prophecy (lines 432 ff.), which corresponds to the Sibyl's predictions in the sixth book of the Aeneid of the course of Roman history, serves to round out the larger meaning of Milton's epic by displaying the operation of hereditary sin consequent upon Adam's act, and at the same time illustrates the manner in which God's love contends with the waywardness of man, until, in the process of time, his crowning purpose, of humanity's salvation through the sacrifice of Christ, is fulfilled. The passage, which extends through the remainder of Book XI and the greater part of Book XII, is a marvelous condensation of Hebrew story, comprising grave moral lessons. The first part of the exposition appropriately ends with the Flood and the apparition of the rainbow as the first prefiguring symbol of God's restoring and redeeming grace.

Book XII. From this point, the beginning of revelation of a second world, with its higher and more mysterious matter, the angel no longer presents the scenes to Adam's eyes but narrates them to his intelligence. As the events in the history of the chosen people shape themselves Adam sees more and more clearly the operation of a providential plan. Moses and Joshua are indicated to him as types of Christ (lines 238-248; 311-313). The corruption and dissension which follow the return from captivity with the resultant passing of David's scepter to a stranger are said to be permitted that "the Anointed King Messiah might be born Barred of his Right" (lines 359-360). At the angel's mention of the virgin birth of Christ the meaning of the mysterious words of the Deity is revealed and Adam bursts forth in joy (lines 371 ff.).

The fuller story of Christ's sacrifice (lines 386 ff.), his resurrection, his triumph over Satan, his restoration of

mankind to bliss leaves the listener in doubt whether he should repent him of his sin, or rejoice that

Much more that much more good from thence shall spring He acknowledges the lesson that man, too, has his part in the Redemption and expresses his resolve to walk henceforth the patient moral way of obedience and slow selfconquest. In thrilling words (lines 574 ff.) the angel sets the seal of approval on Adam's new-found wisdom, bidding him add deeds to his knowledge answerable-faith, virtue, patience, temperance, and love, the soul of all the rest. So shall he build a Paradise within, far happier than the one that he has lost. This is the grand climax of the poem, the spiritual goal of Milton's art. In a brief and beautiful conclusion (lines 606 ff.) we are brought back again to the specific subject of the loss of Eden. Eve awakes from a gentle dream in which she has received the essential revelation of the great deliverance through her seed. Softened and exalted she faces a future now no longer terrible. The closing lines describe in terms of mingled hope and sadness the departure of the pair from Eden.

COSMOLOGY AND DOCTRINAL CONTENT

The physical action of Paradise Lost, taking place as it does in Heaven, Earth, and Hell, obliges Milton to visu

8 A rather needless controversy was started by Erskine's suggestion (The Theme of Death in "Paradise Lost") that Milton changed his theological attitude toward the fall and its results before he reached the conclusion of his poem. That his conception of it as a mingled tragedy and blessing is in perfect accord with Christian tradition was shown by Moore, The Conclusion of "Paradise Lost." See also Stoll, Was Paradise Well Lost?

alize the structure of the universe and to commit himself for imaginative purposes to one of the two astronomical systems which in his day offered themselves as rival explanations of the phenomena-namely, the Ptolemaic and the Copernican. He inevitably adopted the former, with the Earth fixed at the center and the heavenly bodies revolving about it, as being firmly established in poetic and theological tradition and as better adapted to imaginative representation. With the mathematical detail of this system he was thoroughly familiar, and we know that he taught the elements of astronomical calculation on the Ptolemaic basis in his school, using a revised edition of the medieval textbook by Sacrobosco. But he was familiar also with the principles of the Copernican astronomy, having read the dialogue of Galileo,10 and was evidently well aware of its claims. His personal attitude was apparently that of suspended judgment. Even in Paradise Lost (Book VIII, lines 122 ff.) he makes the angel offer Adam his choice of theories, with the implication that no mortal can be perfectly sure which one is right.

9

For the material data which he found necessary to his representation he resorted to all manner of sources and to his own invention, employing Scriptural suggestions wherever possible and taking pains to add nothing which would be directly contradictory to Holy Writ. It is not to be thought that he offered such details as the causeway from Hell to Earth, the chain by which the visible universe depended from Heaven, or the spheres themselves which encircled the Earth and carried the planets and the • Gilbert, Milton's Textbook of Astronomy. 10 Gilbert, Milton and Galileo.

fixed stars, as obligatory to the understanding. They were simply imaginative representations which might or might not correspond to actuality. Sometimes he is deliberately vague, as when he says that Heaven is "undetermined square or round." Often his concrete detail or measurement is useful only for the moment and defies adoption into the general scheme, as where he says that the distance from Hell to Heaven was three times the distance from the center of the Earth to the pole of the uttermost encircling sphere (P. L. Book I, lines 73, 74).

For these reasons it is misleading to make a detailed plan of Milton's universe, though many have been offered. The diagram given on p. 174 represents only his fundamental conceptions, which are as follows:

Infinite space is thought of as originally divided into two parts,-Heaven above, also called the Empyraean; and Chaos or uncreated matter beneath. Within this Chaos God "puts forth his virtue" and builds, first Hell at the bottom, as a receptacle for the falling angels, and then the visible universe, usually referred to as "the World," as a home for man. The latter consists of the fixed Earth as a center, with a shell of concentric spheres moving about it at varying rates of speed. Beyond this shell, of course, is Chaos. The spheres themselves are ten in number. The first seven, beginning with the one nearest the Earth, carry the planets (including the Sun and the Moon) in the following order: the Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, and are named from them. The eighth, called the Firmament or Coelum Stellatum, carries all the fixed stars. The ninth, the Crystalline, contains no bodies. Milton thinks of it as composed of water. The tent is the Primum Mobile, or, in Milton's