# Letters and social aims

Author: Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 1803-1882

Genre: Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches

Language: English

License: Public domain

Source: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/71393

Amazon editions: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Letters+and+social+aims+Emerson&tag=cyberlibrar00-20

## Summary

THE perception of matter is made the common-sense, and for cause. This was the cradle, this the go-cart, of the human child. We must learn the homely laws of fire and water; we must feed, wash, plant, build. These are ends of necessity, and first in the order of nature. Poverty, frost, famine, disease, debt, are the beadles and guardsmen that hold us to common-sense. The intellect, yielded up to itself, cannot supersede this tyrannic necessity. The restraining grace of common-sense is the mark of all the valid minds,--of Æsop, Aristotle, Alfred, Luther, Shakspeare, Cervantes, Franklin, Napoleon. The common-sense which does not meddle with the absolute, but takes things at their word,--thi...

## Chapters

- [Part 2](https://www.cyberlibrary.org/en/books/letters-and-social-aims-71393/chapters/2/index.md)
- [Part 7](https://www.cyberlibrary.org/en/books/letters-and-social-aims-71393/chapters/7/index.md)
- [Part 5](https://www.cyberlibrary.org/en/books/letters-and-social-aims-71393/chapters/5/index.md)
- [Part 16](https://www.cyberlibrary.org/en/books/letters-and-social-aims-71393/chapters/16/index.md)
- [Part 4](https://www.cyberlibrary.org/en/books/letters-and-social-aims-71393/chapters/4/index.md)
- [Part 8](https://www.cyberlibrary.org/en/books/letters-and-social-aims-71393/chapters/8/index.md)
- [Part 6](https://www.cyberlibrary.org/en/books/letters-and-social-aims-71393/chapters/6/index.md)
- [Part 13](https://www.cyberlibrary.org/en/books/letters-and-social-aims-71393/chapters/13/index.md)
- [Part 12](https://www.cyberlibrary.org/en/books/letters-and-social-aims-71393/chapters/12/index.md)
- [Part 10](https://www.cyberlibrary.org/en/books/letters-and-social-aims-71393/chapters/10/index.md)
- [Part 14](https://www.cyberlibrary.org/en/books/letters-and-social-aims-71393/chapters/14/index.md)
- [Part 9](https://www.cyberlibrary.org/en/books/letters-and-social-aims-71393/chapters/9/index.md)
- [Part 15](https://www.cyberlibrary.org/en/books/letters-and-social-aims-71393/chapters/15/index.md)
- [Part 1](https://www.cyberlibrary.org/en/books/letters-and-social-aims-71393/chapters/1/index.md)
- [Part 11](https://www.cyberlibrary.org/en/books/letters-and-social-aims-71393/chapters/11/index.md)
- [Part 3](https://www.cyberlibrary.org/en/books/letters-and-social-aims-71393/chapters/3/index.md)
- [Part 17](https://www.cyberlibrary.org/en/books/letters-and-social-aims-71393/chapters/17/index.md)