Third Discourse energetically avers: 'The following Discourse is particularly interesting to blockheads, as it endeavours to prove that there is no such thing as inspiration, and that any man of a plain understanding may, by thieving from others, become a Michael Angelo.'
So, too, when Reynolds tells his hearers that 'enthusiastic admiration seldom promotes knowledge;' and proceeds to encourage the student who perceives in his mind 'nothing of that divine inspiration with which, he is told, so many others have been favoured' who 'never travelled to heaven to gather new ideas,' &c. Blake answers: 'And such is the coldness with which Reynolds speaks! and such is his enmity! Enthusiastic admiration is the first principle of knowledge, and its last. How he begins to degrade, to deny, and to mock! The man, who on examining his own mind, finds nothing of inspiration, ought not to dare to be an artist: he is a fool, and a cunning knave suited to the purposes of evil demons. The man who never in his mind and thought travelled to heaven, is no artist. It is evident that Reynolds wished none but fools to be in the arts; and in order to this, he calls all others vague enthusiasts or madmen. What has reasoning to do with the art of painting?'
Characteristic opinions are the following: —
'Knowledge of ideal beauty is not to be acquired. It is born with us. Innate ideas are in every man, born with him; they are truly himself. The man who says that we have no innate ideas must be a fool and knave; having no conscience, or innate science.' And yet it is a question metaphysicians have been discussing since metaphysics began.
Again: 'One central form composed of all other forms being granted, it does not therefore follow that all other forms are deformity. All forms are perfect in the poet's mind: but these are not abstracted or compounded from nature; they are from imagination.'
