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what is described as an unusual instance – he had ‘told / A prophecy’ in which ‘poetic numbers came /Spontaneously’ (Prelude I. 59-61). 11 But, as was noted earlier, the term ‘spontaneous’, as used in thePreface to Lyrical Ballads is not necessarily the Romantic expression Abrams conceived it to be, withboth Paul Magnuson and Marilyn Butler suggesting alternative readings. Butler also describesWordsworth as ‘a true son of the Enlightenment’ and a neo-classicist (Romantics Rebels andReactionaries 57-61). But although Wordsworth is writing with a mind attuned to the demands of theneoclassical reader, he is not presenting a neoclassical argument. He is concerned to subvert thesuperficiality of empty neoclassical form, which he sees as a mere husk, by filling it with genuineexpressions of feeling. And Quintilian is also an influence on this passage. Wordsworth writes:Not that I mean to say, that I always began to write with a distinct purpose formally conceived;but I believe that my habits of meditation have so formed my feelings, that my descriptions ofsuch objects as strongly excite those feelings, will be found to carry along with them apurpose. If in this opinion I am mistaken, I can have little right to the name of a Poet. (MLB62: 148-154)This ‘purpose’ is again mentioned at the beginning of the next paragraph, and is defined oncemore: ‘this purpose will be found principally to be, namely, to illustrate the manner in which ourfeelings and ideas are associated in a state of excitement’ or, speaking more appropriately ‘to followthe fluxes and refluxes of the mind when agitated by the great and simple affections of our nature’(MLB 63: 176-182). Wordsworth’s reference to the ‘great and simple affections of our nature’ recallshis fundamental distinction between two types of feeling that govern his model of the mind asrepresented in the Preface, and in The Prelude. The human mind or ‘soul’, or ‘imagination’, is affectedby passions that can be vehement or mild, both are necessary, neither can be privileged. It is up to thewill of the individual to achieve the right ‘moral’ balance, and this is achieved through experience ofthe world, not by appeal to any transcendental authority that sets out moral laws. The right way ofacting ‘morally’, of appreciating a true sense of purpose, comes about from experience, which is thenfollowed by careful reflection on that experience that leads to further discrimination, and finally resultsin knowledge.The clues to any further understanding of this ‘purpose’ are to be looked for in theintermediary passage that proclaims, and qualifies ‘the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings’. Itis this passage that spoke loudly to Arthur Beatty as he came to believe that Wordsworth was indebtedto Hartley. 12 Wordsworth’s poet is someone who has a ‘more than usual organic sensibility’ and hasalso ‘thought long and deeply’, forming his feelings in a certain way through his habits of meditation.Those feelings produce thoughts that are the ‘representatives of all our past feelings’ and thesethoughts in turn modify all new influxes of feeling. In this process of assimilation, habits of mind areformed that represent the true character of the Wordsworthian Poet who has, through his repeated actsof meditation, discovered what is really important to ‘men’, and has modified his feelings accordingly:11 He explicitly states that he was ‘not used to make /A present joy the matter of [his] song’.12 Beattie’s main argument for Hartley’s significance is found on pages 109-124.279