scandalous, seditious, and libellous books, which were mainly intended to be suppressed; last, that it will be primely to the discouragement of all learning, and the stop of truth, not only by disexercising and blunting our abilities in what we know 130 already, but by hindering and cropping the discovery that might be yet further made both in religious and civil wisdom. I deny not, but that it is of greatest concernment in the Church and Commonwealth, to have a vigilant eye how books demean themselves as well as men; and thereafter to confine, imprison, and do sharpest justice on them as malefactors: For books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are; nay, they do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them. I know they are as lively, and as vigorously productive, as those fabulous dragon's teeth; and being sown up and down," may chance to spring up armed men. And yet on the other hand, unless wariness be used, as good almost kill a man as kill a good book: who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God's image; but he who destroys a good book kills reason itself, kills the Image of God, as it were in the eye. Many a man lives a burden to the earth; but a good book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life. 'Tis true, no age can restore a life, whereof perhaps there is 150 no great loss; and revolutions of ages do not oft recover the loss of a rejected truth, for the want of which whole nations fare the We should be wary therefore what persecution we worse. 130. disexercising, throwing out of exercise; cf., "disinured" (l. 1213). 131. cropping, cutting away. 139. a vial, a phial or flask. Gr. phiale. Greek 140. extraction, essence. 142. those fabulous dragon's teeth. Cadmus, in mythology, is supposed to have Sown dragon's teeth, from which sprung armed men. A 145. who, he who. 147. in the eye. The book is man's expression of his reason, his reason as seen by others. The killing of the book takes away the possibility of this sight, makes his reason blind or invisible to others, kills his reason, the image of God, in the eye. 160 raise against the living labours of public men, how we spill that seasoned life of man, preserved and stored up in books; since we see a kind of homicide may be thus committed, sometimes a martyrdom, and if it extend to the whole impression, a kind of massacre, whereof the execution ends not in the slaying of an elemental life, but strikes at that ethereal and fifth essence, the breath of Reason itself, slays an Immortality rather than a Life. But lest I should be condemned of introducing licence, while I oppose licensing, I refuse not the pains to be so much historical - as will serve to show what hath been done by ancient and famous commonwealths against this disorder, till the very time that this project of licensing crept out of the Inquisition, was Licence here is used in its second sense of looseness. 165, 166. Inquisition; Prelates. Introduced wherever possible by Milton as appealing to the feelings of hatred held for these by his hearers. The Inquisition, or Holy Office, was introduced into Italy by Innocent III. to quell the Albigenses about the commencement of the 13th century. It spread into France and Spain, and became most formidable in the latter country under the rule of Torquemada, who became Grand Inquisitor in 1481. From that time the auto da fe (acts of faith), or public burning of heretics, and the most cruel tortures, became common. In the first year alone 2,000 are said to have been publicly burnt. An intense hatred of its objects and methods was felt in all Protestant countries, and particularly by the Puritans. Cf. Tennyson's Revenge: "These inquisition dogs and the devildoms of Spain," "The thumbscrew and the stake, for the glory of the Lord." Herm. Here on shows what has been clone down bocks through history and writi writing on restrictions of |