Page:William Blake (IA williamblake00ches).pdf/126

 purely primitive. And, as it happens, both these non-rational (or non-Roman) strains in the eighteenth century are particularly important in considering the mental make-up of William Blake. For the first alien strain in this century practically represents all that is effective and fine in this great genius, the second strain represents without question all that is doubtful, all that is irritating, and all that is ineffective in him.

In the eighteenth century there were two elements not taken from the Roman stoic or the Roman citizen. The first was what our century calls humanitarianism—what that century called "the tear of sensibility." The old pagan commonwealths were democratic, but they were not in the least humanitarian. They had no tears to spare for a man at the mercy of the community; they reserved all their anger and sympathy for the community at the mercy of a man. That individual compassion for an individual case was a pure product of Christianity; and when Voltaire flung himself with fury into the special case of Calas,