Animal spirits
Bob Ward reflects on John Milton and John Woolman
At one point in John Milton’s epic poem Paradise Lost (1667) Satan creeps up on Adam and Eve while they are asleep with a view to upsetting God’s handiwork. In the guise of a toad he seeks to infiltrate Eve’s ear with a venom that ‘might taint th’ animal spirits, that from pure blood arise like gentle breaths from rivers pure…’ and corrupt her thoughts with discontent. Fortunately, angels intervened that time, if not later.
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