Emerson presents three properties of natural beauty. First, nature restores and gives simple pleasure to a man. It reinvigorates the overworked, and imparts a sense of well-being and of communion with the universe. Nature pleases even in its harsher moments. The same landscape viewed in different weather and seasons is seen as if for the first time. But we cannot capture natural beauty if we too actively and consciously seek it. We must rather submit ourselves to it, allowing it to react to us spontaneously, as we go about our lives.
Secondly, nature works together with the spiritual element in man to enhance the nobility of virtuous and heroic human actions. There is a particular affinity between the processes of nature and the capabilities of man. Nature provides a suitably large and impressive background against which man's higher actions are dramatically outlined.
Thirdly, Emerson points out the capacity of natural beauty to stimulate the human intellect, which uses nature to grasp the divine order of the universe. Because action follows upon reflection, nature's beauty is visualized in the mind, and expressed through creative action. The love of beauty constitutes taste; its creative expression, art. A work of art — "the result or expression of nature, in miniature" — demonstrates man's particular powers. Man apprehends wholeness in the multiplicity of natural forms and conveys these forms in their totality. The poet, painter, sculptor, musician, and architect are all inspired by natural beauty and offer a unified vision in their work. Art thus represents nature as distilled by man. Unlike the uses of nature described in "Commodity," the role of nature in satisfying man's desire for beauty is an end in itself. Beauty, like truth and goodness, is an expression of God. But natural beauty is an ultimate only inasmuch as it works as a catalyst upon the inner processes of man.
