by Ripley, Margaret Fuller, John S. Dwight and others who had
more or less connection with the transcendental movement.

The definition of the new faith given by Emerson in his lecture on the
_Transcendentalist_, 1842, is as follows: "What is popularly called
transcendentalism among us is idealism. . . . The idealism of the
present day acquired the name of transcendental {445} from the use of
that term by Immanuel Kant, who replied to the skeptical philosophy of
Locke, which insisted that there was nothing in the intellect which was
not previously in the experience of the senses, by showing that there
was a very important class of ideas, or imperative forms, which did not
come by experience, but through which experience was acquired; that
these were intuitions of the mind itself, and he denominated them
_transcendental_ forms." Idealism denies the independent existence of
matter. Transcendentalism claims for the innate ideas of God and the
soul a higher assurance of reality than for the knowledge of the
outside world derived through the senses. Emerson shares the "noble
doubt" of idealism. He calls the universe a shade, a dream, "this
great apparition." "It is a sufficient account of that appearance we
call the world," he wrote in _Nature_, "that God will teach a human
mind, and so makes it the receiver of a certain number of congruent
sensations which we call sun and moon, man and woman, house and trade.
In my utter impotence to test the authenticity of the report of my
senses, to know whether the impressions on me correspond with outlying
objects, what difference does it make whether Orion is up there in
heaven or some god paints the image in the firmament of the soul?" On
the other hand our evidence of the existence of God and of our own
souls, and our knowledge of right and wrong, are immediate, and are
independent of the senses. {446} We are in direct communication with
the "Oversoul," the infinite Spirit. "The soul in man is the
background of our being--an immensity not possessed, that cannot be
possessed." "From within or from behind a light shines through us upon
things, and makes us aware that we are nothing, but the light is all."
Revelation is "an influx of the Divine mind into our mind. It is an
ebb of the individual rivulet before the flowing surges of the sea of
life." In moods of exaltation, and especially in the presence of
nature, this contact of the individual soul with the absolute is felt