ABSTRACT
Philoprogenitivism' was a major strand running through progressive and conservative thought alike during the long eighteenth century; although the term itself was a mid-nineteenth-century coinage, the principle it denotes was central to Enlightenment sociological thought. Philoprogenitivism had traditional origins in ancient classical and biblical thought, particularly God's injunction to man and woman to 'Be fruitful, and multiply' and the belief that 'in the multitude of people is the king's honour'. William Blake is an enthusiast for human propagation, but his qualitative emphasis on increased pleasure and willingness to see female sexuality as more than a question of a numerical measure of offspring also offers promising areas of study for critics exploring the vexed question of Blake's attitudes towards women and seeking to articulate some of their more positive dimensions. In particular, Blake's representations of sexuality can be profitably related to broader Enlightenment discourses on population and the health of the body politic.
