He also felt that books provided an excellent starting point to work off of when beginning to write. An author faced with a writer's block could find a concept or idea in another person's work and branch his or her own ideas off from there.
Another positive influence of books, according to Emerson, is that they created a cumulative knowledge by passing knowledge on from generation to generation. He stresses that books will not last forever, so each generation must write its own set of books. Also books from past generations should not be read since they have become outdated and irrelevant in the younger society. .
This leads up to the negative aspect of books. Boredom arises when books from past generations are continually read and a very little amount of new ideas are thought up. This lack of creativity comes about from men who accept the thinking of others and mix in very little, if any, of their own ideas. Emerson describes these people as:.
Meek young men [who] grow up in libraries, believing it their duty to accept the views which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon have given, forgetful that Cicero, Locke, and Bacon were only young men in libraries when they wrote these books. (Emerson, 297).
Emerson refers to these people as the book-learned class, orbookworms.? They have very little innovation and merely emendate other people's work and call it their own.
It is because of this, that Emerson calls for a rebirth of American literature. According to him, we have been attached too long to England and the rest of Europe, and it is time to become literally independent. Writers must learn to trust their own instincts and stand their ground, even if it is not the popular opinion of the time.
Technology also has its positive and negative impacts on books and their influence on the scholar. The modern inventions such as the television, computer, and internet have resulted from our instinctual desire to make life easier.
