SEEING

British Museum

Illustrations for Young's Night Thoughts

 

We hear what we want to hear or what we are capable of hearing. Blake teaches that we are capable of seeing more, hearing more, understanding more; that we have closed ourselves in a cavern of our minds and look out through narrow chinks.  

We see in the picture a man whose eyes are closed, whose ears are stopped, whose face shows anxiety, whose head is turned away. He shows no desire to open himself to becoming aware of the possibility of expanding his physical or spiritual senses to a wider and deeper experience. Blake proclaims that there are gates through which man may pass if he is able to discern them and realizes the benefits of developing the potentials which are within him. He tells us that we all partake of the "faculty of vision" but lose it if we fail to cultivate it.

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Henry Crabb Robinson, Reminiscences, Page 24 

"Dined with Aders. A very remarkable and interesting evening. The party at dinner Blake the painter, and Linnell, also a painter. In the evening, Miss Denman and Miss Flaxman came.

Shall I call Blake artist, genius, mystic, or madman? Probably he is all. I will put down without method what I can recollect of the conversation of this remarkable man.

He has a most interesting appearance. He is now old (sixty -eight), pale, with a Socratic countenance and an expression of great sweetness, though with something of languor about it except when animated, and then he has about him an air of inspiration. The conversation turned on art, poetry, and religion. He brought with him an engraving of his "Canterbury Pilgrims." One of the figures in it is like a figure in a picture belonging to Mr. Aders. “They say I stole it from this picture,” said Blake, "but I did it twenty years before I knew of this picture. However, in my youth, I was always studying paintings of this kind. No wonder there is a resemblance.” In this he seemed to explain humanly what he had done. But at another time he spoke of his paintings as being what he had seen in his visions. And when he said “my visions,” it was in the ordinary unemphatic tone in which we speak of every-day matters. In the same tone he said repeatedly, "The Spirit told me.” I took occasion to say: “ You express yourself as Socrates used to do. What resemblance do you suppose there is between your spirit and his?”, “ The same as between our countenances." He paused and added, "I was Socrates”; and then, as if correcting himself, said, “a sort  of brother. I must have had conversations with him. So I had with Jesus Christ. I have an obscure recollection of having been with both of them.” I suggested, on philosophical grounds, the impossibility of supposing an immortal being created, an eternity à parte post without an eternity à parte ante. His eye brightened at this, and he fully concurred with me. “To be sure, it is impossible. We are all coexistent with God, members of the Divine body. We are all partakers of the Divine nature.” In this, by the by, Blake has but adopted an ancient Greek idea. As connected with this idea, I will mention here, though it formed part of our talk as we were walking homeward, that on my asking in what light he viewed the great question concerning the deity of Jesus Christ, he said : “He is the only God". But then, he added, “and so am I, and so are you." He had just before (and that occasioned my question ) been speaking of the errors of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ should not have allowed himself to be crucified, and should not have attacked the government. On my inquiring how this view could be reconciled with the sanctity and Divine qualities of Jesus, Blake said: “He was not then become the Father.” Connecting, as well as one can, these fragmentary sentiments, it would be hard to fix Blake's station between Christianity, Platonism, and Spinozism . Yet he professes to be very hostile to Plato , and reproaches Wordsworth with being not a Christian, but a Platonist.  

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Page 29-30 

His faculty of vision, he says, he has had from early infancy. He thinks all men partake of it, but it is lost for want of being cultivated. He eagerly assented to a remark I made, that all men have all faculties in a greater or less degree."

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Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Plate 14, (E 39) 

 "If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would
appear  to man as it is: infinite.
   For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro'
narrow chinks of his cavern."

THERE is NO NATURAL RELIGION, (E 2)

 "Mans perceptions are not bounded by organs of perception. he
percieves more than sense (tho' ever so acute) can discover. 

Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Plate 12, (E 38)
                    "A Memorable Fancy.                            
   The Prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel dined with me, and I asked
them how they dared so roundly to assert. that God spake to them; 
and  whether they did not think at the time, that they would be 
misunderstood, & so be the cause of imposition.
   Isaiah answer'd. I saw no God. nor heard any, in a finite
organical perception; but my senses discover'd the infinite in
every thing, and as  I was then perswaded. & remain confirm'd;
that the voice of honest indignation is the voice of God, I cared
not for consequences but  wrote.
   Then I asked: does a firm perswasion that a thing is so, make it so?
   He replied.  All poets believe that it does, & in ages of imagination
this firm perswasion removed mountains; but many are not capable
of a firm perswasion of any thing."

Jerusalem, Plate 30 [34], (E 177) 

"If Perceptive Organs vary: Objects of Perception seem to vary:  
If the Perceptive Organs close: their Objects seem to close also:" 

Jerusalem, Plate 49, (E 198) 

"In one night the Atlantic Continent was caught up with the Moon,
And became an Opake Globe far distant clad with moony beams.     
The Visions of Eternity, by reason of narrowed perceptions,
Are become weak Visions of Time & Space, fix'd into furrows of death;
Till deep dissimulation is the only defence an honest man has left
O Polypus of Death O Spectre over Europe and Asia
Withering the Human Form by Laws of Sacrifice for Sin            
By Laws of Chastity & Abhorrence I am witherd up.
Striving to Create a Heaven in which all shall be pure & holy
In their Own Selfhoods, in Natural Selfish Chastity to banish Pity
And dear Mutual Forgiveness; & to become One Great Satan
Inslavd to the most powerful Selfhood: to murder the Divine Humanity    
In whose sight all are as the dust & who chargeth his Angels with folly!
Ah! weak & wide astray! Ah shut in narrow doleful form!
Creeping in reptile flesh upon the bosom of the ground!
The Eye of Man, a little narrow orb, closd up & dark,
Scarcely beholding the Great Light; conversing with the [Void]:
The Ear, a little shell, in small volutions shutting out
True Harmonies, & comprehending great, as very small:
The Nostrils, bent down to the earth & clos'd with senseless flesh.
That odours cannot them expand, nor joy on them exult:
The Tongue, a little moisture fills, a little food it cloys,     
A little sound it utters, & its cries are faintly heard," 

Descriptive Catalogue, (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." 

Four Zoas, Night VII, Page 67, (E 369) 

"Los trembling answerd Now I feel the weight of stern repentance
Tremble not so my Enitharmon at the awful gates    
Of thy poor broken Heart I see thee like a shadow withering
As on the outside of Existence but look! behold! take comfort!
Turn inwardly thine Eyes & there behold the Lamb of God
Clothed in Luvahs robes of blood descending to redeem
O Spectre of Urthona take comfort O Enitharmon   
Couldst thou but cease from terror & trembling & affright
When I appear before thee in forgiveness of ancient injuries 
Why shouldst thou remember & be afraid. I surely have died in pain
Often enough to convince thy jealousy & fear & terror
Come hither be patient let us converse together because  
I also tremble at myself & at all my former life" 

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Little Drummer Boy - "Do you know what I know?"