Another problem for the idealists is that they are continuously aesthetically aware: They are lovers of beauty. The American mind has always found it difficult to connect beauty to goodness and truth, regarding the latter as virtues but the first as unnecessary or even undesirable. This sentiment hinders the expression of the idealists' highest thoughts in outward actions, for they are derided for valuing beauty more than goodness and truth: "A reference to Beauty in action sounds, to be sure, a little hollow and ridiculous in the cars of the old church."
Idealists are perceived as requiring that everything meet their own specifications or they will not act to better humanity, an attitude offensive to those with authority, prestige, and power in society. A conflict ensues: Society requires idealists to change their attitudes to respect its wants; idealists want society to change in order to improve. However, the transcendentalists of whom Emerson speaks are not seasoned philosophers; rather, they are thinkers groping to find their own way in the world. They do not have full-fledged plans and programs for the benefit of society but may simply offer guidance in understanding new ideas.
In the essay's last two paragraphs, Emerson asserts that we have a duty to the idealists. Intellectuals are as necessary to a society as laborers, craftsmen, and farmers. These are the people who make new discoveries and offer a moral compass for society, which wants only improved technology, better communication, a higher standard of living — all material things. Emerson calls for a voice advocating improvements in the spiritual realm: "Perhaps too there might be room for the exciters and monitors; collectors of the heavenly spark with power to convey the electricity to others . . . to compare the points of our spiritual compass, and verify our bearings from superior chronometers." He maintains that transcendentalists — "these few hermits" — will be known and admired as much for what they refrain from doing as for what they accomplish. Their apparent silence and inaction will benefit society and be a model for the future.
