Which belief is closest to the center of American Transcendentalism?
ATruth is found only by studying scripture as interpreted by trained clergy
BEach person can grasp spiritual truth directly through intuition, because the divine is present in nature and the self
CHuman beings are wholly shaped by heredity and environment
DReason and experiment are the only reliable sources of knowledge
Transcendentalists placed intuition above external authority. The church-authority option describes what many of them rejected, the heredity option describes later literary naturalism, and the experiment-only option describes strict empiricism.
Question 2 True / False
The Transcendentalists urged Americans to rely on established churches and long tradition as the surest guides to truth.
TTrue
FFalse
Answer: False
They pushed the other way. In 'The American Scholar' (1837) and 'Self-Reliance' (1841), Emerson urged readers to trust their own insight rather than inherited forms. 'Trust thyself' is his summary.
Question 3 Multiple Choice
Which work records Thoreau's two years living in a cabin he built near a Massachusetts pond?
ANature
BWoman in the Nineteenth Century
CWalden
DLeaves of Grass
Walden (1854) draws on Thoreau's stay at Walden Pond from 1845 to 1847. Nature is Emerson's 1836 book, Woman in the Nineteenth Century is Margaret Fuller's 1845 book, and Leaves of Grass is Walt Whitman's 1855 collection.
Question 4 Short Answer
Explain how Thoreau's 'Resistance to Civil Government' applies Transcendentalist ideas to politics.
Think about your answer, then reveal below.
Model answer: If conscience gives a person direct access to moral truth, then conscience outranks law. Thoreau argued that a citizen should refuse to support an unjust government, as he did by refusing to pay a poll tax, even at the cost of a night in jail.
The essay moves the Transcendentalist trust in the inner voice from the private sphere into public action. That is why it later influenced figures such as Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.