So that his symbols
are at times no longer true and living, but artificial and confused.
Blake has visions, though clouded and imperfect, of the clashing of
systems, the birth and death of universes, the origin and meaning of
good and evil, the function and secret correspondences of spirits, of
states, of emotions, of passions, and of senses, as well as of all forms
in earth and sky and sea. This, and much more, he attempts to clothe in
concrete forms or symbols, and if he fails at times to be explicit, it
is conceivable that the fault may lie as much with our density as with
his obscurity. Indeed, when we speak of Blake's obscurity, we are
uncomfortably reminded of Crabb Robinson's naive remark when recording
Blake's admiration for Wordsworth's _Immortality Ode_: "The parts ...
which Blake most enjoyed were the most obscure--at all events, those
which I least like and comprehend."
Blake's view of good and evil is the characteristically mystical one, in
his case much emphasised. The really profound mystical thinker has no
fear of evil, for he cannot exclude it from the one divine origin, else
the world would be no longer a unity but a duality. This difficulty of
"good" and "evil," the crux of all philosophy, has been approached by
mystical thinkers in various ways (such as that evil is illusion, which
seems to be Browning's view), but the boldest of them, and notably Blake
and Boehme, have attacked the problem directly, and carrying mystical
thought to its logical conclusion, have unhesitatingly asserted that God
is the origin of Good and Evil alike, that God and the devil, in short,
are but two sides of the same Force.
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