If others had not been foolish. we should be so. The soul of sweet delight. can never be defil'd,
When thou seest an Eagle, thou seest a portion of Genius lift up As the catterpiller chooses the fairest leaves to lay her eggs on, lays his curse on the fairest joys.
To create a little flower is the labour of ages.
Damn. braces: Bless relaxes.
The best wine is the oldest. the best water the newest. Prayers plow not! Praises reap not! Joys laugh not! Sorrows weep not!
The head Sublime, the heart Pathos, the genitals Beauty, the hands Proportion.
As the air to a bird or the sea to a fish, so is contempt to the The crow wish'd every thing was black, the owl, that every thing
Exuberance is Beauty.
If the lion was advised by the fox. he would be cunning.
Improvement makes strait roads, but the crooked roads without Improvement, are roads of Genius. t148
Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires
Where man is not nature is barren.
Truth can never be told so as to be understood, and not be
Enough! or Too much
The ancient Poets animated all sensible objects with Gods or Geniuses calling them by the names and adorning them with the properties of woods, rivers, mountains, lakes, cities, nations, and whatever their enlarged numerous senses could percieve. And particularly they studied the genius of each city country. placing it under its mental deity. Till a system was formed, which some took advantage of enslav'd the vulgar by attempting to realize or abstract the mental deities from their objects: thus began Priesthood. Choosing forms of worship from poetic tales. And at length they pronounced that the Gods had orderd such things. Thus men forgot that All deities reside in the human breast.
A Memorable Fancy.
The Prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel dined with me, and I asked them how they dared so roundly to assert. that God spake to them; and whether they did not think at the time, that they would be misunderstood, so be the cause of imposition. Isaiah answer'd. I saw no God. nor heard any, in a finite organical perception; but my senses discover'd the infinite in every thing, and as I was then perswaded. remain confirm'd; that the voice of honest indignation is the voice of God, I cared not for consequences but wrote. Then I asked: does a firm perswasion that a thing is so, make it He replied. All poets believe that it does, in ages of
this firm perswasion removed mountains; but many are not capable of a firm perswasion of any thing. Then Ezekiel said. The philosophy of the east taught the first principles of human perception some nations held one principle for the origin some another, we of Israel taught that the Poetic Genius (as you now call it) was the first principle and all the others merely derivative, which was the cause of our despising the Priests Philosophers of other countries, and propheying that all Gods would at last be proved. to originate in ours to be the tributaries of the Poetic Genius, it was this. that our great poet King David desired so fervently invokes so patheticly, saying by this he conquers enemies governs kingdoms; and we so loved our God. that we cursed in his name all the deities of surrounding nations, and asserted that they had rebelled; from these opinions the vulgar came to think that all nations would at last be subject to the jews. This said he, like all firm perswasions, is come to pass, for all nations believe the jews code and worship the jews god, and what greater subjection can be I heard this with some wonder, must confess my own conviction. After dinner I ask'd Isaiah to favour the world with his lost works, he said none of equal value was lost. Ezekiel said the same of his. I also asked Isaiah what made him go naked and barefoot three years? he answerd, the same that made our friend Diogenes the I then asked Ezekiel. why he eat dung, lay so long on his right left side? he answerd. the desire of raising other men into a perception of the infinite this the North American tribes practise. is he honest who resists his genius or conscience. only for the sake of present ease or gratification? The ancient tradition that the world will be consumed in fire at the end of six thousand years is true. as I have heard from For the cherub with his flaming sword is hereby commanded to leave his guard at the tree of life, and when he does, the whole creation will be consumed, and appear infinite. and holy whereas it now appears finite corrupt. This will come to pass by a improvement of sensual enjoyment. But first the notion that man has a body distinct from his soul, is to be expunged; this I shall do, by printing in the infernal method, by corrosives, which in Hell are salutary and medicinal, melting apparent surfaces away, and displaying the infinite which was hid. If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is: infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern.
