The Complex Vision

by John Cowper Powys

The souls of "the immortals" must certainly be regarded as developing and changing and as constantly advancing towards the realization of their hope and premonition. But this "advance" is also, as we have seen, in the profoundest sense a "return," because it is a movement towards an idea which already is implicit and latent. And in the presence of this "advance," which is also a "return," all historic ages of individual human souls are equal and co-existent.

All real symbols are "true," wherever and whenever they are invoked, because all real symbols are the expression of that rare unity of the complex vision which is man's deepest approximation to the mystery of life. The symbol of the cross, for instance, has far more truth in it than any vague metaphorical expression such as the "over-soul." The symbolic ritual of the Mass, for instance, has far more truth in it than any metaphorical expression such as the "life-force." And although both the Cross and the Mass are inadequate and imperfect symbols with regard to the vision of "the sons of the universe," because they are associated with the idea of an historic incarnation, yet in comparison with any modern rationalistic or chemical metaphor they are supremely true.

The philosophy of the complex vision, just because it is the philosophy of personality, must inevitably use images which appear to the rationalistic mind as naive and childish and ridiculous. But the philosophy of the complex vision prefers to express itself in terms which are concrete, tangible and intelligible, rather than in terms which are no more than vague projections of phantom logic abstracted from the concrete activity of real personality.

In completing this general picture of the starting point of the philosophy of the complex vision there is one further implication which ought to be brought fully into the light. I refer to a doctrine which certain ancient and mediaeval thinkers adopted, and which must always be constantly re-appearing in human thought because it is an inevitable projection of the human conscience when the human conscience functions in isolation and in disregard of the other attributes. I mean the doctrine of the essentially evil, character of that phenomenon which was formerly called "matter" but which I prefer to call the objective mystery.

According to this doctrine—which might be called the eternal heresy of puritanism—this objective mystery, this world-stuff, this eternal "energy" or "movement," this "flesh and blood" through which the soul expresses itself and of which the physical body is made, is "evil"; and the opposite of this, that is to say "mind" or "thought" or "consciousness" or "spirit" is alone "good."

According to this doctrine the world is a struggle between "the spirit" which is entirely good and "the flesh" which is entirely evil. To the philosophy of the complex vision this doctrine appears false and misleading. It detects in this doctrine, as I have hinted, an attempt of the conscience to arrogate to itself the whole field of experience and to negate all the other attributes, especially emotion and the aesthetic sense.

Such a doctrine negates the whole activity of the complex vision because it assumes the independent existence of "flesh and blood" as opposed to "mind." But "flesh and blood" is a thing which has no existence apart from "mind," because it is a thing "half-created" as well as "half-discovered" by "mind."

It negates the aesthetic sense because the aesthetic sense requires the existence of "the body" or of "flesh and blood" or of what we call "matter," and cannot exert its activity without the reality of this thing.

It negates emotion, because the emotion of love demands, for its full satisfaction, nothing less than "the eternal idea of flesh and blood." And since love demands the "eternal idea of flesh and blood," "flesh and blood" cannot be "evil."

This doctrine of the evil nature of "matter" is obviously a perversion of what the complex vision reveals to us about the eternal duality. According to this doctrine, which I call the puritan heresy, the duality resolves itself into a struggle between the spirit and the flesh. But according to the revelation of the complex vision the true duality is quite different from this. In the true duality there is an evil aspect of "matter" and also an evil aspect of "mind."