subject that it would appear impossible at first sight to reconcile them and bring out of them a consistent form of belief. Before he went to Oxford he had attacke

by saying that this profession was a mere formality. Thousands of non-conformists throughout the lan

, but I think that the leaf of a tree, the meanest insect on which we trample, are in themselves arguments more conclusive than any which can be advanced, that some vast intellect animates infinity. If we disbelieve this, the strongest argument in support of the existence of a future state instantly becomes annihilated.... Love, love, infinite in extent, eternal in duration, yet allowing your theory in that point, perfectible, should be the reward; but can we suppose that this reward will arise, sponta

matter and motion. Man is the result of certain combinations of matter; his activities are matter in motion. God, the soul, and immortality are the inventions o

ternity o

, awok

ounces Christianity only in so far as it has abandoned "the faith he kindled." This change, no doubt, is due to the influence of his residence in Italy and of his love for the New Testament. Regarding the character of Christ he writes: "They (the evangelists) have left sufficiently clear indications of the genuine character of Jesus Chr

hat mediation is superflous in the work of sanctification, Christianity is almost meaningless. Three months before his death Shelley expressed his views with regard to Christianity as follows: "I differ with Moore in thinking Christianity useful to the world; no man of sense can think it tr

eist lies in the fact that he had a conception of the Deity which differed from the Puritanical one then in vogue. When he attempted to show the nonexistence of God his negation was directed against the notions of God which exhibited Him as a Being with human passions, as an autocratic tyrant. In his letter to Lord Ellenborough he writes: "To attribute moral qualities to

ture! all su

hou mother o

God of huma

rayers or prai

will belongs n

angeful passio

arying har

f its meaning. They agree only in considering it the most awful and most venerable of names, as a common term to express all of mystery, or majesty, or power which the invisible world contains. And not only has every sect distinct conceptions of the application of this name, but scarcely two individuals of the same sect, which exercise in any degree the freedom of their judgment, or yield themselves with any candor of feeling to the influences of the visible, find perfect coincidence of opinion to exist between them.... God is neit

nown about a subject. Many stoutly maintained that a valid a priori proof (usually called the ontological) can be advanced for the existence of God and it was against these that Shelley directed his artillery. "Why," Trelawny asked him once, "do you call yourself an atheist?" "

, I have an idea. I think I can prove the existence of a Deity-a First Cause. I will ask a materialist, how came this universe at first? He will answer by chance. What chance? I will answer in the words of Spinoza: 'An infinite number of atoms had been floating from all eternity in space, till at last one of them fortuitously diverged from its track, which dragging with it another, formed the principle of gravitation and in consequence the universe.' What cause produced this change, this chance. For where do we know that causes arise without their corresponding effects; at least we must here, on so abstract a subject, reason analogically. Was not this then a cause; was it not a first cause? Was not this firs

l desirait pourtant pouvoir les supporter et les croire, mais cette obscure tendance, il ne sut on n'osa la traduire publiquement."[123] In his poetry where he lays bare his soul his belief in God is manifest. It is only when he argues that he would seem to be an atheist. This discrepancy looks like deceit, but it is not. It is honesty rather than duplicity. He advanced only those statements which he thought he could prove, which he could de

oin issues with others ... it verifies negatively.[125] Newman, contrary to Locke, would inject an element of volition into logic. "He does not, indeed, deny the possibility of dem

e may feel one thing and at the same time see that the senses and even unaided reason show that the contrary is true. "Feelings do not look so well as reasonings on black and

no more, or he may combine atheism with his materialism; consequently while it would be unjust to class agnostics, materialists or pantheists as necessarily also atheists, it cannot be denied that atheism is clearly perceived to be implied in certain phases of all these systems. There are so many shades and gradations of thought by which one form of a philosophy merges into another, so much that is opinionative and personal woven into the various indi

lley worked at a translation of Spinoza's Tractatus Theologico Politicus several times, still "we find no evidence that he received in youth any adequate or profound impression, as Goethe did, from the purest and loveliest spirit among philosophical seekers after God. Of far greater influence with Shell

d at different times. How then are our ideas acquired? The second book of the Essay is devoted to showing that they originate in experience. Experience, Locke teaches, is two-fold: Sensation, or the perception of external phenomena; and Refection, or the perception of the internal phenomena, that is, of the activity of the understanding itself. These two are the sources of all our ideas. In the Essay, II, 1-2, we read: "All ideas come from sensation and reflection.... Whence has it (mi

ike every other passion, is in precise proportion to the degrees of excitement. The degrees of excitement are three. The senses are the sources of all knowledge to the mind; consequently their evidence claims the strongest assent. The decision of the mind founded upon o

proposition bear to each, which is passive." And in Locke, II, 22, we read: "The mind in respect of its simple ideas is wholly passive and receives them all from the experience

says that many falsely imagine "that belief is an act of volition in consequence of which it may be regulated by the mind."[133] Here we find reflected the philosophic

the soul, we always find it to result from some one prevailing sentiment, or idea, which determines the association of our thoughts and directs for a time the course which they take."[135] We are impelled to action by the influence of the stronger motive. In his letter to Lord Ellenborough, Shelley holds that "belief and disbelief are utterly distinct from and unconnected with volition. They are the app

ted from all eternity than to conceive a being (beyond its limits) capable of creating it."[137] Again in his Essay on a future state: "But let thought be considered as some peculiar substance which permeates, and is the cause of, th

of Natu

terminable

, at whos

ing fancy

hy flitti

the slig

vers to

nstinct w

the mean

graves and fat

thy eternal

the latter? "An immaterial substance is necessarily without extension, or solidity, and never could have bestowed what it never possessed. God is infinite and consequently his substance is the sole, universal and eternal substance. Of this eternal substance there are two modifications-mind and extension. Human mind is part of the infinite mind of God. By bod

ls, thinks and reasons in man. Thoughts and sentiments proceed from peculiar distributions of atoms in the human brain." The same necessity which gives us a peculiar form and constitution also gives us a peculiar disposition and character. From these observations

as the sa

is varied and

only eleme

ounted ages

illar of a mou

ving spirit.

both in un

utest atom

loves and h

organized being to be what it is?... I will say then that all nature is animated; that microscopic vision, as it has discovere

a mode, limitation, part or aspect of the one eternal being; and of such a nature, that from the standpoint of this Being no distinct existence can be attributed to it."[142] In so far as Shelley gives to nature the attributes of God he is a pantheist. This he often does. Thus, in Julian and Maddalo, "sacred nature"; in The R

ey does not make any difference between men, animals and plants. They are all about on

Systeme de la Nature, II, c. VI, we read: "Tout nous pronne donc que ce n'est pas hors de la nature que

est and dost move all things which live and are."[143] Again, "O Power!... thou which interpenetratest all things a

se and the gradations of his own love and her loveliness, by which as by steps he feigns himself to have ascended to the throne of the Supreme cause, is the most glorious imagination of modern poetry." One would be in

ings love one anoth

pant with life'

es; and spend in

joy of their rene

he "Spirit of Nature." In Prometheus Unbound he speaks of "this true, fair world of things a sea reflecting love." Love draws man to man. It is t

rit, deep

lest and

s which l

thy star o'er Oce

of Beau

ve of pure Beauty, Love itself. In the Symposium, Diotima explains how the love of beautiful objects leads on to the conception of perfect abstract beauty, "eternal unproduced, indestructible.... All other things are beautiful through a partici

re thou, Earth

ome spirit love

g

adow of some

een amongs

se things to be known and to constitute their reality. It is at the same time one and many.[151] It stood out most prominently in the mind of Plato as the Idea of Good or Beauty by whi

these Ideas have been identified by St. Augustine and other Christian platonists with the "mind of God," it is doubtful that Shel

se smile kindl

which all thing

on which the e

ench not, that

the web of bei

st and earth a

r dim, as each

ich all thirst;

st clouds of col

ings at the instance of Southey. Ideas, according to Berkeley, are communicated to the mind through the immediate operation of the Deit

is W

s, and men, and be

ilent or tempe

ave been, are,

ion; all tha

sick eye, bub

cradle and its

d the past ar

rnal flight-the

at which feels i

substance. "What is it?" she asks. "It is mine other dream," replies Panthea. "It disappears," exclaims Asia. "It passes now into my mind," replies Panthea. To Shelley dre

ts existence. The quotations, though, which can be twisted into an expression of disbelief in the immortality of the soul[154] are less numerous than those expressing disbelief in the existence of God. His writings teem with expressions of belief in existence after death. "You have witnessed one suspension of intellect in dreamles

e and was steeped in the river of forgetfulness it still retains an indistinct memory of those heavenly intuitions of the truth."[157] Shelley was so impressed with the truth of this theory that he once walked

hrough the inmos

f Adonais,

abode where the

as the most supreme, superior and distinguished abstract appendage to the nature of anything." Again, "I conceive (and as is certainly capable of demonstration) that nothing can be annihilated, but that everyth

on of man. His views on this subject were derived principally from Godwin. "Every human being," says Godwin, "is irresistably impelled to act precisely as he does act. In the eternity which preceded

d effects appears, the connection between which we cannot understand. The same thing is true of the moral world. There, motive is to voluntary action what cause is to effect in the physical order. A man cannot resist the strongest motive any more than a stone left unsuspended can remain in the air. Will is simply an act of the judgment determined by

this turbul

unnecessit

it must and oug

e sam

ght, a wil

f the tyrant

ving of the s

, to hide the s

ts enchainin

depths of un

l-influencing

, or unfores

the Univ

nge into the established notions of morality, and utterly to destroy Religion. It teaches that no event

trainedly free and that man is his own master. Thus, "Man whose will has power when all beside is gone" (The Revolt, VIII, 16). "Such intent

ed through self-abnegation and the determination of the will. Mrs. Shelley says in the introduction to Prometheus Unbound that Shelley believed mankind had only to will that there should be no evil and there would be none. Evil is not something inherent in creation, but

ary so much that we do not find the standard of morality to be precisely the same in any two countries of the world. Good and evil are modes of thinking; and what appears good to one person may appear bad to another, and neither good nor bad to a third. This is Spinoza's doctrine: "Bonum et

nal enemy of pain and evil.... According to Jesus Christ, and according to the indisputable facts of the case, some evil spirit has dominion in this imperfect world."[164] Good is represented by the morning star and evil by a comet. According to the second version, which

y are nothing but errors of judgment. Let truth prevail; educate men

laves cease to p

e and misery

ang even over t

rudest grasp a

hich compel a man to yield. Reduce sensual acts to their true nakedness and they would be despised. Whatever power the passions have to incline men to act will, in future, be offset by consideration of justice and self-interest. Many have overcome the influence of pain and pleasure in the

n reaso

ice of nature

nd mankind per

ar, and miser

d happiness

scene will e

rits a pure d

ith the plane

s this view of evil in the teaching of Christ. "According to Jesus Christ," he writes, "some evil spirit has dominion in this imperf

d happiness, and harmony." Virtue, says Godwin, is the offspring of the understanding; and vice is always the result of narrow views. "Selfishness," writes Shelley, "is the offspring of ignorance and mistake;

on the good and the evil, and the rain to fall on the just and unjust." How monstrous a calumny have not impostors dared to advance against the mild and gentle author of this just sentiment, and against the whole tenor of his doctrines and his