blind recklessness that Milton displays.' This is perhaps an overstatement, for Milton is here simply repeating a familiar dogma of scholastic and contemporary divinity. But Pope, at any rate, is fully justified. To introduce the Creator as a moderator, if not as a disputant, in such discussions is certainly offensive, and shows the characteristic weakness of Milton's position. He not only accepts the dogmatism of the time at a period when it was already losing its hold upon the philosophic thinkers, but identifies it with the essence of religion. He holds, as Professor Raleigh puts it, that 'everything is as plain as a pikestaff'; he is convinced that there are no mysteries in the government of the universe which cannot be solved by our dialectical skill. The weakness is connected with the most obvious limitations of Milton's intellect. In theology as in politics he can be a thorough partisan, and supposes with the ordinary man that the whole truth can be packed into a dogma. That is partly due to his characteristic want of the sympathy which enables a man to see the world from other points of view. He is the exact antithesis to Shakespeare, who could throw himself into every character. He is equally incapable of the mysticism of some
