…on Emersonian Physics

When one is wed to a Physicist, said science wends its way into one’s cognition and discernment even when not the subject of discourse or consideration.

It is safe to say that Gethyn is not a fan of Emerson and receives any Emersonian passages which I impart to him and liken to science with more than a conspicuous measure of skepticism.

Here; however, even he was obliged to acquiesce that the following non-scientific prose in Spiritual Laws is both an modernisation of Newtonian equations, through which Newton posited that each object in the universe exerts a force on every other; and a prognostication of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity.

“Let us draw a lesson from nature, which always works by short ways. When the fruit is ripe, it falls. When the fruit is despatched, the leaf falls. The circuit of the waters is mere falling. The walking of man and all animals is a falling forward. All our manual labor and works of strength, as prying, splitting, digging, rowing and so forth, are done by dint of continual falling, and the globe, earth, moon, comet, sun, star fall for ever and ever.”

~ Emerson, Spiritual Laws

To wit:

Relativity dictates that the unified fabric of space time is warped and stretched by heavy celestial objects, such as planets and stars. Heavier bodies don’t reach out and grab smaller bodies, as Newton hypothesised; rather, they fall into the curved fabric of space time.

And here, the Classicist once more brought the Physicist round and was happy…