Emerson and Quakerism

Abstract

A VAST deal of learned ink has flowed on the subject of the origins of Emerson's thought. We have had studies of his indebtedness to Asian philosophy, to Plato and the Neo-Platonists, to Swedenborg, to Goethe and the German philosophers, and so on through a large corpus of scholarly writings. And we have had various estimates of his relation to, or his place in, the Puritan tradition. There is one more thread, however, which remains to be picked up before the final statement is made concerning the influences which moulded Emerson's thinking. And once this thread is picked up and laid in its proper place it will be found in a measure to clarify and define Emerson's relation to Puritanism. Emerson himself furnished the clue, and it is rather surprising that the commentators have so generally neglected it. On one occasion when his kinsman, the Reverend David Greene Haskins, asked him to define his religious position, Emerson answered with greater deliberateness, and longer pauses between his words than usual, 'I am more of a Quaker than anything else. I believe in the still, small voice, and that voice is Christ within us.'' The significant parallelism between the religion of the Friends and the ideas whiclh were abroad in New England in the thirties