This point about language acting as an interpreter between people recalls the idea of creation in the essay's introduction, where Emerson suggested that the act of creation and the vitality associated with that act have been lost. Here, he provides a reason for this loss of creativity: We are too easily corrupted by desires, including the desire for riches, for pleasure, and for power. Because these desires overly complicate our lives, we become distanced from nature's restorative powers, and the vital act of creation is lost: "New imagery ceases to be created," and words become tools that we use to deceive each other.
In the third section of this chapter, Emerson discusses how nature assumes spiritual dimensions through our use of language. The reasoning behind this claim is complex. Our human laws appear to mimic nature's laws, yet over time we have blurred the distinction between our laws and nature's. However, we cannot consider nature as something totally outside ourselves because "the whole of nature," Emerson states, "is a metaphor of the human mind," established so that we might have control over our lives. For example, he equates laws of physics as equivalent to rules of moral conduct.
Another important theme in this essay concerns the question of accessibility. Discussing the relationship between the intellect and nature, Emerson observes that the language used to make sense of the world can be known by all of us, not just poets: "This relationship between the mind and matter is not fancied by some poets, but stands in the will of God, and so is free to be known by all men." For those of us who are unsure of just how nature will become accessible, he assures us that "by degrees" we can come to understand nature and our relationship to it, and the world eventually will become "an open book" from which all can read.
