The practical sibility of such a condition among men. substitute for it is an autocratic but wise and benevolent rule by the godly few. On the question of the sources and affiliations of Milton's thought much has been written. The subject still awaits, however, definitive treatment at the hands of a competent historian of philosophy. Milton's mind had ranged through the whole realm of speculation. Ancient philosophy, Biblical and Patristic thought, Reformation theology in all its varieties, the philosophic movements and religious heterodoxies of his own day-all were familiar to him and from them he culled the elements of his own eclectic system. One distrusts the attribution of his fundamental ideas to the influence of any single source. Here are some of the men or schools whose intellectual relationship with Milton has been most strongly advocated: Bernardino Ochino,17 Jakob Boehme,18 the Cabalists,19 Henry More and the Cambridge Platonists,20 Giordano Bruno,21 Michael Servetus, 22 the Quakers.28 Not one of these is mentioned in the De Doctrina Christiana, which, nevertheless, lists dozens of standard theologians. It is true, however, that Milton would be likely to suppress the names of the less reputable authorities. He says in the introduction that he had not even read any of the works of heretics, so-called, "when the mistakes of those who are 17 Wood, Milton's Antitrinitarian Conception. 18 Bailey, Milton and Jakob Boehme. 19 Saurat, Milton, pp. 281-310. 20 Marjorie Nicolson in a forthcoming study. 21 Liljegren, Milton et Giordano Bruno, denies this influence. 22 Martin Larson, Milton and Servetus, forthcoming in Publications of the Modern Language Association. 28 Samson, Studies in Milton, pp. 167 ff. reckoned orthodox first taught me to agree with their opponents whenever these opponents agreed with Scripture." With all his rationalism, however, Milton never really crosses the line which divides Christian and idealistic thought generally from naturalism in any of its ancient or modern manifestations. He could, for example, have no part in the materialistic conclusions of a Lucretius, however much one side of his intellect may have been allured by it. Accordingly, he banishes to chaos the operation of mere material force. In that realm of being, which God neglects, we have the Epicurean atoms clashing blindly against each other according to the laws of chance but powerless to evolve an ordered world without the exercise of the divine will. With regard to the radical and naturalistic thought of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries Milton is apparently partly conscious of its menace to the idealist tradition both in the field of abstract speculation and of practical conduct. His opposition to the theological determinism of the Calvinists has behind it an opposition to the more dangerous determinism of the materialists. This is the source, I believe, of his distrust of uncontrolled intellectual speculation. The point of view of the Renaissance thinker who philosophized solely in order that he might philosophize had its logical result in the political realism of Machiavelli, in the ethical libertinism of free livers like the youthful Donne, and in the realistic naturalism of Hobbes, and to all this Milton was unalterably opposed. As he relegates the unguided action of force and chance to chaos so he surrenders the naturalistic point of view in conduct and belief to Satan. It has been suggested that Paradise Lost was intended primarily as a reply to 24 Hobbes. Leviathan was published in 1651 and whether or not Milton had read it he must have been aware of the stir of opposition and alarm which it caused in philosophic circles. Both politically and religiously its doctrines would have been to him anathema, and it may well be that in setting out to "justify the ways of God to man" he consciously directed his inspired utterance against this great antagonist of the faith. Philosophically, then, Milton is a Christian idealist, though he classes himself in theology with the hereticsArius, Socinus, Arminius, Ochino, Servetus, and who not? His religious as well as his political sympathies were on the side of the independent sects and the individual promoters of spiritual religion in the seventeenth century. In his metaphysics he shares the pantheistic tendencies of his age. His ethical thought, on the other hand, is largely grounded in the study of ancient philosophy. Temperamentally, he felt a strong affinity for the Stoic doctrine, as may easily be seen by his references to the teachings of this school in Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained.25 But he is equally drawn toward Platonism, whether in its original form or as it came to him through the more fanciful interpretation of the Neo-Platonists and the Cabala. Finally, it must be remembered that Milton met 24 By Marjorie Nicolson in a paper read before the Modern Language Association. A bit of objective evidence is furnished by the statement of Milton's widow to Aubrey that Milton knew but did not like Hobbes, though he acknowledged him a man of parts, and that "their interests and tenets were diametrically opposite." 25 P. L. II, 562-569; P. R. IV, 300-308. In both passages Stoicism comes last in the list of Pagan philosophies condemned and is dwelt on most fully, as if it were better worth the pains/ of a refutation. many of the speculative and moral ideas which he employs already embodied in imaginative literature and that such applications are likely to have stimulated his poetic mind more powerfully than any abstract statement could do. The influence of Spenser's cosmic speculation and moral allegory is discussed on pp. 205 ff. The tale of Milton's political sources is hardly less embracing. He inherited his interest in the theory of government from the earlier Renaissance and with it his tendency to find the basis of his convictions in the writings. of the ancients. The Greek and Latin historians, orators, poets, and philosophers were to him the great textbooks, next to Holy Writ, of political wisdom. His own republicanism has its roots in Roman soil. But he had also studied with diligence the records and theories of later ages, following a consistent program, some of the details of which may be gathered from his Commonplace Book. Among the outstanding modern contributors to political theory entered in the list are Jean Bodin, Buchanan, Machiavelli, Sir Thomas Smith. His controversial activity sent him scurrying to the authorities, as we have seen, but much of his political study antedates this period. For the liberalism of his own conception of government he had, of course, abundant support, as for example in Buchanan, and none of his ideas are new. A good notion of his position in the history of such speculation may be obtained from any account of political theory in the Renaissance. THE LITERARY SOURCES The purpose of this section is to indicate in summary fashion the chief authorities and sources which Milton probably knew and may have employed in constructing his version of the story of the fall. The discussion here involves primarily the myth or outward narrative, the philosophical and theological elements being considered in the preceding section. The two cannot, however, be absolutely separated. In discussing the sources of the legend, distinction should be drawn between various types of material from the point of view of Milton's attitude toward them. The Biblical references he considered as solely authoritative. Other sources had weight in his mind about in proportion to their antiquity, except that Jewish and Christian writers would be preferred to Pagan as standing nearer the fountain head of truth. Such materials had, even when manifestly fictitious, a kind of legendary authenticity, and Milton invariably preferred their detail to his own invention. He preferred it, also, when there was a choice, to more modern elaborations. There can, however, be no doubt that he had read more than one literary version of the fall of man and received from them, consciously or unconsciously, suggestions for the artistic handling of his materials. Obviously no account of the sources of Milton's epic can be considered as exhaustive, for the poem holds as it were in solution the whole of his immense reading. It is not, moreover, except for the Biblical and other ancient authorities, to the works which deal with the identical subject which he treats that we must look for the most vital influences, but rather to those great masterpieces of ancient and modern literature, whatever their subject, which most profoundly impressed him and with which he habitually dwelt. In other words, the essential study of the |