We have seen how this is worked out
by Boehme, and that the central point of his philosophy is that all
manifestation necessitates opposition. In like manner, Blake's
statement, "Without Contraries is no progression," is, in truth, the
keynote to all his vision and mythology.
Attraction and Repulsion, Benson and Energy, Love and Hate, are
necessary to Human existence.
From these contraries spring what the religious call Good and Evil.
Good is the passive that obeys Reason. Evil is the active springing
from Energy. Good is Heaven. Evil is Hell.
With these startling remarks Blake opens what is the most intelligible
and concise of all the prophetic books, _The Marriage of Heaven and
Hell_. Swinburne calls it the greatest of Blake's books, and ranks it as
about the greatest work "produced by the eighteenth century in the line
of high poetry and spiritual speculation." We may think Swinburne's
praise excessive, but at any rate it is well worth reading (_Essay on
Blake_, 1906 edn., pp. 226-252). Certainly, if one work had to be
selected as representative of Blake, as containing his most
characteristic doctrines clothed in striking form, this is the book to
be chosen.
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