The Complex Vision

The Complex Vision, by John
Cowper Powys

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Title: The Complex Vision
Author: John Cowper Powys
Release Date: June 3, 2007 [EBook #21668]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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COMPLEX VISION ***

Produced by Ruth Hart [email protected]

[Note: I have made the following spelling changes: Prologue: "methed"
to "method"; Chapter 2: "renders imposssible" to "renders impossible";
"which man possessses" to "which man possesses"; "absolute
unqestionable" to "absolute unquestionable"; "loathesomeness" to
"loathsomeness"; Chapter 3: "alllowed to distort" to "allowed to

distort"; Chapter 4: "itelf in its precise" to "itself in its precise";
Chapter 5
: "do very considerably" to "do vary considerably";
Chapter 6
: "oversoul" to "over-soul"; "its own permonition" to "its own
premonition"; "arbitrement" to "arbitrament"; "subtratum" to
"substratum"; "gooodeness" to "goodness"; Chapter 7: "flicherings" to
"filcherings"; "Perapity" to "Peripety"; Chapter 8: "penerated" to
"penetrated"; Chapter 9: "the anthropomorphic expresssion" to "the
anthropomorphic expression"; "convuluted" to "convoluted";
Chapter 10
: "a vast hierachy" to "a vast hierarchy"; Chapter 11: "to be too
anthromorphic" to "to be too anthropomorphic"; "strictly strictly
speaking" to "strictly speaking"; Chapter 13: "working in isolaton" to
"working in isolation"; "If to this the astronomer answer" to "If to this
the astronomer answers"; "difficult to decribe" to "difficult to describe";
"the asethetic sense" to "the aesthetic sense"; "no attentuation" to "no
attenuation"; "the Complex Vision represents" to "the complex vision
represents"; Conclusion: "is eternaly divided" to "is eternally divided";
"rest of the imortals" to "rest of the immortals"; "elimination of the
objectice mystery" to "elimination of the objective mystery". The word
"over-soul" is mostly spelled with a hyphen, so I added a hyphen to all
instances of this word. The word "outflowing" is mostly spelled
without a hyphen, so I deleted the hyphens from all instances of this
word. All other spelling remains the same.]

THE COMPLEX VISION
BY

JOHN COWPER POWYS

NEW YORK DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 1920

DEDICATED TO LITTLETON ALFRED

PROLOGUE
What I am anxious to attempt in this anticipatory summary of the
contents of this book is a simple estimate of its final conclusions, in
such a form as shall eliminate all technical terms and reduce the matter
to a plain statement, intelligible as far as such a thing can be made
intelligible, to the apprehension of such persons as have not had the
luck, or the ill-luck, of a plunge into the ocean of metaphysic.
A large portion of the book deals with what might be called our
instrument of research; in other words, with the problem of what
particular powers of insight the human mind must use, if its vision of
reality is to be of any deeper or more permanent value than the "passing
on the wing," so to speak, of individual fancies and speculations.
This instrument of research I find to be the use, by the human person,
of all the various energies of personality concentrated into one point;
and the resultant spectacle of things or reality of things, which this
concentrated vision makes clear, I call the original revelation of the
complex vision of man.
Having analyzed in the earlier portions of the book the peculiar nature
of our organ of research and the peculiar difficulties-- amounting to a
very elaborate work of art--which have to be overcome before this
concentration takes place, I proceed in the later portions of the book to
make as clear as I can what kind of reality it is that we actually do
succeed in grasping, when this concentrating process has been achieved.
I indicate incidentally that this desirable concentration of the energies

of personality is so difficult a thing that we are compelled to resort to
our memory of what we experienced in rare and fortunate moments in
order to establish its results. I suggest that it is not to our average
moments of insight that we have to appeal, but to our exceptional
moments of insight; since it is only at rare moments in our lives that we
are able to enter into what I call the eternal vision.
To what, then, does this conclusion amount, and what is this resultant
reality, in as far as we are able to gather it up and articulate its nature
from the vague records of our memory?
I have endeavoured to show that it amounts to the following series of
results. What we are, in the first place, assured of is the existence
within our