But ah! beleeve me, there is more then so,
That workes such wonders in the minds of men.
I, that have often prov'd, too well it know;
And who so list the like assayes to ken
Shall find by tryall, and confesse it then,
That Beautie is not, as fond men misdeeme,
An outward shew of things that onely seeme.1

When, in his poetry, Milton touches upon imperfection, deformity, or ugliness, the same theory lies behind his words. This is evident in the colloquy between Michael and Adam, as together they look upon the suffering and sickness that have resulted from Eve's transgression in the Garden:

'Can thus

The image of God in man, created once
So goodly and erect, though faulty since,
To such unsightly sufferings be debased
Under inhuman pains? Why should not Man,
Retaining still divine similitude

In part, from such deformities be free,
And for his Maker's image' sake exempt?'
"Their Maker's image,' answered Michael, 'then
Forsook them, when themselves they vilified
To serve ungoverned appetite, and took

His image whom they served—a brutish vice,
Inductive mainly to the sin of Eve.
Therefore so abject is their punishment,
Disfiguring not God's likeness, but their own;
Or, if his likeness, by themselves defaced,
While they pervert pure Nature's healthful rules
To loathsome sickness—worthily, since they
God's image did not reverence in themselves.''

1An Hymn in Honor of Beauty 64–70, 85–91.
'P. L. 11. 504–522. Cf. Spenser, Faerie Queene 2. 9. 1.

The vivid and awful picture in the Tenth Book of Paradise Lost of the devastation wrought by sin more exhaustively treats the same theme. In the Argument, the poet briefly foreshadows such great events as follow, merely saying that God 'commands his angels to make several alterations in the Heavens and Elements.' It remains for the astonished reader to find that these 'alterations' are nothing less than the wrack and upheaval-the deforming of the world. Sin and Death have arrived in Paradise, and Sin has made known her purpose to infect man's thoughts, his words, his looks, his actions:

Which the Almighty seeing,

From His transcendent seat the Saints among,
To those bright Orders uttered thus his voice:
'See with what heat these dogs of Hell advance
To waste and havoc yonder World, which I

So fair and good created, and had still
Kept in that state, had not the folly of Man
Let in these wasteful furies, who impute
Folly to me (so doth the Prince of Hell

And his adherents), that with so much ease

I suffer them to enter and possess

A place so heavenly, and, conniving, seem

To gratify my scornful enemies,

That laugh, as if, transported with some fit

Of passion, I to them had quitted all,

At random yielded up to their misrule;

And know not that I called and drew them thither,

My Hell-hounds, to lick up the draff and filth

Which Man's polluting sin with taint hath shed

On what was pure; till, crammed and gorged, nigh burst
With sucked and glutted offal, at one sling

Of thy victorious arm, well-pleasing Son,

Both Sin and Death, and yawning Grave, at last

Through Chaos hurled, obstruct the mouth of Hell

For ever, and seal up his ravenous jaws.

Then Heaven and Earth, renewed, shall be made pure

To sanctity that shall receive no stain:

Till then the Curse pronounced on both precedes."1

As the curse is executed the very heavens are changed; the sun is taught to 'affect the earth with cold and heat scarce tolerable'; the planets to exert a 'noxious efficacy,' and the fixed stars an 'influence malignant'; the winds are bidden to confound with bluster, and the thunder to roll with terror:

These changes in the heavens, though slow, produced
Like change on sea and land-sidereal blast,

Vapor, and mist, and exhalation hot,

Corrupt and pestilent.

Thus began

Outrage from lifeless things; but Discord first,
Daughter of Sin, among the irrational

Death introduced through fierce antipathy.

Beast now with beast 'gan war, and fowl with fowl,
And fish with fish. To graze the herb all leaving
Devoured each other; nor stood much in awe

Of Man, but fled him, or with countenance grim
Glared on him passing."

Sin had, indeed, done no less than deform the entire worldorder; in Milton's philosophy the substitution of an evil for a good spirit could not have resulted otherwise.

Clearly Milton's concept of form related itself to all his impressions, and bore upon all his judgments. Yet his customary reliance upon it in no way dulled its suggestiveness. The concept explained and enriched life as he saw

1P. L. 10. 613-640.

'P. L. 10. 692-695, 706-714. This passage may be contrasted with descriptions of the Garden of Eden before the spirit of evil had perverted the beneficent ends of nature.

it immediately about him, or contemplated it through the eyes of the past. It ennobled beauty, and furnished the touchstone for virtue; and it pitilessly laid bare crudity and affectation, and searched out pretension, hypocrisy, and guilt. In short, it so animated his deepest imagination that in his poetry, as perhaps the sagest thing he could teach, it lies at the heart of his message.

At the opening of Book Three in Paradise Lost the concept receives consummate expression. Here 'form' no longer is the purpose that shapes, or the soul that inhabits, this or that particular body, but the spirit that, having its effluence from God, produces His created universe. Availing himself of the associations of Biblical usage, and probably inspired by the Neoplatonists and Dante, Milton now calls this essential spirit light, and identifies light, form, and essence. In order to understand the poetical renderings of the idea, and perhaps even in order to recognize them, the following passages from Paradise Lost, the first already mentioned as opening Book Three, the second appearing toward its close, and the last from Book Seven, cannot be too thoughtfully read:

Hail, holy Light, offspring of Heaven first-born!
Or of the Eternal coeternal beam

May I express thee unblamed? since God is light,
And never but in unapproachèd light
Dwelt from eternity-dwelt then in thee,
Bright effluence of bright essence increate!
Or hear'st thou rather pure ethereal stream,
Whose fountain who shall tell? Before the Sun,
Before the Heavens, thou wert, and at the voice
Of God, as with a mantle, didst invest

The rising world of waters dark and deep,
Won from the void and formless Infinite.1

'P. L. 3. 1-12.

I saw when, at His word, the formless mass,
This World's material mold, came to a heap:
Confusion heard His voice, and wild Uproar
Stood ruled, stood vast Infinitude confined;
Till, at His second bidding, Darkness fled,
Light shone, and order from disorder sprung.
Swift to their several quarters hasted then
The cumbrous elements-Earth, Flood, Air, Fire-
And this ethereal quintessence of Heaven
Flew upward, spirited with various forms,
That rolled orbicular, and turned to stars
Numberless.1

'Let there be light!' said God; and forthwith light
Ethereal, first of things, quintessence pure

Sprung from the deep.❜

To the imagination of Milton, then, light is the manifestation of the heavenly spirit, the first of things, the quintessence pure, the bright effluence of bright essence increate. Since light emanates from Divinity, it carries with it wisdom and holiness; and the progress of all forms toward perfection is made evident by their capacity to receive light. In these lines, with their vivid directness and beauty, we have the classic expression of Milton's belief in the interrelation of essential and visible condition.

The appropriate words in a concordance of Milton's poetry will show how often terms relating to light and darkness appear in his verse. Yet it is not the frequency of the words that is so remarkable. Other poets have loved light, as other concordances would show; but no one else, unless it is Saint John the divine, has put his love of light quite so completely into the service of an abstract concept. On this 1P. L. 3. 708-719.

2P. L. 7. 243-245.