Unlike children, most adults have lost the ability to see the world in this way. In order to experience awe in the presence of nature, we need to approach it with a balance between our inner and our outer senses. Nature so approached is a part of man, and even when bleak and stormy is capable of elevating his mood. All aspects of nature correspond to some state of mind. Nature offers perpetual youth and joy, and counteracts whatever misfortune befalls an individual. The visionary man may lose himself in it, may become a receptive "transparent eyeball" through which the "Universal Being" transmits itself into his consciousness and makes him sense his oneness with God. In nature, which is also a part of God, man finds qualities parallel to his own. There is a special relationship, a sympathy, between man and nature. But by itself, nature does not provide the pleasure that comes of perceiving this relationship. Such satisfaction is a product of a particular harmony between man's inner processes and the outer world. The way we react to nature depends upon our state of mind in approaching it.
In the next four chapters — "Commodity," "Beauty," "Language," and "Discipline" — Emerson discusses the ways in which man employs nature ultimately to achieve insight into the workings of the universe. In Chapter II, "Commodity," he treats the most basic uses of nature — for heat, food, water, shelter, and transportation. Although he ranks these as low uses, and states that they are the only applications that most men have for nature, they are perfect and appropriate in their own way. Moreover, man harnesses nature through the practical arts, thereby enhancing its usefulness through his own wit. Emerson quickly finishes with nature as a commodity, stating that "A man is fed, not that he may be fed, but that he may work," and turns to higher uses.
In Chapter III, "Beauty," Emerson examines nature's satisfaction of a nobler human requirement, the desire for beauty. The perception of nature's beauty lies partly in the structure of the eye itself, and in the laws of light. The two together offer a unified vision of many separate objects as a pleasing whole — "a well-colored and shaded globe," a landscape "round and symmetrical." Every object in nature has its own beauty, which is magnified when perspective allows comprehensive vision of the whole.
