--The literature and thought of New England
were profoundly modified by the transcendental philosophy. Ralph Waldo
Emerson (p. 178) was the most celebrated expounder of this school of
thought. The English philosopher, Locke, had maintained that intellectual
action is limited to the world of the senses. The German metaphysician,
Kant, claimed that the soul has ideas which are not due to the activity of
any of the senses: that every one has an idea of time and space although no
one has ever felt, tasted, seen, eaten, or smelled time or space. He called
such an idea an intuition or transcendental form.
The student of literature need not worry himself greatly about the
metaphysical significance of transcendentalism, but he must understand its
influence on literary thought. It is enough for him to realize that there
are two great classes of fact confronting every human being. There are the
ordinary phenomena of life, which are apparent to the senses and which are
the only things perceived by the majority of human beings. But behind all
these appearances are forces and realities which the senses do not
perceive. One with the bodily eye can see the living forms moving around
him, but not the meaning of life.
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