12 - The Conduct of Life

Summary

Is there a “late” Emerson? Certainly there was an elder one. Emerson lived a long and extraordinarily prolific 79 years. It seems only natural and reasonable to assume that his thought - like his life, like the metamorphic history of his times - can be divided into chronological periods. Emerson seems, in fact, to invite us to read him in terms of early and late phases. In the opening pages of The Conduct of Life, generally considered his last important book, he speaks of a former naiveté (the optimistic assurance that the world is all “positive power”) and a new realism (the chastened acknowledgment that “negative power” is really something to be reckoned with): “Once we thought, positive power was all. Now we learn, that negative power, or circumstance, is half.”