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...he Chimney Sweeper? 10-12) Now, although there was, in the legacy of the Enlightenment, a cynicism towards organised religion, there was nevertheless an increase in religious practice amongst all social classes in the eighteenth-century. And, also, the virtue of Christian morality was never in question. Observation of religious practices and Christian morality endowed the middle classes with a sense of self-worth. It was a method of achieving nobility without a title, since they reasoned that it was not in status, but in virtuousness that nobility resided. We can see these views propagated and reflected in the work of Jane Austen. There was a move to instil these middle class sensibilities into the working class, and John Wesley (1703-1791) preached a populist sermon on the equality of man before God. He aimed to teach the working class of the virtues of abstinence from vice, and the propriety of hard work. There was a move in the Church of England to indoctrinate the workers-especially children, with Sunday schools where food was provided for the poor. Of course, under this guise of do-gooding, the real achievement of this all was to teach subservience, and respect for one’s social superiors. Blake’s Songs of Experience really do pose a challenge to all the middle classes hold as virtuous, and what they consider to be the underpinning of all society. They expose the rottenness of imposing a set of rules upon a class of people, which have the effect of robbing them of any little pleasure they might have in an already tough life. The Little Vagabond makes light of this point in his endearing wish that ‘the Church?would give us some Ale,/ And a pleasant fire, our souls to regale…’ (‘The Little Vagabond? 5-6), but it is a poignant exclamation of the vile cultural imperialism to which they are subjected. Blake returns to the point in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, when he states ‘One Law for the Lion and Ox is Oppression,?(Plate 24) and in the ‘Proverbs of Hell? ‘The apple tree never asks the beech how he shall grow, nor the lion the horse how he shall take his prey.?(50) Although the language used throughout the Songs is one of innocent sentimentality, and one that encourages sympathy and pity (the most challenging of these in ‘London? where Blake would have the reader feel pity for a prostitute), ‘The Human Abstract?puts forth that it is not the pity of the reader he wishes for. Pity would be no more, If we did not make somebody Poor: And Mercy would no more be, If all were happy as we; (1-4) Pity and mercy, it is suggested, are inventions of the rich to affirm their position in society. How could they be bad people if they feel such compassion for those worse off? In fact, they reason, it is precisely because they have such a capacity for human emotion and virtuous thoughts that they are above the common, vulgar classes. It is in these ways that Blake subtly challenges religious ideology, aiming to persuade and influence the reader, rather than engaging in an indignant, all out attack on conventional sensibility. I think that a problem with Blake’s work, here particularly The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, is that it is hard to criticise it. Apart from his apocalyptic use of language, and his persistent abstinence from any elucidation of ideas so that any intended meaning of his is always questionable, he includes many Freudian loopholes that ensure he cannot be proven wrong. When he states that ‘a fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees,?(‘Proverbs of Hell? 8) he is surely saying that if his work looks, to you, madness then it could be you are a fool. And, ‘Listen to the fool’s reproach! It is a kingly title!?(47) While definitely having a elements of truth in these observations, if we consider them as a defence of his work, this surely rings of Emperor’s New Clothes Syndrome, does it not? This is, then, perhaps Blake’s most challenging proposition, since it cannot be reasoned with and requires a blind faith and firm persuasion that you are the wise man and not the fool. It is impossible to tell, other than by being judged against common-sense, since ‘Man by his reasoning power can only compare & judge of what he has already perciev’d.?But it is this type of perception that Blake challenges. So, it can be seen that this is a very difficult idea to reconcile with modern thought, one that requires we give ourselves up entirely to a belief that cannot be proven. That is, a religious belief. Blake obviously does not see this as similar to the blind faith and received truths of the church, because it is blind faith in our own imagination that he stresses-not acceptance of others?beliefs. I cannot put faith in something that can never be proven or disproved, and see such behaviour as leading only to insanity. Again, Blake’s argument is such that this statement can be turned against me. Perhaps some argument can be made against Blake on the grounds that imagination is definitely organic, and of the body, and is in no way a portal to the infinite universe, which I believe, though I cannot give this argument. In There is No Natural Religion, Blake dismisses that idea, still beloved by many today, of common sense. He recognises that morality is not absolute truth, but received in education-this coming from the church-and tells us that ‘Reason, or the ratio of what we have already known is not the same that it shall be when we know more,?(b, II) so, that which seems reasonable today may not tomorrow. Slavery, of course, is a good example. He persuasively argues that we cannot rely on our five bodily senses, on the grounds that: if we did not have, for example, a sense of smell, we would never know of the existence of smell; it does not follow that because we cannot sense it, it does not exist. This is challenging in its implications, yet perfectly valid. He goes on to state that since men are capable of experience other than the purely physical, that is, spiritual, then perception must not and is not limited to (bounded by) that of the five senses. Imagination is the perception of infinite capacity, and ‘He who sees the Infinite in all things sees God.?(Application, p. 15) This is the idea Blake would expand on greatly in The Marriage. Blake begins his Argument with a bold statement: that, in the traditional sense at least, there is no Good and Evil; these terms do not exist in the sense that one is the aim of mankind, while the other should be eliminated. The two are ‘contraries? and ‘Without Contraries is no progression.?(Plate 3) Goodness, we are taught, is Reason, restriction, and passivity. Evil is Energy, physical desire, and activity. Reason is Heaven. Energy is Hell. Blake challenges this with a magnificently vivid symbolization of the true natures of Reason and Energy. Reason, virtue in abstinence, is not of the soul while Energy is earthly temptation. Both are, in fact, of the body. Energy is the very driving force of life, ‘is the only life?and Reason is the bound or outward circumference...