III

From a perception of only three senses or three elements, none could deduce a fourth or fifth.

IV

None could have other than natural or organic thoughts if he had none but organic perceptions.

Man's desires are limited by his perceptions. None can desire what he has not perceived.

VI

The desires and perceptions of man, untaught by anything but organic sense, must be limited to objects of sense.

Therefore,

God becomes as we are, that we may be as he is.

I

Man cannot naturally perceive but through his natural or bodily organs.

II

Man by his reasoning power can only compare and judge of what he has already perceived.

These two last paragraphs are, like each of those preceding, from plates on which they were written in varnish for ink, and then the metal round the letters bitten away by acid, and the result rolled and printed like ordinary type or blocks. Each paragraph is on a little plate by itself. It is impossible to know now whether or not these last two were a first two, lost, and found again after substitutes were made. The little book has one more plate, a drawing, a picture of pastoral life, and 80 ends.

There is another issue of these little fragments in the possession of Mr. Muir, who has made a facsimile copy of it (Quaritch, 15 Piccadilly). Its title is

ALL RELIGIONS ARE ONE.

Then follows Nos. I. example printed above. The rest are as follows:

and II., as in the British Museum No. III. is not in Mr. Muir's set.

IV

The bounded is loathed by its possessor. The same dull round, even of a universe, would soon become a mill with complicated wheels.

V

If the many become the same as the few, when possessed, 'More! More!' is the cry of a mistaken soul. Less than all cannot satisfy Man.

VI

If any could desire what he is incapable of possessing, despair must be his eternal lot.

VII

The desire of Man being Infinite, the possession is Infinite, and himself Infinite.

Application.

He who sees the Infinite in all things, sees God. He who sees the Ratio only, sees himself only.

Therefore

God becomes as we are that we may be as He is,

ON HOMER'S POETRY

The following, introduced here as part of the author's explanation of himself, was printed by Gilchrist on two pages and called 'Sybilline Leaves.' This is a fancy title. Blake printed both the short essays from one plate, prepared like the pages of all his work later in date than 1787. Its period may be conjectured from the style to be later than 1802. Its handwriting is like plates of Jerusalem' that are later than this. The matter probably belongs to this period, because he was now learning Greek and reading Homer with Hayley at Felpham, as a letter from Hayley to Johnson, dated February 3, 1802, relates. Traces of irritation, produced by Hayley's tutorship, are found in the very first lines.

The title On Homer's Poetry' is written in a bold hand at the head of his first five paragraphs, and ‘On Virgil' similarly at the head of the next four.

Every poem must necessarily be a perfect Unity, but why Homer's is peculiarly so I cannot tell. He has told the story of Belerophon, and omitted the Judgement of Paris, which is not only a part, but a principal part of Homer's subject.

But when a work has Unity, it is as much in a part as in the whole. The Torso is as much a Unity as the Laocoon.

As Unity is the cloak of folly, so Goodness is the cloak of knavery. Those who will have Unity exclusively in Homer, come out with a Moral like a sting in the tail. Aristotle says Characters are either Good or Bad. Now Goodness or Badness has nothing to do with Character. An Apple tree, a Pear tree, a Horse, a Lion, are Characters, but a Good Apple tree or a Bad is an Apple tree still. A Horse is not more a Lion for being a Bad Horse; that is its Character: its Goodness or Badness is another consideration.

It is the same with the Moral of a whole Poem as with the Moral Goodness of its parts. Unity and Morality are secondary considerations, and belong to Philosophy and not to Poetry, to Exception and not

The

to Rule, to Accident and not to Substance. Ancients called it eating the tree of good and evil. The Classics! It is the Classics, and not Goths nor Monks that Desolate Europe with Wars.

ON VIRGIL

Sacred Truth has pronounced that Greece and Rome, as Babylon and Egypt, so far from being parents of Arts and Sciences, as they pretend, were destroyers of all Art. Homer, Virgil, and Ovid confirm this opinion, and make us reverence the Word of God, the only light of antiquity that remains unperverted by War. Virgil in the Eneid, Book vi., line 848, says 'Let others study Art. Rome has somewhat better to do, namely, War and Dominion.'

Rome and Greece swept Art into their maw and destroyed it. A Warlike state can never produce Art. It will Rob and Plunder and accumulate into one place, and Translate and Copy, and Buy and Sell and Criticise, but not Make. Grecian is Mathematic Form.

Mathematic Form is Eternal in the Reasoning Memory; Living Form is Eternal Existence. Gothic is Living Form.