaximenes by air, Anaxagoras by (Noûs) thought, Zoroaster by fire, Jesus and the moderns by love; and the metaphor of each has become a national religion.

Essay on Friendship by Ralph Waldo Emerson, published 1904

Page 214

Emerson writes what a friend is:

A friend is Janus-faced; he looks to the past and the future. He is the child of all my foregoing hours, the prophet of those to come, and the harbinger of a greater friend.