Page:The sanity of William Blake.djvu/22

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16
The Sanity

discards the algebraical equation, the logical argument; and in place of them his only method of teaching is Appeal.

Appeal to what? To that very consciousness in man of deeps in his existence which science has not fathomed, but which the greatest teachers touch with their poetry, their music, their paintings, and call into conscious life. He appeals to the instinctive knowledge of the child that the lark shares no place with reptile, the authorities not-withstanding. If there be in us "thoughts that lie too deep for tears," how greatly truer is it that there be deeps within or around the nature of life too profound for utterance, but which, not the less, are responsible for, directive of, indeed inspiring, our outward and visible show of life. These deeps are felt rather than known. They are of the emotions rather than the intellect. The man of art is more conscious of them than the schoolman because he lives more in their inspiration. And living thus in life of vaster reality than that of the getting and holding of Facts, of bowing to them, of chaining his soul to their glitter, he sees that from these same deeps all men arise and therefore have some consciousness