Minute Particulars

Yale Center for British Art

Jerusalem

Plate 92

Look for the Four Zoas as well as Jerusalem in the image.

First posted October 2010

Most of this post came from Damon's A Blake Dictionary, pages 280-81: "Minute Particulars are the outward expression in this world of the eternal individualities of all things. God, 'the Divine-Humanity,' is ultimately 'the Only General and Universal Form.'" 

Jerusalem, Plate 91, (E 251) 

"He who would see the Divinity must see him in his Children
One first, in friendship & love; then a Divine Family, & in the midst
Jesus will appear (verse 20): so he who wishes to see a Vision; a perfect Whole        
Must see it in its Minute Particulars; Organized & not as thou
O Fiend of Righteousness pretendest; thine is a Disorganized
And snowy cloud: brooder of tempests & destructive War
You smile with pomp & rigor: you talk of benevolence & virtue!
I act with benevolence & virtue & get murderd time after time: 
You accumulate Particulars, & murder by analyzing, that you
May take the aggregate; & you call the aggregate Moral Law:
And you call that Swelld & bloated Form; a Minute Particular.
But General Forms have their vitality in Particulars: & every
Particular is a Man; a Divine Member of the Divine Jesus."

So the minute particulars are the outward expression of the 
individuals!, our fathers, mothers, children-- and of course many other 
things. 

Let's go back to Letter 16 at Erdman 712; 

     "The Light of the Morning
     Heavens Mountains adorning
     In particles bright
     The jewels of Light
     Distinct shone & clear--
     Amazd & in fear
     I each particle gazed
     Astonishd Amazed
     For each was a Man
     Human formd.  Swift I ran
     For they beckond to me
     Remote by the Sea
     Saying.  Each grain of Sand
     Every Stone on the Land
     Each rock & each hill
     Each fountain & rill
     Each herb & each tree
     Mountain hill Earth & Sea
     Cloud Meteor & Star
     Are Men Seen Afar"

 Your might see "Men Seen Afar" in terms of fourfold vision; now look at the final six lines of Letter 23 on page 722 of Erdman:

     "Now I a fourfold vision see
     And a fourfold vision is given to me
     Tis fourfold in my supreme delight
     And three fold in soft Beulahs night
     And twofold Always.  May God us keep
     From Single vision & Newtons sleep"

Jerusalem, Plate 55, (E 205)

"Labour well the Minute Particulars, attend to the Little-ones:
And those who are in misery cannot remain so long
If we do but our duty: labour well the teeming Earth." 

 Here's an extended essay on Blake's minute particulars as they relate to the atomicity of "Newton or even Democritus (the founder of the concept of atomicity) and classical physics to Niels Bohr and quantum physics."

Finally Damon in his first paragraph summarizes the elements of our experience:
"The Minute Particulars of God are men (J92:31);
of men they are children (J55:51);
of life the joys of living, especially the embraces of love (J69:42);
of ethics forgiveness instead if judgment (J43:61);
of art the vision and the finished product; of science, the basic facts. (J55:62)"

With so much material to study we must certainly expand our understanding of Minute Particulars.