but yourselves, know that to be free is the same thing as to be pious, to be wise, to be temperate and just, to be frugal and abstinent, and lastly, to be magnanimous and brave; so to be the opposite of all these is the same as to be a slave; and it usually happens, by the appointment, and as it were retributive justice, of the Deity, that that people which cannot govern themselves, and moderate their passions, but crouch under the slavery of their lusts, should be delivered up to the sway of those whom they abhor, and made to submit to an involuntary servitude.39 It is not agreeable to the nature of things that such persons ever should be free. Such was Milton's contemptuous judgment of his contemporaries when they fell back into slavery. And in 1669, he concludes his History of Great Britain on this note: If these were the causes of such misery and thraldom to those our ancestors, with what better close can be concluded, than here in fit season to remember this age in the midst of her security, to fear from like vices, without amendment, the revolution of like calamities? 40 Paradise Lost ends on the same ideas: Therefore, since he permits Within himself unworthy powers to reign His outward freedom. Tyranny must be, Deprives them of their outward liberty, And this shows Paradise Lost to be largely a political poem, culminating in this judgment, which explains the 39 Second Defense, in Prose Works, I, 295-98. 40 Prose Works, V, 392-93. 41 P. L., XII, 90–101. conception of history set forth in the XIIth book: no after-thought to round off an epic poem, but the plain and large statement of Milton's answer to the problems of human destiny: So shall the world go on, To good malignant, to bad men benign, Under her own weight groaning till the day And vengeance to the wicked, at return A remarkable thing is that in this summary of history, at the end of Paradise Lost, Milton does not even mention the Reformation. He never suggests that it brought back liberty. From the death of the Apostles to the day of judgment, the world follows its course in unrelieved evil. This shows how little Protestantism satisfied Milton: all priests are a horror to him, and the succession of Protestant to Catholic priest does not seem to him worth a mention. 48 9944 But Milton, the old incorrigible dreamer, kept for the end his most fantastic-his most logical — dream. Christ will come at last, in his glory, to reign for a thousand years over the Earth. This will be "on earth " " and will last until " the expiration of a thousand years. Without this" day of respiration to the just and vengeance to the wicked," the history of mankind would be too lamentable, and God too unjust; for as the wicked triumphed on the Earth, so retribution must take place on the Earth also. Milton does not believe in spirits. He wants a solid material triumph, to begin with. Thereafter will come Armageddon, the end of Satan, the Com42 Ibid., XII, 537-42. 43 Treatise, in Prose Works, IV, 484-85. 44 Ibid., IV, 486. munion with God in Heaven, the final carrying out of God's plans: .. there shall be no end of his kingdom, for ages of ages, until time itself shall be no longer, . . . until everything which his kingdom was intended to effect shall have been accomplished; . . . it will not pass away as insufficient for its purpose; it will not be destroyed, nor will its period be a period of dissolution, but rather of perfection and consummation, like the end of the law.45 The aims of God are attained, politics have come back to ontology, the cycle is over, the philosophy is complete. 45 Ibid., IV, 488. CHAPTER VI CONCLUSION: A GENERAL VIEW OF M I. PRINCIPLES ILTON'S chief ideas may be grouped under five heads: I. The idea of God as the un-manifested Infinite, in whom is the Son (Creator and Creation), in whom is Christ (the elect); II. The idea of free wills, liberated by the retraction of God, and the union of the idea of reason to the idea of liberty, which is an original proof of free will (intelligence is impossible without free will); III. The idea of Matter as good, imperishable and divine, a part of God himself from which all things issue spontaneously; so that there is no soul, and all beings are parts of God, arranged on an evolutionary scheme; IV. The idea of the duality of man: reason and passion; the necessity of the triumph of reason; the fall as the triumph of passion; V. The idea of liberty, based on the goodness of the normal being made of divine matter and on the presence in the elect of the Divine Intelligence. Of these five groups of ideas, the first and fifth seem to me to be interesting chiefly in view of an explanation of Milton's works; the second to contain an original and interesting conception of the necessity of liberty which has lost none of its interest; the third, to contain in germ a conception of the universe in full harmony with the views of science; the fourth, a view of human nature, deep, dramatic and valid, as founded on psychological experience. II. A SYSTEMATIC SCHEME, CHRONOLOGICALLY ARRANGED I. God: the latent Infinite, and also Perfect Being. Wisdom forms in him the plan of the World: destiny. II. Creation: the Son; primitive matter. The retraction of God; liberation of individual wills. Evolution of matter: things, animals, men. The Fall: triumph of passion over reason. III. The Second Creation: Christ-Intelligence; the Greater Man subdues passion incarnates in the elect, giving them (1) intelligence (2) triumph over passion, moral liberty philosophical political IV. Death: a cosmological incident; a total, but tem porary extinction, to wash away sin. V. Resurrection and final Perfection: Union of the Elect in God. III. A TRANSLATION INTO ABSTRACT VOCABULARY It has been said too often that Milton's subject was unfavorable to him, since the loss of religious beliefs has ruined the chief philosophical interest of his poem. This can in no way be accepted, since Milton's use of religious terms is a wide and philosophical one; and it is easy to translate his system into the more abstract vocabulary of |