Self-Reliance Self-Reliance "Self-Reliance" is an 1841 essay written by American transcendentalist philosopher and essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson. It contains the most thorough statement of one of Emerson's recurrent themes: the need for each individual to avoid conformity and false consistency, and follow their own instincts and ideas. It is the source of one of Emerson's most famous quotations: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines." This essay is an analysis into the nature of the “aboriginal self on which a universal reliance may be grounded.” The first hint of the philosophy
History of psychology of some Continental Rationalist philosophers, especially Baruch Spinoza's (1632–1677) "On the Improvement of the Understanding" (1662) and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz's (1646–1716) "New Essays on Human Understanding" (completed 1705, published 1765). Also was an important contribution Friedrich August Rauch's (1806–1841) book "" (1840), the first English exposition of Hegelian philosophy for an American audience. The Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard also influenced the humanistic, existential, and modern psychological schools with his works "The Concept of Anxiety" (1844) and "The Sickness Unto Death" (1849). Also influential on the emerging discipline of psychology were debates surrounding the efficacy of Mesmerism (a precursor to hypnosis)