'Standing on the bare ground--my head bathed by the blithe air and uplifted into infinite space--all mean egotism vanishes,' Emerson wrote in Nature, his statement of the principles of transcendentalism.
Nature, published in 1836, is an essay that laid out the foundation of transcendentalism. The essay was Emerson's attempt to get people to appreciate the beauty of nature.
The first essay discusses the role played by "great men" in society, and the remaining six each extol the virtues of one of six men deemed by Emerson to be great.