Blake and Newton: Argument as Art, Argument as Science

B la k e a n d N e w to n : A r g u m e n t a s A r t, A r g u m e n t a s S c ie n c e S T U A R T P E T E R F R E U N D ihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA There has been a good deal of discussion recently, by George S. Rousseau and others, about the status of the relationship between literature and science as modes of discourse.1 Interestingly enough, much of what has been written about literature and science has been focused on the relationship of the two modes as viewed in the con­ text of the eighteenth century, when the relationship of the two, clearly defined or otherwise, seems to have been the strongest. Prob­ lems with defining the status of the relationship seem to have arisen from the variety of its "surface" manifestations. These range from the implicit relationship of Book III of G u lliv e r 's T r a v e ls to P h ilo s o p h ic a l T r a n s a c tio n s o f th e R o y a l S o c ie ty , so astutely perceived and documented by Marjorie Hope Nicolson,2 to the highly explicit relationship of Blake's M ilto n to Newton's P r in c ip ia , with which this essay will be principally concerned. But before entering into the substance of the discussion, it would seem proper to raise a question begged by the preceding remarks: on what basis or common ground may literature and science be discussed, with the purpose of understanding their relationship? One answer to this question is that literature and science may be viewed as artifacts of rhetoric—as arguments, in other words. One who begins from such a view proceeds in the study of the relation­ ship between literature and science with the understanding that, when any argument, either literary or scientific, speaks to the issues 205 206 / PETERFREUNDihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA raised by another argument with the goal of overturning that other argument, the critical argument in question proceeds from a rhetori­ cal position no less well defined and interested than that of the ar­ gument it seeks to overturn. Seen in this perspective, the General Scholium of the RQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA P r in c ip ia differs from the "conversation" of the "Vi­ sionary forms dramatic" that takes place at the end of Blake's Je r u s a ­ le m 3 not so much in terms of what it argues for as in terms of its refusal to acknowledge its status as argument—with the corollary re­ fusal to acknowledge that what is being said, or argued for, must ultimately be reflexive to the interested position of the person mount­ ing the discussion. Newton, for example, having disposed pf the Cartesian model of vortical planetary motion, is not content to rest on his calculations, nor is he content to regard those calculations as evidence brought forth in support of his argument. Instead, by dis­ claiming any personal interest in elaborating the model of the solar system based on the principle of elliptical rotation, Newton is able to deny that there is any argument on his part in the first place, averring instead that "this most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and com­ ets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelli­ gent and powerful Being."4 This "Being," happily enough for New­ ton, is also the source of the language and rhetoric that Newton "discovers" for the purpose of propagating his (His?) celestial me­ chanics, just as Newton "discovers" the system of mechanics itself. Blake's Four Zoas, by way of contrast, do not discover, in their use of language, the space and time that are the parameters of Newton's system. Rather, the Zoas are seen "Creating Space, Creating Time according to the wonders Divine / Of Human Imagination." The con­ sequence, which would be an abhorrence to Newton, with his allied conceptions of absolute time and absolute space, is the "variation of...