Within his book, Songs of Innocence and of Experience, William Blake uses the vantage point of paradoxical perspectives to approach his subjects. The correlation between the perspectives from "The Divine Image", and "The Human Abstract", enables Blake to get to the crux of the question of good and evil. While the first poem argues that God's 'Divine Image' can be recognized by the "virtues of delight:" "Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love;" The Human Abstract reminisces on the unavoidable reality of sin entangled with "Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love" (13). In the second stanza of "The Divine Image", the speaker equates the four virtues with God in line 6, and also to mankind in line 8. This comparison is the relationship established by the Old Testament when God made Adam and Eve in his own image. Therefore, the experience of these virtues is an encounter with God the Almighty. The connection gives mankind its highest form of expression: For Mercy has a human heart, Pity, a human face, And Love, the human form divine, And Peace, the human dress (912). The speaker couples these heavenly traits with an earthly home: mercy is felt in the heart, peace is to be an adornment for all, and, love is the union of man, woman, and holiness (84). He does not limit this experience to a particular religious ideology, instead whomever "that prays in his distress / Prays to the human form divine" (86). These virtues are an image of God; how an individual can reflect or embody this image, with the highest resolution, reveals how close mankind can be to the Creator. At the end, the innocent perspective rejoices in that "all must love the human form.... / Where Mercy, Love, & Pity dwell / There is God dwelling too" (86). Yet, by leaving out the fourth virtue, Peace, from the last stanza, the speaker of 'Innocence' sets up the paradox the speaker of 'Experience' must build upon; as if the first speaker knows he cannot append this grand contradiction with only a single approach, or, even though the innocent point of view can recognize Peace, he is not dim witted enough to believe it will ever last on this world for too long. The speaker of 'Experience' carries a weathered and jaded tone within his lines about the four virtues. The first stanza insinuates that these virtues are simply luxuries for the gifted; "Pity would be no more / If we did not make somebody Poor" (12). If everyone enjoyed the amenities of the elite class of society, then "Mercy no more could be / If all were as happy as we" (34). This perspective writes that peace exists because of mutual fear, and, also,
recognizes its temporary existence: "Till the selfish loves increase" (56). All does not seem lost in stanza three, right after being caught in the snares of 'Cruelty', an individual addresses his holy fears about life and the question of good and evil: "Humility takes its root / Underneath his foot" (912). However, "The Human Abstract" comes back in the fourth stanza where ". . . the dismal shade / Of Mystery [spreads] over his head" (1314). This fog in the mind feeds two different creatures within the individuals head: the catterpiller, and the fly (15 16). The thoughts and questions, the 'Mystery', can feed the catterpiller that will eventually turn into a beautiful version of itself, or it can feed the fly, which regurgitates onto its food just to eat. However, from the pessimistic vantage point of 'Experience', the individual always "bears the fruit of Deceit"; and, makes its nest in the darkness of the "thickest shade" (1720). He ends the poem by stating that many have "sought thro' Nature to find this Tree," alluding to the tree of knowledge, or maybe, the knowledge of experience (22). The speaker concludes that "their search was all in vain: / There grows one in the Human Brain" (23,24). This suggests that the evil mankind experiences is not to be found in nature, but, from the same place that he/she experiences the virtues of the highest divine form. Combining the force of two distinct perspectives allows Blake to make a statement on such a weighty, and, universal subject. In "The Divine Image", humanity is seen clearest through the lens of virtue, and, the connection with the Creator that only "Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love" can bring. In "The Human Abstract", morality is murky in the light of experience, where everything has been fouled by the stain of deceit. Where Mystery could be used to feed a growing transformation, from an ugly catterpiller to a wild butterfly, it is gobbled up by the decrepit fly in everyone's mind. Inside each human grows a 'Tree' and the fruit from each tree is consistent with how each person fed their 'Mystery'. From Blake's Songs of Innocence, then from Songs of Experience, the four virtues are taken from "The Divine Image" to "The Human Abstract"; from a pristine rendition of spirituality to a blank and foggy conclusion of moralities place among man.