Chapter 9 Te Physiology of Free Will Faculty Psychology and the Structure of the Miltonic Mind N. Amos Rothschild In Book 5 of Paradise Lost, Adam responds to Eve’s account of the dream that Satan has inspired by describing in detail the form and workings of the human mind. In particular, the frst man ofers a nuanced account of the interactions between “the fve watchful senses” and two of the mind’s faculties: the Fancy and the Reason (5.100–113). 1 Alastair Fowler glosses the speech with a note that Adam voices little more than “common knowl- edge,” and that assessment has helped to shape an editorial consensus that Milton’s depictions of faculty science merely rehearse straightforward and widely accepted tenets of mid-seventeenth-century natural philosophy. 2 Scott Elledge deems Milton’s treatment of the faculties characteristic of a “neat and simple” early modern physiology and psychology; Roy Flanna- gan fnds that “Milton follows the standard ‘faculty psychology’ of his day,” and both Barbara Lewalski and David Scott Kastan maintain that the poem “summarizes” scientifc orthodoxy. 3 However, while it is true that the faculty science of Paradise Lost is not radically innovative, it need not follow that Milton simply versifes concepts from a homogenous system. As Harinder Marjara reminds us, Milton neither reinvents nor adheres to available scien- tifc models. Instead, “like every other contemporary writer, [he] introduces Copyright 2020. Penn State University Press. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses permitted under U.S. or applicable copyright law. EBSCO Publishing : eBook Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 6/23/2022 12:07 PM via COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - MAIN AN: 2459494 ; Nancy L. Simpson-Younger, Margaret Simon.; Forming Sleep : Representing Consciousness in the English Renaissance Account: s2953473.main.ehost