(plates 12-13)
The prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel dined with me, and I asked them how theydared so roundly to assert that God spoke to them; and whatever they didnot think at the time that they would be so misunderstood,
& so be thecause of imposition. Isaiah answer'd: 'I saw no God, nor heard any, in afinite organical perception; but my senses discover'd the infinite inevery thing, and as I was then persuaded,
& remain confirm'd, that thevoice of honest indignation is the voice of God, I cared not forconsequences, but wrote. ' Then I asked: '
Does a firm perswasion that athing is so, make it so? ' He replied: ' All poets believe that it does,
&in ages of imagination this firm perswasion removed mountains; but manyare not capable of a firm perswasion of any thing. ' Then Ezekiel said:'
The philosophy of the east taught the first principles of humanperception: some nations held one principle for the origin,
& someanother; we Israel taught that the poetic genius (as you now call it) wasthe first principle and all the others merely derivative, which was thecause of our despising the priests & philosophers of other countries, andprophecying that all gods would at last be proved to originate in ours &to be tributaries of the poetic genius; it was this that our great poetking David desired so fervently & invokes so pathetic'ly, saying this heconquers enemies & governs kingdoms; and we so loved our God, that wecursed in his name all the deities of surrounding nations and assertedthat they had rebelled; from this opinions the vulgar came to thin thatall nations would at last be subjected to the Jews. '
This' he said 'likeall firm perswasions, is come to pass; for all nations belive the Jews'code and worship the Jews' God, and what the greater subjection can be? '
Iheard this with some wonder,
& must confess my own convivtion. After dinner
I ask'd Isaiah to favour the world with his lost works; he said none ofequal value was lost. Ezekiel the same of his. I also asked Isaiah whatmade him go naked and bare foot three years? He answer'd: '
The same thatmade our friend Diogenes, the Grecian. 'I then asked Ezekiel why he eatdung,
& lay so long on his right & left side? He answer'd '
The desire ofraising other men into perception of the infinite: this the North Americantribes practise,
& is he honest who resists his genius or conscience forthis sake of present ease or gratification? (plate 14) The ancienttradition that the world will be consumed in fire at the end of sixthousand years is true, as I have heard from hell. For the Cherub with hisflaming sword is hereby commanded to leave his guard at tree of life, andwhen he does, the whole creation will be consumed and appear infinite andholy, whereas it now appears finite & corrupt. This will come to pass byan improvement of sensual enjoyment, but first the notion that man has abody distinct from his soul is to be expunged; this I shall do by printingin the infernal method, by corrosives, which in hell are salutary and inmedicinal, melting apparent surfaces away, and displaying the infinitewhich was hid. If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing wouldappear to man as it is. Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till hesees things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern
|