Emerson explained the means by which the individual understands his place in the encompassing as oracular and revelatory. He wrote in "The Over-Soul":
And this deep power in which we exist, and whose beatitude is all accessible to us, is not only self-sufficing and perfect in every hour, but the act of seeing and the thing seen, the seer and the spectacle, the subject and the object, are one. We see the world piece by piece, as the sun, the moon, the animal, the tree; but the whole, of which these are the shining parts, is the soul. Only by the vision of that Wisdom can the horoscope of the ages be read, and by falling back on our better thoughts, by yielding to the spirit of prophecy which is innate in every man, we can know what it saith.
The broad scope of the universe and man's position in it are fathomable not by the logic of the human intellect, but by the divine spark of intuition. In his glorification of intuitive "reason" (a usage adopted from the English Romantic poets) over more rational, experiential "understanding," Emerson was influenced by Kant and by the interpretation of German idealistic philosophy offered by the English Romantics, particularly Coleridge.
Emerson saw that there was no way to explain intuition in terms of ordinary mental processes. "We know truth when we see it . . . as we know when we are awake that we are awake," he wrote in "The Over-Soul." If mysteriously inexplicable, however, intuition is exhilarating
We distinguish the announcements of the soul, its manifestations of its own nature, by the term Revelation. These are always attended by the emotion of the sublime. For this communication is an influx of the Divine mind into our mind. . . . Every distinct apprehension of this central commandment agitates men with awe and delight. . . . By the necessity of our constitution, a certain enthusiasm attends the individual's consciousness of that divine presence. The character and duration of this enthusiasm varies with the state of the individual, from an extasy and trance and prophetic inspiration . . . to the faintest glow of virtuous emotion. . . .
Indeed, Emerson added, intuitive insight and religious revelation are similar to insanity, another intense expression of a force beyond the control of the individual.
