This paper aims to analyze Ralph Waldo Emerson’s transcendental view of nature through the process that he conceptualizes nature as a “museum” and “wilderness.” He has been underestimated as an ecological thinker compared to Thoreau, because the former``s observation of the nature tends to be abstract rather than concrete or specific. However, his transcendental view of nature has influenced deeply on naturalist writers including Thoreau, and provided the basic foundations for the ecological thoughts in America. When Emerson traveled in Europe, he was deeply impressed by the exquisite displays of natural species in Jardin des Plantes in Paris. He discovered the totality and unity in nature from the method of these arrangements and classifications the exhibition used. He acquired the principle on the studies in nature. He interpreted each natural fact as a metaphor that carried out the intention of God. Moreover, he believed that he could reconstruct the relation between man and nature via recognition. After returning to America, he attempted to transform an American wilderness into a space where an American can be perceived as an independent subject free from the European influence and the one morally superior being to Europeans. His presentation of nature is newly proposed not through a museum, but through the American wilderness. It could be considered as a post-colonial attempt to become independent not only politically but also mentally and culturally, but his idealization and mythicization of the American wilderness have led him to an obsession that made him perceive the wilderness as pure and untouched nature in modern American ecocriticism.