No decree of mine

Concurring to necessitate his fall,

Or touch with lightest moment of impulse
His free will, to her own inclining left

In even scale. But fall'n he is. . . . 70

But the power of God goes beyond all free wills: he directs the laws which move events and destiny which is over all; in reality, no law binds God whose will is always done:

Yet more there be who doubt His ways not just,
And to His own edicts found contradicting,
Then give the reins to wand'ring thought,
Regardless of His glory's diminution;
Till, by their own perplexities involved,
They ravel more, still less resolved,
But never find self-satisfying solution.

As if they would confine th' interminable,
And tie Him to His own prescript,

Who made our laws to bind us, not Himself.71

Thus God has used evil, has used even Satan:

Of God all-seeing, or deceive His heart

Omniscient, Who, in all things wise and just,
Hinder'd not Satan to attempt the mind

Of man.72

99 73

Thus does God deal justice on earth, through the course of history, to men and nations. Therefore Blake was able to say: . . . in Milton, the Father is Destiny.' That is why Adam, when the plans of God are revealed to him in the end, after having seen all the evil, crime,

70 Ibid., X, 43-47. Cf. Sumner's notes (Prose Works, IV, 33-70), in which he has gathered all the passages from the poems where traces of the doctrine are found.

71 Samson Agonistes, 11. 300-09.

72 P. L., X, 5-9.

73 The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, in Poetical Works, ed. Sampson (Oxford, 1914), p. 249.

and suffering that are to be, understands the will of God, and cries:

O goodness infinite! goodness immense!

That all this good of evil shall produce,

And evil turn to good! more wonderful

Than that which by creation first brought forth

Light out of darkness! Full of doubt I stand,

Whether I should repent me now of sin,

By me done and occasion'd; or rejoice

Much more, that much more good thereof shall spring,

To God more glory."

This is one of the most important passages of Paradise Lost, the conclusion of the twelve books, the answer to the first problem:

To justify the ways of God to men.

And this leads us to the problem which takes us from ontology to cosmology, to the boldest question of the human mind: what were the aims of creation? We have seen how God created the world by withdrawing from beings and giving them freedom. But why did He create it?

V. THE AIMS OF CREATION

Milton, as is fit, is very reserved on this subject, and expresses himself in terms carefully vague and general. He always thought that some things are beyond the human mind, and this is one of them.

He is sure that God had aims. Here is the conclusion of the De doctrina, where the ultimate results of the epic adventure of Creation are thus summed up:

I reply, there shall be no end of his kingdom, for ages of ages, ... until time itself shall be no longer, . . . until every thing which his kingdom was intended to effect shall have been accom

74 P. L., XII, 469–77.

plished;

...

.. [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. . . .75

There were, therefore, plans to be fulfilled, plans that were shaped before the Creation, by Eternal Wisdom playing before the Supreme. Milton devotes sublime passages to the state of the Deity before Creation:

God himself conceals us not his own recreations before the world was built: "I was," saith the Eternal Wisdom, "daily his delight, playing always before him." And to him, indeed, wisdom is as a high tower of pleasure, but to us a steep hill, and we toiling ever about the bottom. He executes with ease the exploits of his omnipotence... 76

Before the hills appear'd, or fountain flowed,

Thou [Urania] with eternal Wisdom didst converse,
Wisdom thy sister, and with her didst play

In presence of th' Almighty Father, pleased
With thy celestial song."

It was during this divine play that the plans of the world were made. We shall see later the connotations of the two passages, and what direction of Milton's thought towards the more abstruse secrets of occultism they reveal.78

More precise ideas can be obtained if we consider the results of creation: the perfect and harmonious life of the Communion of the Saints in God."9 God has drawn from himself a perfectly organized society of free spirits, an expression of and a witness to his glory ("To God more glory," says Adam). Evil, Sin, Suffering, end in this.

75 Treatise, IV, 488.

76 Tetrachordon, in Prose Works, III, 331.
77 P. L., VII, 8–12.

78 See below, pp. 291-92.

79 See below, Part II, Ch. IV.

There existed in the Infinite a sort of latent life which God has liberated, given over to its own forces, and which developed and expressed itself, in the good towards joy eternal, in the evil towards pain eternal. God has intensified his own existence, raising to glory the good parts of himself, casting outside of himself the evil parts of himself too, because

Evil into the mind of God or man

May come and go. . . .8

80

Terrible words, applied to God; and Satan confirms them with his "The Son of God I also am." 81 For God is the One Being, and all is in him.

This is as near as we can get to Milton's idea of God's aims: to drive away the evil latent in the Infinite, to exalt the good latent also.

Nor was Milton alone in such thoughts. The Kabbalists give dark hints of an evil side to their unfathomable God, and we shall see that Milton had drunk, and possibly drunk deeply, of the Kabbalah.

80 P. L., V, 117-18.

81 P. R., IV, 518.

G

CHAPTER II

COSMOLOGY

I. THE SON

OD being the Unmanifest Absolute, the Son is the Real, the Relative, the First Creature, the Creator of the World. It will be evident from Milton's conception of matter that this First Creature comprehends all others. The Son is the Spirit of God manifested in the Cosmos. He has created all things, but by drawing them from himself; matter is "of him." So he is not only the Creator but also the Creation: all that is, is a part of Him, vivified by his divine force, a free fragment of the Total Being, remaining Him by its quality and its destiny.

Such is the essential idea of Milton's cosmology.

II. THE HOLY SPIRIT

The Holy Spirit is somewhat of a supernumerary in Milton's system. Milton dare not deny his existence, but he has no precise place to give him; so he more or less tolerates him, although he has no great belief in him. He seems in a hesitating mood as he begins his Chapter VI of the De doctrina and sees the unavoidable question looming up:

Having concluded what relates to the Father and the Son, the next subject to be discussed is that of the Holy Spirit... With regard to the nature of the Spirit, in what manner it exists, or whence it arose, Scripture is silent; which is a caution to us not to be too hasty in our conclusions on the subject.1

1 Prose Works, IV, 150-51.