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 liberty philosophical political IV. Death: a cosmological incident; a total, but temporary 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 nineteenth-century absolutism, which is the philosophy his is most akin to. This can be done from two equivalences: for Milton, all beings are parts of God; and Christ is Intelligence in the elect. Thus we have: In abstract language In Milton's language God to express its latent possibili- the eternal plan of Wisdom Infinite Being ties forms Finite Being. the Son But its freed possibilities pre the Fall vent its self mastery, until, in the course of its evo the Elect Christ lution in its highest creatures, appears Intelligence, which dominates passions and makes them good. Beings thus made perfect unite into a Communion, which incorporates into the Infinite Being. Thus the General Being has chosen, among its possibilities, those it wanted to express and made them conscious, casting the others out of Itself. regeneration Christian liberty the Communion of Saints Resurrection Final Perfection Hell |