Science Forums 2

[belovelife]

Originally Posted by Pyrotex

In common street speech, I doubt seriously if the phrase was common at all.
But Emerson uses a LOT of unusual, arcane, archaic and rare phrasing (and words) in this poem.
Among planetary astronomers, to "compute an orbit" would have been common usage, and I dare say, Emerson picked it up perhaps in an astronomy book (he was an avid reader) and liked the exotic flavor of the phrase, and its connotation of predicting the future in a scientific, deterministic way.
It leads to the metaphorical imagery of one's life as a "path" through the stars, and to keep to that path out of fear of disappointing others being a cowardly act of abandoning self-reliance.
This is fully compatible with many other examples of metaphor and esoteric language in Emerson's poem. (He's trying to impress you with how big his vocabulary is )

I would also remind you that the word ORBIT itself induces thought. From history the concept and its actual truths were a subject of debate, to the point of death or excommunication in some examples. The word in this case was stated to produce the thought that truth is sometimes fought against, and the point was to seek for truth. This then caused self disipline so the errors of the past were not allowed to happen.