I. Man’s perceptions are not bounded by organs of perception; he percieves more than sense (tho’ ever so acute) can discover.
II. Reason, or the ratio of all we have already known, is not the same that it shall be when we know more.
[III lacking]
IV. The bounded is loathed by its possessor. The same dull round even of a universe would soon become a mill with complicated wheels.
V. If the many become the same as the few when possess’d, More! More! is the cry of a mistaken soul. Less than All cannot satisfy Man.
VI. If any could desire what he is incapable of possessing, despair must be his eternal lot.
VII. The desire of Man being Infinite, the possession is Infinite & himself Infinite.
Application. He who sees the Infinite in all things sees God. He who sees the Ratio only sees himself only.
Conclusion. If it were not for the Poetic or Prophetic character the Philosophic & Experimental would soon be at the ratio of all things, & stand still unable to do other than repeat the same dull round over again.
Therefore God becomes as we are, that we may be as he is.
-William Blake
II. Reason, or the ratio of all we have already known, is not the same that it shall be when we know more.
[III lacking]
IV. The bounded is loathed by its possessor. The same dull round even of a universe would soon become a mill with complicated wheels.
V. If the many become the same as the few when possess’d, More! More! is the cry of a mistaken soul. Less than All cannot satisfy Man.
VI. If any could desire what he is incapable of possessing, despair must be his eternal lot.
VII. The desire of Man being Infinite, the possession is Infinite & himself Infinite.
Application. He who sees the Infinite in all things sees God. He who sees the Ratio only sees himself only.
Conclusion. If it were not for the Poetic or Prophetic character the Philosophic & Experimental would soon be at the ratio of all things, & stand still unable to do other than repeat the same dull round over again.
Therefore God becomes as we are, that we may be as he is.
-William Blake
In 1788 he wrote this, & you can still just repeat this verbatim to the Rationalists & they will turn to stone.
What struck me this time was this:
"V. If the many become the same as the few when possess’d, More! More! is the cry of a mistaken soul. Less than All cannot satisfy Man."
If the many become the same as the few (ie: bourgeois class consciousness) -- for wanting simply "more"-- this would be a mistake-- less than all cannot satisfy man, man in his totality, or in his species-being as Marx/Engels might put it. This is very simply the communist manifesto-- the following possession being infinite, desire being infinite, man himself infinite, then Man is becoming-God-- communism is, herein, the same thing as theosis.
Athanasius of Alexandria wrote, "He was incarnate that we might be made god" (Αὐτὸς γὰρ ἐνηνθρώπησεν, ἵνα ἡμεῖς θεοποιηθῶμεν
William Blake wrote: God becomes as we are, that we may be as he is.
"V. If the many become the same as the few when possess’d, More! More! is the cry of a mistaken soul. Less than All cannot satisfy Man."
If the many become the same as the few (ie: bourgeois class consciousness) -- for wanting simply "more"-- this would be a mistake-- less than all cannot satisfy man, man in his totality, or in his species-being as Marx/Engels might put it. This is very simply the communist manifesto-- the following possession being infinite, desire being infinite, man himself infinite, then Man is becoming-God-- communism is, herein, the same thing as theosis.
Athanasius of Alexandria wrote, "He was incarnate that we might be made god" (Αὐτὸς γὰρ ἐνηνθρώπησεν, ἵνα ἡμεῖς θεοποιηθῶμεν
William Blake wrote: God becomes as we are, that we may be as he is.
It's really through Christian Mysticism that Protestantism was able to override the "rationalism" of Catholic theology. This is objective material historical fact. The philosophy of Marx is determined by the philosophy of Hegel who in turn simply translated Christian mysticism into the philosophical vocabulary of the enlightenment-- the move Marx would make with "enlightenment political economy" later. A mysticism made "active" in a project is what is able to overcome the intractable gap of fideistic quietism-- or "the mysticism of silence"-- for Hegel this was activity in governing the State-- for Marx it is the establishment of the revolutionary State. Communism is "very much like a religion" because that's it's origin-- it is the "riddle of history solved"-- the actually materially applied methodology of a "divinized community"-- communism is practiced amongst the monastic christian mystics-- but they do not "go down to the people"-- as once they do, they are no longer "merely christians"-- they are "heretical communists" etc
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