Emerson begins with a simple visual observation: the eye is circular, and the horizon appears as another circle surrounding the observer. He then extends this image into a broader philosophical claim that circular forms and patterns recur throughout nature. The circle becomes a symbol of structures that contain one another and can continually expand.

Within Circles, this image introduces Emerson’s wider argument that no boundary of knowledge or experience is necessarily final. Just as one circle may be surrounded by a larger one, an established perspective can be overtaken by a broader understanding. The statement combines observation of the natural world with a metaphysical metaphor about growth, change and perception. Emerson is not presenting a scientific law about geometric forms in nature; rather, he uses the recurring circle to represent an open-ended universe in which apparent limits can repeatedly be extended.