The Prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel dined with me, and I asked them howthey dared so roundly to assert that God spoke to them, and whetherthey did not think at the time that they would be misunderstood, and sobe the cause of imposition.
Isaiah answered: "I saw no God, nor heard any, in a finite organicalperception: but my senses discovered the infinite in everything; and asI was then persuaded, and remained confirmed, that the voice of honestindignation is the voice of God, I cared not for consequences, butwrote."
Then I asked: "Does a firm persuasion that a thing is so, make it so?"
He replied: "All poets believe that it does, and in ages of imaginationthis firm persuasion removed mountains; but many are not capable of afirm persuasion of anything."
Then Ezekiel said: "The philosophy of the East taught the firstprinciples of human perception; some nations held one principle forthe origin, and some another. We of Israel taught that the PoeticGenius (as you now call it) was the first principle, and all the othersmerely derivative, which was the cause of our despising the Priests andPhilosophers of other countries, and prophesying that all Gods wouldat last be proved to originate in ours, and to be the tributaries ofthe Poetic Genius. It was this that our great poet King David desiredso fervently, and invokes so pathetically, saying by this he conquersenemies and governs kingdoms; and we so loved our God that we cursedin His name all the deities of surrounding nations, and asserted thatthey had rebelled. From these opinions the vulgar came to think thatall nations would at last be subject to the Jews.
"This," said he, "like all firm persuasions, is come to pass, for allnations believe the Jews' code, and worship the Jews' God; and whatgreater subjection can be?"
I heard this with some wonder, and must confess my own conviction.After dinner I asked Isaiah to favour the world with his lost works; hesaid 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. Heanswered: "The same that made our friend Diogenes the Grecian."
I then asked Ezekiel why he ate dung, and lay so long on his rightand left side. He answered: "The desire of raising other men into aperception of the infinite. This the North American tribes practise.And is he honest who resists his genius or conscience, only for thesake of present ease or gratification?"
The ancient tradition that the world will be consumed in fire at theend of six thousand years is true, as I have heard from Hell.
For the cherub with his flaming sword is hereby commanded to leave hisguard at [the] tree of life, and when he does, the whole creation willbe consumed and appear infinite and holy, whereas it now appears finiteand corrupt.
This will come to pass by an improvement of sensual enjoyment.
But first the notion that man has a body distinct from his soul isto be expunged; this I shall do by printing in the infernal method bycorrosives, which in Hell are salutary and medicinal, melting apparentsurfaces away, and displaying the infinite which was hid.
If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to manas it is, infinite.
For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things through narrowchinks of his cavern.