I hope no one will call what I have written cavilling because he may think my remarks of small consequence. For I write from the warmth of my heart, & cannot resist the impulse I feel to rectify what I think false in a book I love so much & approve so generally.
Man is bad or good as he unites himself with bad or good spirits: tell me with whom you go & I’ll tell you what you do.
As we cannot experience pleasure but by means of others, who experience either pleasure or pain thro’ us, And as all of us on earth are united in thought, for it is impossible to think without images of somewhat on earth—So it is impossible to know God or heavenly things without conjunction with those who know God & heavenly things; therefore all who converse in the spirit, converse with spirits.
For these reasons I say that this Book is written by consultation with Good Spirits, because it is Good, & that the name Lavater is the amulet of those who purify the heart of man.
There is a strong objection to Lavater’s principles (as I understand them) & that is He makes every thing originate in its accident; he makes the vicious propensity not only a leading feature of the man, but the stamina on which all his virtues grow. But as I understand Vice it is a Negative. It does not signify what the laws of Kings & Priests have call’d Vice; we who are philosophers ought not to call the Staminal Virtues of Humanity by the same name that we call the omissions of intellect springing from poverty.
Every man’s leading propensity ought to be call’d his leading Virtue & his good Angel. But the Philosophy of Causes & Consequences misled Lavater as it has all his Cotemporaries. Each thing is its own cause & its own effect. Accident is the omission of act in self & the hindering of act in another; This is Vice, but all Act is Virtue. To hinder another is not an act; it is the contrary; it is a restraint on action both in ourselves & in the person hinder’d, for he who hinders another omits his own duty at the same time.
Murder is Hindering Another.
Theft is Hindering Another.
Backbiting, Undermining, Circumventing, & whatever is Negative is Vice. But the origin of this mistake in Lavater & his cotemporaries is, They suppose that Woman’s Love is Sin; in consequence all the Loves & Graces with them are Sins.
From ANNOTATIONS TO SWEDENBORG’S “WISDOM OF ANGELS CONCERNING DIVINE LOVE AND DIVINE WISDOM” LONDON 1788
(1788)
Man can have no idea of any thing greater than Man, as a cup cannot contain more than its capaciousness. But God is a man, not because he is so perceiv’d by man, but because he is the creator of man.
Think of a white cloud as being holy, you cannot love it; but think of a holy man within the cloud, love springs up in your thoughts, for to think of holiness distinct from man is impossible to the affections. Thought alone can make monsters, but the affections cannot.
Page 33.
Appearances are the first Things from which the human Mind forms its Understanding, and it cannot shake them off but by an Investigation of the Cause, and if the Cause is very deep, it cannot investigate it, without keeping the Understanding some Time in spiritual Light....
This Man can do while in the body.
Pages 195-6.
These three Degrees of Altitude are named Natural, Spiritual and Celestial.... Man, at his Birth, first comes into the natural Degree, and this increases in him by Continuity according to the Sciences, and according to the Understanding acquired by them, to the Summit of Understanding which is called Rational.
Study Sciences till you are blind, Study intellectuals till you are cold, Yet science cannot teach intellect. Much less can intellect teach Affection. How foolish then is it to assert that Man is born in only one degree, when that one degree is reception of the 3 degrees, two of which he must destroy or close up or they will descend; if he closes up the two superior, then he is not truly in the 3d, but descends out of it into meer Nature or Hell.... Is it not also evident that one degree will not open the other, & that science will not open intellect, but that they are discrete & not continuous so as to explain each other except by correspondence, which has nothing to do with demonstration; for you cannot demonstrate one degree by the other; for how can science be brought to demonstrate intellect without making them continuous & not discrete?
Page 220.
But still Man, in whom the spiritual Degree is open, comes into that Wisdom when he dies, and may also come into it by laying asleep the Sensations of the Body, and by Influx from above at the Same time into the Spirituals of his Mind.
This is while in the Body.
This is to be understood as unusual in our time, but common in ancient.
Page 233.
... for the natural Man can elevate his Understanding to superior Light as far as he desires it, but he who is principled in Evils and thence in Things false, does not elevate it higher than to the superior Region of his natural Mind; ...
Who shall dare to say after this that all elevation is of self & is Enthusiasm & Madness, & is it not plain that self-derived intelligence is worldly demonstration?
Heaven & Hell are born together.
From ANNOTATIONS TO “AN APOLOGY FOR THE BIBLE IN A SERIES OF LETTERS ADDRESSED TO THOMAS PAINE BY R. WATSON, D.D., F.R.S.” LONDON 1797
(1798)
Notes on the Bishop of Leicester’s Apology for the Bible by William Blake
To defend the Bible in this year 1798 would cost a man his life.
The Beast & the Whore rule without control.
It is an easy matter for a Bishop to triumph over Paine’s attack, but it is not so easy for one who loves the Bible.
The Perversions of Christ’s words & acts,are attack’d by Paine & also the perversions of the Bible; Who dare defend either the Acts of Christ or the Bible Unperverted?
But to him who sees this mortal pilgrimage in the light that I see it, Duty to his country is the first consideration & safety the last.
Read patiently: take not up this Book in an idle hour: the consideration of these things is the whole duty of man & the affairs of life & death trifles, sports of time. But these considerations [are the] business of Eternity.
I have been commanded from Hell not to print this, as it is what our Enemies wish....
If this first Letter is written without Railing & Illiberality I have never read one that is. To me it is all Daggers & Poison; the sting of the serpent is in every Sentence as well as the glittering Dissimulation. Achilles’ wrath is blunt abuse: Thersites’ sly insinuation; such is the Bishop’s. If such is the Characteristic of a modern polite gentleman we may hope to see Christ’s discourses Expung’d. I have not the Charity for the Bishop that he pretends to have for Paine. I believe him to be a State trickster. Dishonest Misrepresentation. Priestly Impudence. Contemptible Falsehood & Detraction. Presumptuous Murderer. Dost thou, 0 Priest, wish thy brother’s death when God has preserved him? Mr. Paine has not extinguish’d, & cannot Extinguish, Moral rectitude; he has Extinguish’d Superstition, which took the Place of Moral Rectitude. What has Moral Rectitude to do with Opinions concerning historical fact?
To what does the Bishop attribute the English Crusade against France? Is it not to State Religion? Blush for shame. Folly & Impudence. Does the thorough belief of Popery hinder crimes, or can the man who writes the latter sentiment be in the good humour the bishop Pretends to be? If we are to expect crimes from Paine & his followers, are we to believe that Bishops do not Rail? I should Expect that the man who wrote this sneaking sentence would be as good an inquisitor as any other Priest. Conscience in those that have it is unequivocal. It is the voice of God. Our judgment of right & wrong is Reason. I believe that the Bishop laught at the Bible in his slieve & so did Locke. Virtue is not Opinion.
Virtue & honesty, or the dictates of Conscience, are of no doubtful Signification to anyone. Opinion is one Thing. Principle another. No Man can change his Principles. Every Man changes his opinions. He who supposes that his Principles are to be changed is a Dissembler, who Disguises his Principles & calls that change. Pai
ne is either a Devil or an Inspired man. Men who give themselves to their Energetic Genius in the manner that Paine does are no Examiners. If they are not determinately wrong they must be Right or the Bible is false; as to Examiners in these points they will be spewed out. The Man who pretends to be a modest enquirer into the truth of a self evident thing is a Knave. The truth & certainty of Virtue & Honesty, i.e. Inspiration, needs no one to prove it; it is Evident as the Sun & Moon. He who stands doubting of what he intends, whether it is Virtuous or Vicious, knows not what Virtue means. No man can do a Vicious action & think it to be Virtuous. No man can take darkness for light. He may pretend to do so & may pretend to be a modest Enquirer, but he is a Knave.
The Bible says that God formed Nature perfect, but that Man perverted the order of Nature, since which time the Elements are fill’d with the Prince of Evil, who has the power of the air. Natural Religion is the voice of God & not the result of reasoning on the Powers of Satan. Horrible! The Bishop is an Inquisitor. God never makes one man murder another, nor one nation. There is a vast difference between an accident brought on by a man’s own carelessness & a destruction from the designs of another. The Earthquakes at Lisbon etc. were the Natural result of Sin, but the distruction of the Canaanites by Joshua was the Unnatural design of wicked men. To Extirpate a nation by means of another is as wicked as to destroy an individual by means of another individual, which God considers (in the Bible) as Murder & commands that it shall not be done. Therefore the Bishop has not answer’d Paine....
That the Jews assumed a right Exclusively to the benefits of God will be a lasting witness against them & the same will it be against Christians....
Jesus could not do miracles where unbelief hindered, hence we must conclude that the man who holds miracles to be ceased puts it out of his own power to ever witness one. The manner of a miracle being performed is in modem times considered as an arbitrary command of the agent upon the patient, but this is an impossibility, not a miracle, neither did Jesus ever do such a miracle. Is it a greater miracle to feed five thousand men with five loaves than to overthrow all the armies of Europe with a small pamphlet? Look over the events of your own life & if you do not find that you have both done such miracles & lived by such you do not see as I do. True, I cannot do a miracle thro’ experiment & to domineer over & prove to others my superior power, as neither could Christ. But I can & do work such as both astonish & comfort me & mine. How can Paine, the worker of miracles, ever doubt Christ’s in the above sense of the word miracle? But how can Watson ever believe the above sense of a miracle, who considers it as an arbitrary act of the agent upon an unbelieving patient, whereas the Gospel says that Christ could not do a miracle because of Unbelief?
If Christ could not do miracles because of Unbelief, the reason alledged by Priests for miracles is false; for those who believe want not to be confounded by miracles. Christ & his Prophets & Apostles were not Ambitious miracle mongers....
Prophets, in the modern sense of the word, have never existed. Jonah was no prophet in the modern sense, for his prophecy of Nineveh failed. Every honest man is a Prophet; he utters his opinion both of private & public matters. Thus: If you go on So, the result is So. He never says, such a thing shall happen let you do what you will. A Prophet is a Seer, not an Arbitrary Dictator. It is man’s fault if God is not able to do him good, for he gives to the just & to the unjust, but the unjust reject his gift....
Nothing can be more contemptible than to suppose Public RECORDS to be True. Read, then, & Judge, if you are not a Fool.
Of what consequence is it whether Moses wrote the Pentateuch or no? If Paine trifles in some of his objections it is folly to confute him so seriously in them & leave his more material ones unanswered. Public Records! As if Public Records were True! Impossible; for the facts are such as none but the actor could tell. If it is True, Moses & none but he could write it, unless we allow it to be Poetry & that poetry inspired.
If historical facts can be written by inspiration, Milton’s Paradise Lost is as true as Genesis or Exodus; but the Evidence is nothing, for how can he who writes what he has neither seen nor heard of be an Evidence of The Truth of his history....
I cannot concieve the Divinity of the books in the Bible to consist either in who they were written by, or at what time, or in the historical evidence which may be all false in the eyes of one man & true in the eyes of another, but in the Sentiments & Examples, which, whether true or Parabolic, are Equally useful as Examples given to us of the perverseness of some & its consequent evil & the honesty of others & its consequent good. This sense of the Bible is equally true to all & equally plain to all. None can doubt the impression which he receives from a book of Examples. If he is good he will abhor wickedness in David or Abraham; if he is wicked he will make their wickedness an excuse for his & so he would do by any other book....
... The importance of revelation is by nothing rendered more apparent, than by the discordant sentiments of learned and good men (for I speak not of the ignorant and immoral) on this point.
It appears to me Now that Tom Paine is a better Christian than the Bishop.
I have read this Book with attention & find that the Bishop has only hurt Paine’s heel while Paine has broken his head. The Bishop has not answer’d one of Paine’s grand objections.
(Written on the last page)
From ANNOTATIONS TO “BACON’S ESSAYS” LONDON 1798
(1798)
Good advice for Satan’s Kingdom [on the title-page].
Is it true or is it false that the wisdom of the world is foolishness with God? This is certain: if what Bacon says is true, what Christ says is false. If Caesar is right, Christ is wrong, both in politics and religion, since they will divide themselves in two.
Everybody knows that this is epicurism and libertinism, and yet everybody says that it is Christian philosophy. How is this possible? Everybody must be a liar and deceiver? No! “Everybody” does not do this; but the hirelings of Kings and Courts, who made themselves “everybody”, and knowingly propagate falsehood. It was a common opinion in the Court of Queen Elizabeth that knavery is wisdom. Cunning plotters were considered as wise Machiavels....
Did not Jesus descend and become a servant? The Prince of Darkness is a gentleman and not a man: he is a Lord Chancellor.
What do these knaves mean by virtue? Do they mean war and its horrors, and its heroic villains?
Thought is act. Christ’s acts were nothing to Caesar’s if this is not so.
The increase of a State, as of a man, is from internal improvement or intellectual acquirement. Man is not improved by the hurt of another. States are not improved at the expense of foreigners.
Bacon calls intellectual arts unmanly: and so they are for kings and wars, and shall in the end annihilate them.
What is fortune but an outward accident, for a few years, sixty at the most, and then gone?
King James was Bacon’s primum mobile.
A tyrant is the worst disease, and the cause of all others.
Everybody hates a king! David was afraid to say that the envy was upon a king: but is this envy or indignation?
From ANNOTATIONS TO SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS’S DISCOURSES LONDON 1798
(1808)
This Man was Hired to Depress Art.
This is the Opinion of Will Blake: my Proofs of this Opinion are given in the following Notes.
Advice of the Popes who succeeded the Age of Rafael
Degrade first the Arts if you’d Mankind Degrade.
Hire Idiots to Paint with cold light & hot shade:
Give high Price for the worst, leave the best in disgrace,
And with Labours of Ignorance fill every place.
Having spent the Vigour of my Youth & Genius under the Opression of Sr Joshua & his Gang of Cunning Hired Knaves Without Employment & as much as could possibly be Without Bread, The Reader must Expect to Read in all my Remarks on these Books Nothing but Indignation & Resentment. While Sr Joshua was rolling in Riches, Bar
ry was Poor & Unemploy’d except by his own Energy; Mortimer was call’d a Madman, & only Portrait Painting applauded & rewarded by the Rich & Great. Reynolds & Gainsborough Blotted & Blurred one against the other & Divided all the English World between them. Fuseli, Indignant, almost hid himself. I am hid.
The Arts & Sciences are the Destruction of Tyrannies or Bad Governments. Why should A Good Government endeavour to Depress what is its Chief & only Support?
The Foundation of Empire is Art & Science. Remove them or Degrade them, & the Empire is No More. Empire follows Art & Not Vice Versa as Englishmen suppose.
Who will Dare to Say that Polite Art is Encouraged or Either Wished or Tolerated in a Nation where The Society for the Encouragement of Art Suffer’d Barry to Give them his Labour for Nothing, A Society Composed of the Flower of the English Nobility & Gentry?— Suffering an Artist to Starve while he Supported Really what They, under Pretence of Encouraging, were Endeavouring to Depress.—Barry told me that while he Did that Work, he Lived on Bread & Apples.
The Portable William Blake Page 42