In his passionate plea for self-reliance, Emerson wants his readers to reacquaint themselves with a sense of childlike wonder about the world. In our state of innocence, we don't overthink anything; we simply go about pursuing our purposes without worrying what everyone else thinks about us. The mind of a child, because it lacks experience, is uncontaminated by doubt. A child has purposes and single-mindedly pursues them. Animals are much the same.

Adults, however, tend to calculate the chances of success before deciding to do something. We weigh up the odds, wondering what other people will do and how they will respond to our plans instead of actually getting on with them. Unlike children and animals, we let odds and calculations sway our determinations. Our decisions to act, therefore, are often determined by external factors instead of our own purposes.

Infancy is so much different from adulthood in this regard. The infant does not conform to anybody; in fact, everyone conforms to the infant. One only has to see a group of adults fussing over a small baby or animal to see this. The child is what they are. The adult, on the other hand, tends to be the creation of other people, which explains why they tend to be conformists.