Blake absorbed ideas from everywhere, but he didn't accept them uncritically. He was a synthesizer. He wanted to figure out things for himself. He didn't mind sharing his insights with others, but he didn't expect others to accept them without thinking about them.
He would expect the same of us - that we 'hunt' for ideas, that we evaluate and sift through them, that we form our ideas into a valid system of thought, and that we share them with others.
Image from Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Plate 2, furnished by Adelaide e-books
A Descriptive Catalog, Page 44, (E 544)
"Tell me the Acts, O historian, and leave me to reason upon them as I please; away with your reasoning and your rubbish. All that is not action is not [P 45] worth reading. Tell me the What; I do not want you to tell me the Why, and the How; I can find that out myself, as well as you can, and I will not be fooled by you into opinions, that you please to impose, to disbelieve what you think improbable or impossible. His opinions, who does not see spiritual agency, is not worth any man's reading; he who rejects a fact because it is improbable, must reject all History and retain doubts only."
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