Self-Reliance: Paragraphs 25-28 Summary & Analysis

Emerson then explains the central point of the preceding discussion. He explains that his articulation of self-reliance is really only an approximation of the intuition from which it arose. Each person is ultimately responsible for discovering what morality is for themselves. The moment when each individual discovers their own sense of morality will be one of transcendence, “above passion,” beyond time, and more expansive than the “[v]ast spaces of nature.”

Emerson claims that society hates that moment of transcendence because it upsets traditional hierarchies and conventional notions of morality. This ultimate form of self-reliance, “eminent virtue,” is extremely powerful and it allows individuals or groups of individuals who possess it to overrule the arbitrary powers that currently dominate society. Emerson respects even ordinary experiences—"Hardship, husbandry, hunting, whaling, war, eloquence, personal weight”—because they are a little closer to that notion of virtue than conventional morality, and he sees the same “principle of conservation and growth” at work in nature. Everything in nature, in fact, reflects self-reliance. Emerson believes that with an understanding of the supreme importance of self-reliance as virtue, the individual can confidently dismiss conventional morality, engage with God by staying at home rather than looking elsewhere, and live a life of simplicity that is worth much more than traditional notions of what is good.