Blake's four lines used as the answer to every attempt to find God by measurement. Neville sets them against the observation that God is not a mathematical diagram - you will never in eternity discover him through mathematics - and against that morning's New York Times, where a science editor announced man's new concept of the universe, a radical departure from last year's, which will itself be a radical departure from next year's. God appears as light to those poor souls who dwell in night, and displays a human form to those who dwell in realms of day; so when you meet him, it is man. Neville reports the meeting and the difficulty it leaves him in: he stood in the presence of love, and it was human, and it was Jesus, and it had form - but how is anyone to describe love? Blake supplies the only answer he uses: Mercy has a human heart, Pity a human face, Love, the human form divine, And Peace, the human dress. RULED 2026-09-20 (PM 6056). This description formerly carried a note saying the motif might belong in the lexicon rather than the catalogue, and asking a curator to move it if the boundary ruling went that way. The ruling came and went the other way: the lexicon holds only bare identity equations that function as a dictionary gloss, while a reading of a specific verse and a teaching claim Neville argues or applies are motifs. This motif is correctly in the catalogue and should not be moved. The note is recorded rather than silently deleted so that anyone who saw the earlier version knows what became of it.
Kind
Formula
Interpretive layers
Teaching pattern
Experiential narrative
Collections
Lectures
Blake wordings
William Blake | God Appears and God is Light To those poor Souls who dwell in Night, But does a Human Form Display To those who Dwell in Realms of Day
William Blake | Mercy has a human heart, Pity a human face, Love, the human form divine, And Peace, the human dress
Own wordings
God is not a mathematical diagram
Occurrences
LectureBlake On Religion
Mercy has a human heart, Pity a human face, Love, the human form divine, And Peace, the human dress.
Span from: 203
to: 303
Passage revision:
589376
LectureBlake On Religion
God Appears and God is Light To those poor Souls who dwell in Night, But does a Human Form Display To those who Dwell in Realms of Day.
Span from: 253
to: 388
Passage revision:
589375
Span from: -1
to: -1
Passage revision:
605881