Page:The sanity of William Blake.djvu/40

 Rh scorns: the soul, in this age, is nothing more forsooth than a by-product of experience contributed by the five senses! He frequently refers to the soul being imprisoned in the five senses; they are merely inlets for experiences, not outlets to the Eternal.

The second of these aphorisms is a little hard to understand unless we already know something of what the Master is driving at. We must remember that the Marriage of Heaven and Hell is a conglomeration of bombs, each accurately compounded and craftily timed to hurl at the heads of all intellectual, religious, and state tyrants. Their dynamite is for the most part scathing satire, and will scarcely have more effect in reforming the respectable criminals who are mighty in their seats than an anarchist's bomb will instil mercy into a grand-duke's heart. But Blake says elsewhere: "When I tell a truth it is not to convince those who do not know it but to protect those who do." And his sort of bomb hurts not the faithful, but invigorates.

"Energy is the only life, and is from the body." This is a slap to the orthodox, one would think, and a paradox to the former