Page:The prophetic books of William Blake, Milton.djvu/15

 copy, derived from ancient originals. He has another charge against Milton here, that he also was corrupted by the general infection and submitted to learn of the classics, when he should have resorted to the Bible alone. Blake wished to restore the authority of imagination, and to substitute an intellectual war for that which arises from the corporeal understanding. He adjures us, instead of disputing over science and religion and morality, to fight for an eternal kingdom and to engage ourselves in the rebuilding of Jerusalem in our own land, where now she lies in ruins. He would have us beware also of "the False Tongue," which is the origin of all the error and ignorance by which our eternal portion is fettered. It is elsewhere connected with "the Western Gate" and we learn that it denotes the sense of touch; that is to say, it is the sense by which we become conscious of the phenomenal world and are deceived by its apparent solidity into endowing it with a material existence. It is the cause of natural religion, empirical philosophy, evolutionary ethics and the hundred other follies by which our vision is obscured. The earlier pages of the book are occupied with the story of the interference and oppression to which Blake (Palamabron) had to submit from Hayley (Satan). The news of his sufferings had reached the dwellers in eternity, with the result that the poet Milton received a heavenly command to return to earth to deliver him from the tyranny of his oppressors. This was the fulfilment of an ancient prophecy "in Eden recorded that Milton of the land of Albion should up ascend, forwards from Ulro, from the Vale of Felpham, and set free Orc from his chain of jealousy." The person of Orc is used by Blake to represent "the fires of youth," which were by nature free and untamed, until they were riveted to a rock by Los and Enitharmon, acting under the influence of the "jealous" God. It must be remembered that throughout his writings Blake adopts the Gnostic view of Jehovah; as Irenaeus says of Marcion, "blasphemans eum, qui a lege et Prophetis annunciatus est deus: malorum factorem, et bellorum concupiscentem, et inconstantem quoque sententia, et contrarium sibi ipsum dicens." He is Blake's Urizen, who had separated himself from the fourfold "Divine Family" and exalting his own self-hood, and usurping sovereignty,