In perhaps his most famous lecture, SELF-RELIANCE, Ralph Waldo Emerson delivered a stirring call for the coming age of the transcendental identity. "Trust thyself," said Waldo, "Every heart vibrates to that iron string." If Emerson's weltanshaung can be summed up in a sentence, this is it. If you look most inner, you'll discover yourself and (this is a key trope in all of American literature) create yourself. In the same way that Walt Whitman created himself by "sing"ing himself into existence, through an alter-ego that is one of the kosmos, the new American identity was based on this apparent paradox: that the transcendent is within, not without.

In NATURE, he closes by noting that "Man is a god in ruins." The exhortation is clear, and though Emerson is vague and invites close, practically microscopic readings, this is spelled in bold letters - through elaborate allegory and commonplaces. Man has moved away from his nature. focused to much on the "bones" and "sepulchres" of the past, and left that vibrating inner string that is true in perfect. "g"ods are perfect and so can man be, but he's lost it.

Who's to blame? The church, for one. In THE DIVINITY SCHOOL ADDRESS, Waldo claimed, in front of a graduating class of future pastors, that historic Christianity put a "noxious" influence on the person (read: divinity) of Christ. Tradition is also to blame, as he writes in another lecture, THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR: "We have listened too long to the courtly muses of Europe." And in CIRCLES, he seems to suggest that such "noxious" tradition has made us buy into illusion: that we are living in completed humanity and can go no further, when in fact we are only in the middle of a never-ending cycle that becomes greater as it goes. The end result? I think he'd think of a better way to say it, but it boils down to an epiphany that links us with the very "god"hood we've lost.

Move on. Move on. Move on. Look internally and move externally. Find your calling. Once I find what is unique about me it is going to be good. The question I constantly ask, but get no answer of, from Emerson and Walt Whitman is this: what about Jack the Ripper? I pick a figure who is practically their contemporary, but you can substitute a blank a fill it in. John Wayne Gacy. Hannibal Lecter. Ted Bundy. Osama Bin Laden.

Aren't these just guys who found their calling? Aren't these just guys who trusted themselves? Too much?

Emerson did not have much truck for Calvinism. When he speaks about grace, he usually refers to it in a sense of "elegance and beauty." Occasionally he writes about an endowed spirit over all of humanity, but that comes from an over-soul, a guiding presence that's about as far from Yahweh as Buddha.

I love the way he says it. But I don't like what he says. Ultimately he offers a vain solution to our desire for transcendence, and I stagger when I wonder if anyone has found anything close to peace when searching inside himself.