T CHAPTER III PSYCHOLOGY AND ETHICS HE conception of the Fall comes into Milton's cosmology as disturbing the order established by God. In Milton's psychology, the Fall is the dominant conception, and this part of our study will be an analysis of the state of Fall and of the normal or regenerated state opposed to it. Milton's conception of man- and his consequent conception of ethics - are organized around these two ideas. I. THE ORIGIN OF EVIL AND THE DUALITY OF MAN The origin of evil is a redoubtable problem for the deist, and still more for the pantheistic deist, Milton. For everything comes from God. Therefore Milton dared to say: Evil into the mind of God or man May come and go, so unapproved, and leave No spot or blame behind.1 Evil exists as a possibility in God himself. This allows us to understand that when God "retires," abandons certain parts of himself to their latent impulses, evil is expressed, owing to free will. What does this "evil" consist in? The study of the Fall teaches us that for Milton man is a double being, in whom co-exist desire and intelligence or passion and reason. The two powers ought to be in 1 P. L., V, 117-19. harmonious equilibrium, desire being normally expressed, but remaining under the leadership of reason. Evil appears, the Fall takes place, when passion triumphs over reason. in: II. THE FALL A. The Fall in general: the triumph of passion over reason Michael explains thus to Adam what the Fall consists Since thy original lapse, true liberty Is lost, which always with right reason dwells Immediately inordinate desires And upstart passions catch the government Man till then free.2 Passion triumphant over reason—such is the source of all evil: moral evil, physical evil (the consequence of moral evil), and political evil. That is what Milton calls "evil concupiscence." The state of Fall is thus analyzed: 3 They sat them down to weep; nor only tears And full of peace, now tost and turbulent: Heard not her lore, both in subjection now Before the Fall, Raphael had warned Adam: 2 P. L., XII, 83-90. 3 Treatise, IV, 259. "should be links 4P. L., IX, 21-31. 1121-1131 take heed lest passion sway Thy judgment to do ought which else free will Would not admit." The dualism so clearly marked in the poems, of which it constitutes the symbolic basis (the Son being Reason, and Satan Passion), plays an equally important part in the prose works, in which Milton applies it to politics. It is a principle which had slowly crystallized through his private and public experience into the very essence of his thought. From it endless consequences extend into all the regions of his philosophy. 6 Milton thus addresses his contemporaries: Unless you will subjugate the propensity to avarice, to ambition, and sensuality, and expell all luxury from yourselves and your families, you will find that you have cherished a more stubborn and intractable despot at home, than you ever encountered in the field. . . . You, therefore, who wish to remain free, either instantly be wise, or, as soon as possible, cease to be fools; if you think slavery an intolerable evil, learn obedience to reason and the government of yourselves. . . 7 And the first pamphlet against monarchy begins as follows: If men within themselves would be governed by reason, and not generally give up their understanding to a double tyranny, of custom from without, and blind affections within, they would discern better what it is to favour and uphold the tyrant of a nation. But, being slaves within doors, no wonder that they strive so much to have the public state conformably governed to the inward vicious rule by which they govern themselves. For, indeed, none 5 Ibid., VIII, 635-37. • This, I must repeat, is in no way in contradiction with the fact that the idea existed outside him, before it came to him, in authors whom he knew perfectly well. Every thinker has to rediscover for himself truths which belong to all, and there is all the difference between an idea thus adopted through personal experience, and one borrowed merely to fill up a gap in mental equipment. Second Defence, in Prose Works, I, 295, 299. can love freedom heartily but good men; the rest love not freedom but licence, which never hath more scope, or more indulgence than under tyrants. Hence is it that tyrants are not oft offended, nor stand much in doubt of bad men, as being all naturally servile. 8 In the story of the Fall, the theory applies to Adam. Adam has been carried away, against his reason, by his passion for Eve: Against his better knowledge, not deceived, But with this "female charm," we come to a group of ideas which played a capital part in Milton's thought, because they came to him from the most painful experience of his own life.10 B. The Fall in particular: sensuality The first consequence of the Fall is sensuality, which becomes, so to speak, the characteristic trait of the state of Fall. Milton in this follows Augustine: They felt a new motion in their flesh, which had become rebellious as a consequence of their own rebellion. .. Then it was that the flesh began to covet against the spirit. of concupiscence is the consequence of Sin." 11 The motion So Milton describes the first effect of the forbidden fruit, which he looks upon as an aphrodisiac: They swim in mirth, and fancy that they feel Divinity within them breeding wings Wherewith to scorn the earth. But that false fruit Far other operation first display'd, 8 Ibid., II, 2. 9 P. L., IX, 998-99. Eve's case is quite as plain. See below, pp. 159 ff. 10 See above, pp. 49 ff. 11 De civitate Dei, XIII-XIV. Carnal desire inflaming: he on Eve But come! so well refresh'd, now let us play, So said he, and forbore not glance or toy And hyacinth, earth's freshest softest lap. 12 Oppress'd them, weary'd with their amorous play.12 This is the very perfection of the Fall. The proof is that their knowledge of good and evil does not come to them after the eating of the apple, but after the sensual crisis. The first knowledge is sexual shame: As from unrest, and each the other viewing, Soon found their eyes how open'd, and their minds N.B. |