Given the inferiority that an individual can feel when confronted by conformity and consistency, and now commonality, Emerson wonders how people remain confident in their abilities. The answer is provided by "that source, at once the essence of genius, of virtue, and of life, which we call Spontaneity or Instinct." The wisdom that springs from spontaneous instinct is Intuition, or inner knowledge from directly apprehending an object. All other knowledge is mere tuition, secondhand beliefs received from others instead of a uniquely individual response that was sparked by the source itself. This notion of Intuition is closely related to a main idea of transcendentalism: An all-encompassing "soul" animates the universe and is the source of all wisdom and inspiration. Direct knowledge, or intuition, is gained as a gift from this overwhelming source. But exactly what Emerson means by "Intuition" and "soul" is difficult to grasp, even for him: "If we ask whence this comes, if we seek to pry into the soul that causes, all philosophy is at fault. Its presence or its absence is all we can affirm."
Emerson now introduces a contrasting idea to the portrait he has drawn of the intuitive individual: the characteristics and behavior of the "thoughtless man," who cannot see the depth of truth being used by the self-reliant, intuitive person. Thoughtless people cannot understand self-reliant individuals' seeming inconsistencies because thoughtless people are too worried about being consistent — as society oppressively wants them to be.
Transcendence is gained only through intuitive knowledge. Describing this transcendent quality is difficult, Emerson says, because we have no concrete words for such an abstract state of mind. It is beyond language and can be conveyed only in negatives, by telling what it is not: "And now at last the highest truth of this subject remains unsaid; probably cannot be said; for all that we say is the far-off remembering of the intuition." This type of understanding does not come from any teacher or intermediary; moreover, it reaches deeper than any kind of emotion, such as hope, gratitude, or even joy.
