W. B. Yeats’s A Vision (1925)
The Four Faculties in A Vision
The Four Faculties are Yeats’s terms for interacting aspects of an embodied human life. Will concerns the bias of feeling and choice; Mask is the desired image of what one wishes to become or reveres. Creative Mind is consciously constructive intellect, while Body of Fate names the physical and mental environment and what comes from outside. The 1925 account places Will opposite Mask and Creative Mind opposite Body of Fate, then describes all four as influencing one another. These are technical definitions within A Vision, rather than four independently verified organs or a standard psychological test.
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In the sources
The four names
DocumentedThe section explicitly names Will, Creative Mind, Body of Fate and Mask as the Four Faculties.
Opposition and interaction
DocumentedThe next page defines Mask, Creative Mind and Body of Fate, places the faculties in opposing pairs and describes their mutual influence.
Context & interpretation
This entry follows the complete edition of A Vision dated 1925 held in the Reader. It does not import revisions from the substantially different 1937 version. The terminology describes Yeats’s literary and esoteric model; references to types, faculties, phases or history are attributed to that model rather than presented as established psychology, astronomy or historical laws.
Original passages
Source 1
A Vision
the Will, the Creative Mind, the Body of Fate, and the MaskOpen this page in the book
Passage & edition details
Location recorded at citation review: Book I, The Great Wheel, section II, printed p. 14
Actual checksum-verified active Reader scan inspected. Short quotation transcribed from the scan; line breaks and spacing normalised.
- Edition
- IMJ-0374-E001
- Reader page
- IMJ-0374-E001-P0034
- Original scan leaf
- 39
- Recorded leaf number
- 39
- Current Reader position
- 35
- Reader verification
- Matches the reviewed Reader
Source 2
A Vision
All Four Faculties influence each otherOpen this page in the book
Passage & edition details
Location recorded at citation review: Book I, The Great Wheel, section II, printed p. 15
Actual checksum-verified active Reader scan inspected. Short quotation transcribed from the scan; line breaks and spacing normalised.
- Edition
- IMJ-0374-E001
- Reader page
- IMJ-0374-E001-P0035
- Original scan leaf
- 40
- Recorded leaf number
- 40
- Current Reader position
- 36
- Reader verification
- Matches the reviewed Reader
Illustrations
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Primary and Antithetical in A Vision
The contrasting objective and subjective tendencies that Yeats calls the two Tinctures.
Shared illustrationGyres in A Vision
Expanding and contracting figures through which Yeats represents opposed tendencies and their movement.
Shared illustrationThe Great Wheel in A Vision
The circular diagram through which Yeats organises twenty-eight phases, contrasting tendencies and human types.
Shared illustrationThe Historical Cones in A Vision
The red-and-black diagram that aligns dates, phases and historical Faculties in Yeats’s first A Vision.