lOOKS OF THE DAY
Total Power
,riot of Wrath: The Message of John Milton to Democracy at War. By G. Wilson Knight. (Faber. los. 6d.) is is an important book, and it is to be hoped that possible ders will not be turned away by its title, which refers to lessiah's God-empowered chariot "—Milton's "Chariot of Paternal die" in Paradise Lost—described by Professor Knight as " a scendental conception deriving from Old Testament prophecy, also incorporating and driving to the limit Milton's habitual :illation with the military and the mechanical. It is at once
super-tank and a super-bomber, forecasting temporary inven- ts just as the Greek myth of Pegasus, or of Daedalus and Icarus, masts air-mastery in general."
is scholarship and capacity for bringing out and synthesising essential ideas of our great English poets have already won ignition of Professor Knight's qualities in previous books, I as The Burning Oracle and The Starlit Dome, and here we re a message from Milton, abundantly buttressed by extracts in both prose and verse, which is strikingly relevant to the present tc of the world, and to our own particular political problems. e present generation is as little familiar with Milton as with t Bible, and a similar prejudice has afflicted them both. The sr suffers as literature from its long monopoly by the churches d Milton, as the author of Paradise Lost, is by many regarded bigoted Puritan, with an old-fashioned and forbidding theology. general scepticism, restlessness and thirst for incessant novelty the twentieth century were not alone responsible for our neglect certain great literature of the past. Conditions made undoubtedly superficiality, but also the time for some things was not yet ripe. : great writer has not only his day but his days, and they may e at wide intervals of time. I confess that, in spite of having the whole of Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained, as well as of Milton's great prose works, the Areopagitica, many of the extraordinary passages quoted by Professor Knight have struck as they will assuredly strike others—with a new and surprising essor Knight's argument is that we British people must "face patent fact of the will to power within the human psyche," perhaps even more deep-laid than the twin instinct of sexual tite, and no less central to the divine scheme" (my italics). that " whereas history offers the shell-case only of recorded Is, great literature penetrates this central mystery. It is itself er and the harmonising of virility and goodness its ultimate se." In this last sentence is the essential problem : how to virility with nobility, how to be good and strong? Milton • ted that rightful power depended upon self-discipline ; " good- without power," Professor Knight neatly says, " is quite as serous and far less interesting than power in dissociation from ess." Professor Knight does not even go quite far enough he adds " a purely ethical superiority must not obstruct recog- of some authentic power, both in Milton's Satan and in Nazi any." A purely ethical superiority is a pure abstraction. Real iority in living men is always mixed, and must include, in g degrees, all the human qualities, physical as well as moral, tic as well as intellectual. We may assume, if we like, that is in life a working-out towards an ideal pattern, or ideal 'nation of qualities ; certainly history shows that the bias s from age to age. When mankind moves too far in one Ion there is a corrective " reform " movement the other way. Professor Knight shows, Milton's value to us now is that, gh a Christian, he fully understood the importance of power- :tas not one-sided, like some of our sentimentalists who have s about the bombing of Germany. In Paradise Lost the ah triumphs over Satan by force of arms, and Milton makes address the angels in these words: . . . to me their doom he bath assigned ; That they may have their wish, to trie with mee In Band which the stronger proves, they all Or I alone against them, since by strength They measure all, of other excellence Not emulous, nor care who them excells ; Nor other strife with them do I vouchsafe.
great men have been men of power. Beethoven actually said self, "I am a man of Power " ; but, in them, power is infused virtue, it is, to use a pregnant phrase of Professor Knight's, " an alliance of good and nature " against mere " will-to-power and explosives " ; but, again, " a truly power-impregnated righteousness is as yet alien to our thinking and all but outside our vision." From history we may learn the dangers of incompleteness or excess ; for a nation, as for a human individual, a living harmony,
a blend of opposites is necessary to a successful life. The present war is a war between two partial powers, the Axis and the Allies, and it will be won by whichever of them embraces more total power than the other (incidentally, each may be improved in the course of the struggle). This total power will itself largely result from two main forces: the quality of the ideal, and the degree of self-discipline—the former representing " goodness," and the latter " strength." Professor Knight reminds us that Milton believed that the British people had a mission in the world, that " the people of this island " are to disseminate "'the blessings of civilisation and freedom among cities, kingdoms and nations," but, if so, this can only be achieved by our dedication to creative effort. It implies and necessitates continuous self-discipline. There is no other road- " nor is there any sociable perfection in this life, civil or sacred, that can be above discipline ; but she is that which with her musical cords preserves and holds all the parts thereof together . . . and certainly discipline is not only the removal of disorder ; but, it any visible shape can be given to divine things, the very visible shape and image of virtue whereby she is not only seen in the regular gestures and motions of her heavenly paces as she walks, but also makes the harmony of her voice audible to mortal ears."
It is to be hoped that Professor Knight's book will take many readers back to the man who, after Shakespeare, is the greatest of our poets, and one from whom we may perhaps learn most today.
W. J. TURNER.
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