In the right state, he is Man Thinking. In the degenerate state, when the victim of society, he tends to become a mere thinker, or still worse, the parrot of other men’s thinking

Answer: This is an excerpt from Emerson’s essay “The American Scholar”.

Emerson has given his idea of the conditions of Man thinking or the American Scholar. In this view of the American Scholar as Man Thinking, he is the delegated intellect. He is not metamorphosed into a mere thing; he is, whatever profession he may be in, Man, not an inert thing merged into that profession. If he is a planter sent out into the field to gather food, he is cheered by the idea of the true dignity of his ministry. He is a man there. Nature solicits such a man with all her placid, all her monitory pictures. The past instructs him; the future invites him. Nature’s influence on his mind is the first in time and the first in importance. Every day the sun, the moon, the night, and her stars exert influence upon him. The scholar is most interested in natural phenomena. He feels that there is never a beginning, ever an end, to the inexplicable continuity of the web of God that is, Nature.

Next, the American scholar receives the influence of the Mind. the past in the form of art or literature or institutions. But books are not used by him as things to follow blindly; he makes the best use of books. Books do not pin him down. He looks forward, not backward through books. He is creative in manners, actions, and words. Books cannot dominate Man thinking; rather books are subdued by him. He selects the best things from the books of the great authors and rejects all the rest. He is not a recluse, nor a valetudinarian, but a man of action. Action gives him the greatest return of wisdom. Action is a resource for him. When he is tired of thinking, the action serves as a refresher to him. He feels invigorated after action. He spreads the idea of culture which is the supreme importance of individual of all men. The self of one man pours itself out into all men. The American Scholar is to bring about this revolution in the conception of man. He becomes the perfect Man thinking. But in the degenerate state, the Man Thinking becomes perverted. He follows the thinking of other men parrotlike. He loses his originality. He fails to become a proper Man Thinking.