'The Human Abstract' and 'A Divine Image' in Songs of Experience are two poems in contrast to 'The Divine Image' in Songs of Innocence. In The Human Abstract Blake takes the virtues mentioned in 'The Divine Image', mercy, pity, peace and love, and shows us what can happen when experience dominates them. Throughout the poem the poet points out man's wrong attitude to certain basic values and virtues. The poem is characteristic of eighteenth century thought when it suggests that morality or ethics is a human product and not descended from God or any divine source. But for Blake morality means natural impulse. Pity, mercy and love cannot exist without poverty, impoverishment and miseries or unhappiness and fear. Peace leads to selfishness and cruelty, and cruelty demands humility; and then it develops into the tree of mystery or code of ethics or morality.

The poet brings out some hidden truths of the basic or fundamental virtues upon which religion is built up. These virtues are the ones that all people want to follow. The poet points out that mercy and pity draw their sustenance from poverty and misery. Poverty and misery are prolonged and made endless by 'mercy' and 'pity'. This can be easily justified. We cannot practise or express mercy and pity if there is nobody who deserves it. Now those who deserve it must be poor and miserable as well as unfortunate. The poet argues that 'mercy' and 'pity' are thus not genuine virtues. If we really feel pity and mercy for the wretched condition of our fellow men, we will try our best to uplift them. Therefore if all the wretched are uplifted, there is no need of pity or mercy and eventually these virtues will fade away. But poverty and atrocity are never removed and it shows that our pity and mercy are hypocritical. The poet puts farth the unchangeable view that men who inculcate the false, ostentatious virtues are, a whole, responsible for the everlasting evils of society. As for the other virtue, called peace, it is also proved to be unfelt, 'Peace' is only a state of uneasy truce brought about by fear of one's opponent or foe. For his own security one man pretends that he loves the other. But in his innermost mind 'selfish love' takes its origin and develops gradually. The outward show of peace and love is deceptive as within him he carries bitter spite which waits alertly to attack its unwary prey. He embrodiers his words with sweet words and allures his prey. Thus, instead of the real and healthy human virtues of natural love, peace and mercy, men give birth to a god of cruelty to propitiate and support their own wild emotions. It is this god of cruelty, who, in Blake's perception, is identified with the God of traditional religion.

      The god of cruelty is also known as 'Starry Jealousy, or Urizen' and so on. The crucial point is that this man-made god does not exist outside the mind of man since it is he (man) who has invented him for his own selfish purposes. Hence we call this god 'Urizen' - characteristically pictured (in paintings or illustrations) with a net or web flung about him. It is this symbolic web that man spreads around him. Man pretends to be humble, meek, philanthropic, generous, broad-hearted in order to trap his prey. He sheds tears of pity and waters the land around him which bears the seeds of misery and grief. This only means that the fulfilment of cruelty lies in the sigh of its prey's miseries. Thus the seeds sprout, buds bloom and the branches stem out as the roots penetrate down through the soil. A tree of 'Mystery' (which is mysterious for being unnatural) develops to its full size. It is the symbol of the organised religion (patched up, man-made, artificial) and also stands for the false philosophers who support it. Priests, archbishops and popes are appointed to promote the new school of thought. Thus the false religion ripens, leaves its deep impact (which are actually injuries) on the minds of the people. It is made attractive with a seemingly grand paraphernalia of priesthood. The priests stick by it and get the profit from it. Now the natural power - as opposed to the artificial one - symbolizing true prophets and saints launch an enquiry to find out the real source of this atrocious religion. But it is in because the religion has no material or concrete existence, this 'God or Or Mystery' is an outcome of man's own selfish motives. The new selfish religion of man evolves its own mysteries and myths. But these mysteries are transient, hollow and shaky since they originate from man's artificial perceptions. He wants them to support him.