Page:William Blake, a critical essay (Swinburne).djvu/182

166 in effect implies an "honest triumphant pride." (Here of course the writer drops for a moment the religious view and divine meaning of the Passion, and looks towards Calvary from the simply human side as it appeared to casual bystanders; for here he has only to deal with what he conceives to be errors in the human conception of Christ's human character. "You the orthodox, and you the reasoners, assert through the mouths of your churches or philosophies that purely human virtues are actually predicable of Christ, and appeal for evidence to his life and death. Well and good; we will, to gain ground for argument with you, forget that the Passion is not, and admit that it is, what you would call a purely human transaction. Are then these virtues predicable of it even as such?) A good man who incurs risk of death by his goodness, is too "proud” to abjure that goodness and live; here is none of that you