These two beliefs, the one based on
science, though still wanting the calculation which Newton was to
supply to make it demonstrative, the other supported by the tradition
of ages, were, at the time we speak of, in presence of each other in
the public mind. They are in presence of each other also in Milton's
epic. And the systems confront each other in the poem, in much the
same relative position which they occupied in the mind of the public.
The ordinary, habitual mode of speaking of celestial phenomena is
Ptolemaic (see _Paradise Lost_, vii. 339; iii. 481). The conscious,
or doctrinal, exposition of the same phenomena is Copernican (see
_Paradise Lost_, viii. 122). Sharp as is the contrast between the two
systems, the one being the direct contradictory of the other, they are
lodged together, not harmonised, within the vast circuit of the poet's
imagination. The precise mechanism of an object so little as is
our world in comparison with the immense totality may be justly
disregarded. "De minimis non curat poeta." In the universe of being
the difference between a heliocentric and a geocentric theory of our
solar system is of as small moment, as the reconcilement of fixed
fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute is in the realm of absolute
intelligence.
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