There are all degrees of proficiency in knowledge of the world. It is sufficient to our present purpose to indicate three. One class lives to the utility of the symbol, esteeming health and wealth a final good. Another class live above this mark of the beauty of the symbol, as the poet and artist and the naturalist and man of science. A third class live above the beauty of the symbol to the beauty of the thing signified; these are wise men.
I would stipulate the second class doesn't exist. No one knowingly loves a symbol of a truth but only the symbol insofar as it represents the truth. Emerson is being pretentious here and assuming his own superiority.
