“Small Things Discover Great”

This chapter enlarges our appreciation of the reach of Raphael’s instruction of Adam in being “lowly wise.” Highlighting Francis Bacon’s insistence that “small things discover great,” it argues that Paradise Lost’s Book 8 education in grounded wisdom does not foreclose contemplation of “High matter.” Rather, Bacon’s transformation of the “mean and small” into prostheses that magnify the senses reframes Raphael’s own use of likening to relate things beyond “the reach of human sense.” It models, that is, Raphael’s cultivation of Adam’s use of the world at hand to access phenomena—including the movement of heavenly bodies—“invisible to mortal sight.”