Politics, the crowning doctrine of Milton's thought, which is for him the study of man's destiny on earth. In politics lies the great problem of Milton's thought, the aim of which is essentially "To justify the ways of God to men"; that is to say, to show that destiny is not blind, but just. Through his passionate study of destiny, Milton takes his place among the great searchers of mankind, who, from Eschylus to Hugo, have looked the problem of evil in the face, have asked the question which all religions and all philosophies try to answer: what is destiny? This is the very revolt of that thinking reed of Pascal's, knowing that the universe is crushing him, and calling the universe to account. Milton has tried to answer that question. In the measure in which the solution he proposes is human and universal, and not merely peculiar to one time or one sect, but grounded on elements that are truly alive in all men, Milton's philosophy is valid for mankind in general. The classification I propose follows in a general way the course of the De doctrina, in which Milton deals first with God and his decree (Chapters I to IV), which is his ontology; then with creation through the Son (V to X), which is his cosmology; then with the Fall and its consequences (XI to XIII), which is his psychology; then with regeneration (XIV and following), which is his religion. This last part gets entangled in interminable theology, of little interest. Milton's theory of politics, which applies the foregoing to the events of this world, is found in all his works, peeping through at any moment in the De doctrina, and forming the very basis of the poems and whatever substance there is in the polemical tracts. M CHAPTER I ONTOLOGY I. THE ABSOLUTE ILTON'S God is far from the God of popular belief or even orthodox theology. He is, prop erly speaking, identical with the Absolute of nineteenth-century philosophy. He is no Creator external to his Creation, but Total and Perfect Being, which includes in himself the whole of space and the whole of time. Therefore Milton's doctrine of God is rather to be called an Ontology than a Theology. Milton, in order to express his ideas, makes use here of ordinary expressions to which he gives as the rest of his system shows a larger meaning than theologians. God includes the whole of space. Among his attributes are" immensity and infinity,"1 and consequently omnipresence." This commonplace idea of omnipresence ✓ will become for Milton a basis for pantheism. God is everywhere because God is everything. 2 Running through the whole of the De doctrina - and in this it is still a poet's work there is the fierce joy of the iconoclast, a well-nigh juvenile jubilation, under the stiff sentences and accumulated texts, in the destruction 1 Treatise of Christian Doctrine, in Prose Works, IV, 22. I use Bishop Sumner's translation and adopt most of his interpretations. Sumner's work has been done in a most competent manner. His poor opinion of Milton as a theologian — which is perfectly justified, and which Milton would have taken as a compliment has never prevented him from seeing Milton's meaning, and his adverse commentaries make Milton's position extremely clear. 2 Ibid., IV, 24. of orthodox ideas, in the ardor of turning on the theologians the tables of their own definitions. This work, which seems theological and frigid, is in reality a passionate attack against the whole line of theology, an attack in which Milton puts the whole concentrated fire of the personal pamphlets. We must remember, as we labor ✓ through this work, Milton's hatred of the clergy and all "clerical" work: "school divinity, the idle sophistry of monks, the canker of religion," as he calls it. The contrast between these passionate feelings and the passionless geometrical style he has forced himself to adopt, puts a sort of jubilant hypocrisy in the most apparently anodyne remarks. Like Blake, Milton might say to his adversary: Both read the Bible day and night But thou read'st black when I read white. 9 3 Thus Milton adds to his definition of omnipresence: "Our thoughts of the omnipresence of God, whatever may be the nature of the attributes, should be such as appear most suitable to the reverence due to the Deity.' Who dares deny it? But here is the chief of the attributes, and here is a thought "most suitable to the reverence due ": Matter is a part of God, and the qualities of matter are so wonderful that therein lies one of the chief glories of God. "It is an argument of supreme power and goodness that such diversified, multiform, and inexhaustible virtue should exist and be substantially inherent in God. . . . For the original matter of which we speak is... intrinsically good and the chief productive stock of every subsequent good." Thus "reverence due 3 Ibid., IV, 24. Ibid., IV, 179. See below (pp. 136-37) for the whole important passage. to the Deity" is made into a weapon against orthodoxy, and in favor of pantheism. Paradise Lost identifies God with the primitive infinite abyss from which the world is to rise. God addresses the Son-Creator: Ride forth and bid the deep Within appointed bounds be heav'n and earth; Boundless the deep, because I am who fill Infinitude; nor vacuous the space— 5 because God fills it at all points. And even as God comprehends the whole of space, so the whole of time is in Him; from all eternity, he has willed the whole of Being, has it completely present in Himself: ... he knows beforehand the thoughts and actions of free agents as yet unborn, and many ages before those thoughts or actions have their origin. . . . ... God's general decree is that whereby he has decreed from all eternity of his own most free and wise and holy purpose, whatever he himself willed, or was about to do. . . . .. according to his perfect foreknowledge of all things that were to be created. . . . ... For the foreknowledge of God is nothing but the wisdom of God, under another name, or that idea of every thing which he had in his mind, to use the language of men, before he decreed anything. Hence these curious passages in Paradise Lost: . . in a moment will create Another world, out of one man a race Immediate are the acts of God, more swift Paradise Lost, VII, 166–69. • Treatise, in Prose Works, IV, 27-31. 7 P. L., VII, 154–56. ކ . Bishop Newton, the best qualified and the most precise of Milton's critics from the theological point of view (leaving Sumner aside), thus comments upon this passage, and he is fully borne out by the De doctrina, which was unknown to him: Milton seems to favor the opinion of some divines, that God's creation was instantaneous, but the effects of it were made visible and appeared in six days, in condescension to the capacities of angels, and is so narrated by Moses, in condescension to the capacities of men. The world exists potentially in God, from all Eternity, and God only reveals it gradually to his creatures. God, being the Absolute, is necessarily immutable. The immutability of God has an immediate connection with the last attribute [eternity]."" A Being infinitely wise and good would neither wish to change an infinitely "good state for another, nor would be able to change it without contradicting his own attributes." 10 The only principle which allows human reason to venture into the study of God is this same principle of non-contradiction: It must be remembered, . . . that the power of God is not exerted in things which imply a contradiction." "1 "He can do nothing which involves a contradiction." 12 Milton uses this idea frequently; for instance, to prove that "God is not able to annihilate anything altogether, because by creating nothing he would create and not create at the same time, which involves contradiction." 13 The same principle proves the Unity of God, which is incompatible with plurality, and therefore with Trinity." There is no room for "mysteries" in Milton's philosophy. |