that he would have allowed us to do so? Does the word poetria77 occur anywhere in the Summa?78 I ask this because one of my objections to some ‘neo-scholastics’ is that they often pick out Thomist texts and string them together with little regard to their real position in Aquinas’ thought, thus producing an account of ‘Thomist aesthetics’, ‘St. Thomas on representative government’ etc etc which really corresponds to nothing their master ever thought or could have thought. If you could give me a few references (I now have both Summae) I could look up the passages in situ: but till then I cannot judge their real significance. I have a strong suspicion that if I did look them up I should find they had nothing to do with poetry, and we could then be clear which we were discussing—the nature of intellectus or the nature of poetry. If one had asked the Doctor to define poetria, do you suppose he wd. have said any more than p. est ars dictandi in versibus. Quaest I. Utrum rhythmus sit versus modus79—or something of that sort.
3. Prior to all discussion about the form of knowledge you describe, I must make a logical point. Since this knowledge is admittedly prayer and love, and could be shown, from what you say, to be also painting and music, I do not see what is gained by calling it poetry or ‘poetic experience’: for it clearly covers two things higher than poetry, and two things different. At best it would be one of the pre-conditions of poetry. And other conditions which you have left out (e.g. one of language) are surely the differentia of poetry?
4. The various things said about this higher knowledge rather puzzle me. Thus the criteria since discursu, per contactum, quasi ex habitu80 seem to me to apply to a great many experiences of what I would call sensuous acquaintance (by acquaintance I mean the French connaitre as opp. to savoir)—e.g. my ‘knowledge’ of toothache or cheese. On this level I would agree that all the arts depend on turning savoir into connaitre as far as possible. But the same criteria also apply to something quite different—knowledge of axioms. As to per viam voluntatis81—when you say ‘The will (in mystical prayer) goes out beyond all abstract and conceptual knowledge’, would the proposition remain equally true, or not, if for ‘mystical prayer’ we substituted (a) prayer, (b) every attempt however rudimentary to do the will of God (c) every action of whatever kind (d) every moment of consciousness (e) error.
I am afraid this will sound like carping, but do you see my real difficulty? I can’t feel sure from your account whether we are dealing with a special kind of experience or with one aspect of nearly all experience—in fact of all except thought made deliberately abstract for scientific purposes. All day long my experience is going outside ratio in directions wh. cd. quite well be described in the words you quote. And, of course, poetry is nearly always based on that normal experience rather than on the specially and artificially purified moments of ratio. But that is a very different thing from a special ‘poetic experience’. It is rather that there is a special unpoetic experience.
5. When we come to the religious life it seems that we are still, up to a point, in the realm of this normal (and if you will ‘poetic’, but only in the sense ‘not antipoetic’) experience. Thus the soul is not ‘content with an external and superficial knowledge or attachment’. True: but the soul is equally discontent with these in its sensual and affectional life. So far, have we not merely the normal experience, exercised on a much higher object? ‘Love takes up where knowledge leaves off’82—is not this true of my knowledge of a friend, an animal, a garden—nay even of a sensual pleasure. E.g. surely my liking for sleep goes far beyond my knowledge of it.
At this point it suddenly occurs to me that perhaps we are really in agreement: that while you are saying ‘As above, so below’ I am replying ‘As below, so above’. And if you say that the former is to be preferred since the higher explains the lower and not vice-versa, I agree with you. The points I want to make clear are
a. That I don’t wish to deny (how could I) that really supernatural experience can be and is conferred on the soul—some souls—by God even in this life. But,
b. That most of the descriptions you give seem to me to refer to an essentially normal experience, which is not specifically religious or poetic or anything but concrete and human.
6. I hope the discussion about primitive man will go on though I cannot do more than make a few comments here—or ask a few questions.
a. By primitive do you mean unfallen man or early fallen man?
b. If he was ‘unable to distinguish between God and Nature and himself’ he was a Pantheist. Therefore fallen? You can’t mean God created Adam heretical? For God and Nature and Man are distincts (as you and I believe), and not to feel the distinction is a defect. Mind you, I don’t say they are necessarily distinct to just the degree and in just the way the modern mind instinctively assumes.
c. Surely the mystic’s inability to recall or distinguish is not per se good. It may be a price well worth paying for supernatural experiences: but it is the defect of the patient not the excellence of the grace that produces the unconsciousness etc. It would be better still to have these experiences and not to lose the power of distinguishing etc. That is, if there are distinctions in the Object. If not, of course, our distinguishing would be disease. But we believe that the real is full of distinctions. To begin with it is not the blank One of Pantheists, but One in Three—distinction straight away. To go on with it is not, but creates nature—a nature not consubstantial with itself. We are not even allowed to say that human souls are naturally sons of God, but ‘to as many as believe He gave power to become sons of God’.83
But I can’t go on: I have a headache and am tired. I will try another time.
Yours
C. S. Lewis
As usual, discussion obliterates the elements of agreement. I should have agreed with nearly all you say if you hadn’t brought in Poetry. What you call Poetry I call simply ‘life’ or ‘concrete experience’. In fact I think you give poetry too high a place, in a sense.
1 The Summa Theologica, the chief dogmatic work of St Thomas Aquinas. See also note 7 to the letter to Griffiths of 4 April 1934.
2 Dom Bede’s review of The Pilgrim’s Regress is found in Pax: The Monthly Review of the Benedictines of Prinknash, Glos., no. 172 (February 1936), pp. 262–3.
3 Lewis did not know it at the time but Dom Bede criticized his use of ‘Mother Kirk’ in his review; ‘unhappily his Mother Kirk is not in fact the true Mother Church. If we may be allowed to adopt his own allegory we would say that his Mother Kirk is an elder daughter of the old Mother Kirk, who ran away from her mother and eloped with one of the sons of Mammon nearly 400 years ago now, and though she fortunately retained many things with her which she took from Mother Kirk’s household, and has since shown many signs of repentance and some desire to return, yet she still remains unreconciled and in bondage to the Spirit of the Age’ (ibid.).
4 Spenser, The Faerie Queene, 1, x, 17, adapted from lines 6–9.
5 Hugh Waterman