Emersonian Transparency and the Anatomy of Crystal‪.‬

In this essay, I meditate on the riddle of Emersonian transparency, mainly as it appears in Nature. Not pretending to solve the enigma, i offer a fresh perspective from which to study its difficulties. This context is Emerson's interest in crystal shapes. Aware of the important place of crystalline forms--prisms, bits of quartz--in the history of optics, physics, chemistry, and biology, Emerson knew that the limpid lattice reveals powers and structures that in other phenomena remain hidden: the principles of light, electricity, chemical affinity, perhaps life itself. Yet, Emerson also realized from his scientific studies that these energies shining in the geometrical jewel are not simply lawful, not merely predictable and stable. These currents--luminous waves, galvanic forces, molecular polarities, vital pulses--are also obscure, abysmal, beyond the mind. Crystal translucency is opaque; crystal opacity, apocalyptic. If these prismatic virtues inform Emerson's transparency in Nature, then his clarity might be confusion, his revelation may be veiled, his hyaline eye-ball, through which he sees all, could be blind. Emersonian transparency does not open into Neoplatonic lucidity or Newtonian clarity; rather, it vouchsafes blurry, lurid vistas of a sublime cosmos too richly complex to be simply clear. **********