The Complex Vision

恚
The Complex Vision, by John Cowper Powys

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Complex Vision, by John Cowper Powys This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
Title: The Complex Vision
Author: John Cowper Powys
Release Date: June 3, 2007 [EBook #21668]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE 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 own individual body of a real actual living thing composed of a mysterious substance wherein what we call mind and what we call matter are fused and intermingled. This is our