As burning torches are about to be On the day of the execution

applied to the pyre on which Laon Luxima noticed a procession

is to die, a steed bursts through moving beneath her window and her

the rank of the people on which a eyes rested on the form of the

woman sits. missionary. "She beheld the

friend of her soul; love and

"Fairer, it seems than aught reason returned together." She

that _earth can breed_, escapes the vigilance of her

Calm, radiant, like a phantom guardian, and seeks the place

of the dawn. where her beloved is to die.

A spirit _from the caves_ of While officers were binding the

_daylight_ wandering gone. missionary to the stake "a form

All thought it was _God's _scarcely human_ darting with the

Angel_ come to sweep velocity of lightning through the

The lingering guilty to their multitude reached the foot of the

fiery grave. pile and stood before it in a

grand and aspiring attitude ...

thus _bright and aerial_ as it

stood, it looked like a spirit

_sent from heaven_ in the awful

moment of dissolution to cheer

and to convey to the regions of

the blessed, the soul which would

soon arise pure from the ordeal

of earthly sufferings. The sudden

appearance of the singular

phantom struck the imagination of

the credulous and awed multitude

with superstitious wonder....

The Christians fixed their eyes

upon the cross, which glittered

on a bosom whose beauty scarcely

seemed of mortal mould, and

deemed themselves the witnesses

of a miracle wrought for the

salvation of a persecuted martyr,

whose innocence was asserted by

the firmness and fortitude with

which he met a dreadful death."

Cythna has come not to save Laon Luxima springs upon the pyre to

but to die with him. die with the missionary.

At the sight of Cythna At the sight of Luxima the people

rise in rebellion.

"They pause, they blush, they

gaze--a gathering shout "The timid spirits of the Hindus

Bursts like one sound from the rallied to an event which touched

ten thousand streams their hearts, and roused them

Of a tempestuous sea." from the lethargy of despair--the

sufferings, the oppression, they

(All through the poem Cythna had so long endured, seemed now

exerts a wonderful influence epitomized before their eyes in

over the people.) the person of their celebrated

and distinguished prophetess ...

"The tyrants send their armed they fell with fury on the

slaves to quell Christians, they rushed upon the

Her power; they, even like a cowardly guards of the

thunder-gust Inquisition who let fall their

Caught by some forest, bend arms and fled in dismay."

beneath the spell

Of that young maiden's speech,

and to their chiefs

rebel."

It did not suit Shelley's purpose The officers of the Inquisition

to have the people use force called on by their superiors

against the tyrants, so he makes sprang forward to seize the

Cythna persuade the people missionary; "for a moment the

timid multitude were still as

"--though unwilling her to bind _the pause of a brooding storm_."

Near me among the snakes."

A priest commands the multitude

to seize Cythna,

"Slaves to the stake

Bind her, and on my head the

burden lay

Of her just torments ...

They trembled, but replied not

nor obeyed

_Pausing in breathless silence_.

Laon escaped from his first prison During the confusion caused by

in a boat which belonged to an old the insurrection the missionary

man who represents Shelley's tutor and Luxima escape in a boat which

at Eton, Dr. Lind. was provided by his old tutor,

the Pundit.

The missionary and Luxima reach a cavern which bears a slight resemblance

to the caverns of _The Revolt_. He discovers that the priestess is dying

from a wound received during the melee at Lahore. "Answering the eloquence

of her languid and tender looks, he exclaims, 'Yes, dearest, and most

unfortunate, our destinies are now inseparably united! Together we have

loved, together we have resisted, together we have erred, and together we

have suffered; lost alike to the glory and the fame which our virtues and

the conquest of our passions obtained for us; alike condemned by our

religions and our countries, there now remains nothing on earth for us but

each other.'" This recalls to mind the dedication of _The Revolt of

Islam_--

There is no danger to a man that knows

What life and death is; there's not any law

Exceeds his knowledge: neither is it lawful

That he should stoop to any other law.

As the end of Luxima approaches she bids her beloved live and preach peace

and mercy, and love to Brahmin and Christian. "But should thy eloquence

and thy example fail, tell them my story! tell them how I have suffered,

and how even thou has failed--thou, for whom I forfeited my caste, my

country and my life; for 'tis too true, that still more loving than

enlightened, my ancient habits of belief clung to my mind, thou to my

heart; still I lived thy seeming proselyte, that I might still live thine;

and now I die as Brahmin women die; a Hindoo in my feelings and my

faith--dying for him I loved and believing as my fathers believed."[59]

This bears some resemblance to that part of Cythna's speech in the cavern,

Canto IX, where she glories in the triumph of their love over the

opposition of the world.

I fear nor prize

Aught that can now betide unshared by thee.

Cythna thinks that she _will soon die_ and believes like Luxima that the

story of their love will be a source of inspiration to mankind

Our many thoughts and deeds, our life and love,

Our happiness, and all that we have been

Immortally must live and burn and move

When we shall be no more.

There are, of course, some differences between the two stories, especially

in the conclusions (Cythna and Laon are burned, while Luxima alone dies

and the Missionary is never heard of again); but many of the incidents of

both are so alike as to justify us in believing that those in _The Revolt_

were derived from _The Missionary_. This is confirmed by the fact that

Shelley makes more attacks in this poem on priests and the celibacy of the

clergy than in any other. In the preface to the poem, Shelley says that

"although the mere composition occupied no more than six months, the

thoughts thus arranged were slowly gathered in as many years." It is

suggestive that the idea of composing the poem came to him in 1811, the

year in which he first read the _Missionary_. In this same year he wrote a

little poem entitled an _Essay on Love_, no copy of which is now

extant.[60] Should one ever come to light, it may show remarkable

similarity to the love poem _The Revolt of Islam_, where "love is

celebrated everywhere as the sole law which should govern the moral

world."[61]

It has been said that Shelley was a libertine, but there seems to be no

proof for this assertion. Hogg, who was his most intimate friend at

Oxford, says the purity and sanctity of Shelley's life were most

conspicuous. "He was offended, and indeed more indignant than would appear

to be consistent with the singular mildness of his nature at a coarse and

awkward jest, especially if it were immodest and uncleanly; in the latter

case his anger was unbounded, and his uneasiness preeminent." With the

exception of his elopement with Mary Godwin there is nothing in his life

to indicate that he was licentious. "Die ruhe, klarheit, sicherheit und

staerke seines geschlechtlichen empfuendens, das frei ist von aller

luesternheit oder unnatuerlichkeit ist bei seiner feinfuehligen, nervosen

koerperanlage besonders bemerkenswert."[62]

True, Shelley loved many women, but this does not prove that he was

immoral. His love is platonic and not sensual. Platonic love is described

by Howell as "a love abstracted from all corporeal gross impressions and

sensual appetites, but consists in contemplations and ideas of the

mind."[63] It is a passion having its source in the enjoyment of beauty

and goodness.

"What is love or friendship?" Shelley asks. "Is it capable of no

extension, no communication?" Lord Kaimes defines love to be a

particularization of the general passion, but this is the love of

sensation, of sentiment--the absurdest of absurd vanities; it is the love

of pleasure, not the love of happiness. The one is a love which is

self-centered, self-devoted, self-interested ... selfishness, monopoly in

its very soul; but love, the love which we worship--virtue, heaven,

disinterestedness--in a word."[64] Love seeks the good of all, not because

its object is a minister to its pleasures, but because it is really

worthy.

Platonism, laying emphasis upon the function of the soul as opposed to the

senses, treats "love as a purely spiritual passion devoid of all sensuous

pleasure."[65] Beauty is a spiritual thing, the splendor of God's light

shining in all things. It is that quality of an object which draws us to

it and makes us love it. Man should love everything and everybody because

they are all beautiful. Shelley says:

True love in this differs from gold and clay,

That to divide is not to take away

Love is like understanding, that grows bright

Gazing on many truths;[66]

In another place he says "the meanest of our fellow beings contains

qualities, which, developed, we must admire and adore." Beauty is

something more than outward appearance. The source of its power lies in

the soul. "The platonic theory of beauty teaches that the beauty of the

body is a result of the formative energy of the soul." According to the

Platonist Ficino the soul has descended from heaven and has framed a body

in which to dwell. True lovers are those whose souls have departed from

heaven under the same astral influences and who, accordingly, are informed

with the same idea in imitation of which they frame their earthly

bodies."[67] "We are born," writes Shelley, "into the world, and there is

something within us which, from the instant that we live, more and more

thirsts after its likeness.... The discovery of its antitype; the meeting

with an understanding capable of clearly estimating our own ... with a

frame whose nerves like the chords of two exquisite lyres, strung to the

accompaniment of one delightful voice, vibrate with the vibrations of our

own;... this is the invisible and unattainable point to which love

tends."[68] According to Plato wisdom is the most lovely of all ideas and

the human being who has the greatest amount of wisdom is the most lovable.

Platonic love then concerns only the soul, and the union of lover and

beloved is simply a union of their souls. "I am led to love a being,"

Shelley says, "not because it stands in the physical relation of blood to

me but because I discern an intellectual relationship."[69] Whenever

Shelley sees one possessing beauty and virtue he cannot help loving that

person.

I never was attached to that great sect

Whose doctrine is that each one should select

Out of the crowd a mistress or a friend

And all the rest though fair and wise commend

To cold oblivion;[70]

Again

Narrow

The heart that loves, the brain that contemplates

The life that wears, the spirit that creates

One object, and one form, and builds thereby

A sepulchre for its eternity.

This is the doctrine of Diotima in Plato's _Symposium_, which Shelley has

translated as follows: "He who aspires to love rightly, ought from his

earliest youth to seek an intercourse with beautiful forms.... He ought

then to consider that beauty in whatever form it resides is the brother of

that beauty which subsists in another form; and if he ought to pursue that

which is beautiful in form it would be absurd to imagine that beauty is

not one and the same thing in all forms, and would therefore remit much of

his ardent preferences towards one, through his perception of the

multitude of claims upon his love."

In the preface to _Alastor_ Shelley says that the poem represents a youth

(himself) of uncorrupted feelings led forth to the contemplation of the

universe. "But the period arrives when these objects cease to suffice. His

mind is at length awakened, and thirsts for intercourse with an

intelligence similar to himself. He images to himself the Being whom he

loves." This image unites all of wonderful or wise or beautiful which the

poet could depict. Shelley sought this ideal all through life, and when he

thought he found it went into raptures. Disillusionment, however, soon

followed, and _Alastor_ is the expression of his despair at not finding an

embodiment of his ideal.

If we keep in mind that Shelley was a platonist, we shall be able to form

a more intelligent estimate of his love lyrics and his relations with

women. In his first wife, Harriet, he saw courage, a desire for freedom,

and a willingness to learn his doctrines.

Thou art sincere and good, of resolute mind

Free from heart-withering customs' cold control,

Of passion lofty, pure and subdued.

As soon as she ceased to take interest in his studies, his love for her

began to wane. "Every one must know," he tells Peacock, "that the partner

of my life should be one who can feel poetry and understand philosophy." A

month or two after his first marriage he tells Elizabeth Hitchener that he

loves her. Seeing that she possessed high intelligence, great love of

mankind, and a tendency to oppose existing institutions, he straightway

calls her the "sister of his soul."

Later on he meets a beautiful, sentimental Italian girl, Emilia Viviani,

imagines she is the perfect ideal which he had formed in his youth, and

writes the _Epipsychidion_. "Emilia," says Professor Dowden, "beautiful,

spiritual, sorrowing, became for him a type and symbol of all that is most

radiant and divine in nature, all that is most remote and unattainable,

yet ever to be pursued--the ideal of beauty, truth, and love."[71]

_Epipsychidion_ is the poetic embodiment of the feelings awakened in

Shelley by this supposed discovery of the incarnation of the ideal. Emilia

turned out to be an ordinary human creature, and then Shelley wished to

blot out the memory of her entirely. In a letter to Mr. Gisborne, June,

1822, Shelley says: "I think one is always in love with something or

other; the error--and I confess it is not easy for spirits cased in flesh

and blood to avoid it--consists in seeking in a mortal image the likeness

of what is, perhaps eternal." "Such illusions," says Dowden, "may be of

service in keeping alive within us the aspiration for the highest things,

but assuredly they have a tendency to draw away from real persons some of

those founts of feeling which are needed to keep fresh and bright the

common ways and days of our life."[72]

Some of Shelley's views on women and the family were derived from Mary

Wollstonecraft's _Vindication of the Rights of Women_. "According to the

prevailing opinion," says Mrs. Wollstonecraft, "women were made for men."

All their cares and anxieties are directed towards getting husbands. They

deck themselves out with artificial graces that enable them to exercise a

short lived tyranny. "Love in their bosoms, taking place of every nobler

passion, their sole ambition is to look fair, to raise emotion instead of

inspiring respect; and this ignoble desire, like the servility in absolute

monarchies, destroys all strength of character."[73] Women then should not

depend on their charms alone, because these have little effect on their

husband's heart "when they are seen every day when the summer is past and

gone." Her first care should be to improve her mind, to exercise her

God-given faculties, assert her individuality. This can never be, though,

as long as she is the plaything of man. If one may contest the divine

right of kings one may also contest the divine right of husbands. Women

should bow only to reason and cease being the modest slaves of opinion. It

is a violation of the sacred rights of humanity to exact blind obedience

and meek submission of women. "The being who patiently endures injustice

will soon become unjust."

In _The Revolt of Islam_, Cythna says:

Can man be free if woman be a slave?

Chain one who lives and breathes this boundless air,

To the corruption of a closed grave!

Can they whose mates are beasts condemned to bear

Scorn, heavier far than toil or anguish, dare

To trample their oppressors?

According to Pope "every woman is at heart a rake." "Rendered gay and

giddy by the whole tenor of their lives, the very aspect of wisdom or the

severe graces of virtue must have a lugubrious appearance to them." "Till

women are led to exercise their understandings they should not be

satirized for their attachment to rakes."[74]

Shelley's opinion of women is even less complimentary:

Woman! she is his slave, she has become

A thing I weep to speak--the child of scorn,

The outcast of a desolated home.

Falsehood, and fear, and toil, like waves have worn

Channels upon her cheek, which smiles adorn,

As calm decks the false ocean....[75]

"The parent," Mrs. Wollstonecraft writes, "who pays proper attention to

helpless infancy has a right to require the same attention when the

feebleness of age comes upon him. But to subjugate a rational being to the

mere will of another, after he is of age to answer to society for his own

conduct, is a most cruel and undue stretch of power, and perhaps as

injurious to morality as those religious systems which do not allow right

and wrong to have any existence, but in the Divine will." Children should

be taught early to submit to reason, "for to submit to reason, is to

submit to the nature of things, and to that God who formed them so, to

promote our real interest."[76]

But children near their parents tremble now

Because they must obey ...

... and life is poisoned in its wells.[77]

"Obedience (were society as I could wish it) is a word which ought to be

without meaning."[78]

Another book that interested Shelley very much was the "_Memoires

relatives a la Revolution Francaise_" of Louvet. Louvet was a licentious

novelist and ardent Republican. He strongly opposed the tyranny of Marat

and of Robespierre and the work of the commune of Paris. He was very

courageous and often endangered his life by his opposition to the

arbitrary measures of the Council. In 1793 he was obliged to flee for his

life and the _Memoirs_ contains interesting details of this flight. He and

his wife were very devoted to each other, and this together with the man's

courage made a strong impression on Shelley. "Je te laissai, mon cher

Barbaroux; maix tu me le pardonnes; tu sais quelle passion j'avais pour

elle, et comme elle en etait digne!" He goes to Paris in spite of the

fact that he runs the risk of being seized and guillotined. "Quiconque

n'epouvva point un pariel supplice ne saurait en avoir une juste idee. O

Ladoiska! sans le souvenir de ton amour, qui donc aurait pu m' empecher de

terminer mes peines?"[79]

Louvet and Ladoiska are reunited again, but only to be arrested soon

afterwards. This causes her to exclaim, "Non, je jure que sans toi, la vie

m'est tourment, un insupportable tourment, seule, je perirais bientot, je

perirais desesperee. Ah! permets, permets que nous mourions ensemble."[80]

This work may have suggested to Shelley the idea of making Laon and Cythna

die together. Cythna tells Laon

Darkness and death, if death be true, must be

Dearer than life and hope if unenjoyed with thee.[81]

CHAPTER III

POLITICS

Someone has said that if Shelley had not been a poet he would have been a

politician. Certain it is that he gave to politics a great deal of thought

and study. On January 26, 1819, Shelley wrote to Peacock: "I consider

poetry very subordinate to political science, and, if I were well,

certainly I would aspire to the latter, for I can conceive a great work

embodying the discoveries of all ages, and harmonizing the contending

creeds by which mankind have been ruled."[82] Shelley was not one who

beheld the woe

In which mankind was bound, and deem'd that fate

Which made them abject, would preserve them so.

On the contrary, he firmly believed in man's capacity to work out his own

regeneration. His tuneful lyre was ever at the service of the Goddess of

Freedom; and he took occasion often to pour forth music calculated to

rouse the nations from their apathy.

Very many of Shelley's views on political and social questions can be

traced to Godwin's _Political Justice_. Godwin doubts that one can be said

to have a mind. It may still be convenient to use the word "mind," but in

fact what we know by that name is merely a chain of "ideas." Since man's

mind is but an aggregate of ideas, man himself is capable of indefinite

modification. Differences in men result wholly from differences of

education. Feed a sinner on syllogisms and you can transform him into a

saint. It is impossible for one to resist a clear exposition of the

advantages of virtue. It follows, too, that we can easily abolish existing

institutions and rearrange the whole structure of society on new

principles infallibly correct. The force which is to spur us on to do this

is reason. It is "omnipotent."

Volney, Rousseau, Holbach, and the rest of this stamp, although condemning

past systems of government, admitted that some form of government was

necessary for the well-being of mankind. Godwin, on the other hand,

denounced all government as "an institution of the most pernicious

tendency." There is only one power to which man should yield obedience and

that is the decision of his own understanding. Conditions being such as

they are, government may be required for a while to restrain and direct

men, but as soon as men will learn to follow reason, government will

disappear altogether.

Godwin taught that every voluntary action flows solely from the decision

of one's judgment. "Voluntary actions of men originate in all cases in

their opinions," _i. e._, in the state of their minds immediately previous

to those actions. The nature of a man's actions, therefore, depends on the

nature of his opinions. If he has just and true opinions his actions will

be good; if erroneous ones, his actions will be bad. But "sound reasoning

and truth adequately communicated must be victorious over error."[83] Man

will always accept the truth if presented to him properly. It follows,

then, that "reason and conviction appear to be the proper instruments for

regulating the actions of mankind." Man's conduct should not conform to

any other standard but reason. Obedience to law then is immoral, unless of

course its mandates correspond to the decision of our own judgments.

Shelley has the same idea

The man

Of virtuous soul commands not, nor obeys,

Power, like a devastating pestilence

Pollutes whate'er it touches; and obedience

Bane of all genius, virtue, freedom, truth,

Make slaves of men, and of the human frame

A mechanized automaton.[84]

Again and again he exclaims against kings and autocracy. His sonnet,

"England in 1819," is a terrible castigation of the Hanoverian Kings:

An old, mad, blind, despised and dying king;

Princes the dregs of their dull race, who flow

Through public scorn--mud from a muddy spring,

Rulers who neither see, nor feel, nor know,

But leech-like to their fainting country cling,

Till they drop blind in blood without a blow, etc., etc.

To aid republicanism he espoused the cause of the unhappy Caroline of

Brunswick and on her account wrote "A New National Anthem," and the

satirical piece, "Swellfoot the Tyrant." In "Hellas" we find him

advocating the cause of Greece, and it is believed that this poem moved

his friend Byron to take up arms in defense of that country.

"A king," writes Godwin, "is necessarily and unavoidably a despot in his

heart." With him the words "ruler" and "tyrant" are synonymous. A king

from the very nature of his office cannot be anything but vicious. Shelley

expresses his opinion of kings as follows:

The king, the wearer of a gilded chain

That binds his soul to abjectness, the fool

Whom courtiers nickname monarch, whilst a slave

Even to the basest appetites.[85]

One wonders at first why Shelley should have represented evil as an eagle

in _The Revolt of Islam_. The reason for this becomes clear when one

considers that the eagle is often called a king among birds and is used as

a symbol for authority.

Shelley, however, did not believe in violent revolutions. In _The Revolt

of Islam_, Irish pamphlets, &c., he advocates reformation without recourse

to force. A change must take place; kings must be done away with, but not

until the people are prepared for the change. "A pure republic," he

writes, "may be shown, by inferences the most obvious and irresistible, to

be that system of social order the fittest to produce the happiness and

promote the genuine eminence of man. Yet nothing can less consist with

reason or afford smaller hopes of any beneficial issue than the plan which

should abolish the regal and the aristocratical branches of our

constitution, before the public mind, through many gradations of

improvement, shall have arrived at the maturity which shall disregard

these symbols of its childhood."

Godwin and Shelley maintain that the state should make as little use as

possible of coercion and violence. "Criminals should be pitied and

reformed, not detested and punished." The punishment of death is

particularly obnoxious to them. Shelley argues against it in his essay on

_The Punishment of Death_. He claims that the punishment of death defeats

its own end. It is a triumphant exhibition of suffering virtue, which may

inspire some with pity, admiration and sympathy. As a consequence it may

incite them to emulate their works, especially the works of political

agitators. Punishment of death, again, excites those emotions which are

inimical to social order. It strengthens all the inhuman and unsocial

impulses of man. The contempt of human life breeds ferocity of manners and

contempt of social ties. Hence it is, Shelley believes, that those nations

in which the penal code has been particularly mild have been distinguished

from all others by the rarity of crime.

Neither should the citizens of a state use violence in putting down

oppression. In his address to the Irish he tells them that violence and

folly will serve only to delay emancipation. "Mildness, sobriety, and

reason are the effectual methods of forwarding the ends of liberty and

happiness." Violence and falsehood will produce nothing but wretchedness

and slavery and will make those who use them incapable of further

exertion. Violence will immediately render their cause a bad one. Godwin

likewise maintains that "force is an expedient the use of which is much to

be deplored. It is contrary to the nature of intellect which cannot be

improved but by conviction and persuasion. It corrupts the man that

employs it and the man upon whom it is employed."[86] In _The Revolt of

Islam_ Shelley says:

Oh wherefore should ill ever flow from ill,

And pain still keener pain forever breed?

We are all brethren--even the slaves who kill

For hire are men; and to avenge misdeed

On the misdoer doth but misery feed

With her own broken heart![87]

Godwin would reform society by means of education, so also would Shelley.

They seem to differ though in their views with regard to the relations

that exist between institutions and individuals. Godwin holds that

tyrranical institutions must be abolished before men can become free.

Shelley, on the contrary, says that the freedom and enlightenment of

individuals should come first, and it is only when that is accomplished

that tyrannical institutions will disappear. Godwin writes: "The only

method according to which social improvements can be carried on is when

the improvement of our institutions advances in a just proportion to the

illumination of the public understanding."[88] While Shelley writes in his

address to the Irish people that reform "is founded on the reform of

private men and without individual amendment it is vain and foolish to

expect the amendment of a state or government." Although Godwin says in

the first book of _Political Justice_ that it is futile to attempt to

change morals without first changing our institutions, still, later on, he

seems to forget this and to advocate the reform of individuals. "Make men

wise," he writes, "and by that very operation you make them free. Civil

liberty follows as a consequence of this."[89] Shelley, unlike Plato,

would give to poets the first place in his plan for the reform of society.

He calls them "the acknowledged legislators of the world."[90]

Godwin's principle of justice is that each should do to others all the

good that is in his power. It is an impartial treatment of every man in

matters that relate to his happiness--a treatment which is to be measured

solely by a consideration of the properties of the receiver and the

capacity of him who bestows. Everything should be so disposed--material

comforts so distributed as to give the same amount of pleasure to all.

Personal and private feelings such as gratitude and parental affection

should be destroyed. A just man will consider the general good only. Hence

if my father and a stranger who is of more benefit to society than my

father are both in danger of death, I am bound to try to save the stranger

first.[91] Shelley has something similar to this in his _Essay on

Christianity_: "I love my country, I love the city in which I was born, my

parents, my wife and the children of my care, and to these children, this

woman, this nation, it is incumbent on me to do all the benefits in my

power.... You ought to love all mankind, nay every individual of mankind.

You ought not to love the individuals of your domestic circle less, but to

love those who exist beyond it more." Godwin says that one principle of

justice is "to be no respecter of persons."[92] In a letter to Miss

Hitchener, October, 1811, Shelley writes: "I ... set myself up as no

respecter of persons." "The end of virtue," says Godwin, "is to add to the

sum of pleasurable sensation." In the _Essay on Christianity_ Shelley

writes: "This and no other is justice: to consider under all circumstances

and consequences of a particular case how the greatest quantity and purest

quality of happiness will ensue from any action; this is to be just; and

there is no other justice." Godwin[93] attempts to tell how we can find

out whether an action would be just or not. He warns us against measuring

the morality of an action according to existing laws. We can determine its

morality only by trying to estimate the amount of happiness or pain it

will cause others. "One of the best practical rules of morality," he

writes, "is that of putting ourselves in the place of another.... It is by

this means only that we can form an adequate idea of his pleasures and

pains."[94] Shelley expresses the same thought in his _Defense of Poetry_:

"A man to be greatly good must imagine intensely and comprehensively; he

must put himself in the place of another and many others; the pains and

pleasures of his species must become his own."

For Shelley laws are "obscure records of dark and barbarous echos," "tomes

of reasoned wrong glozed on by ignorance."[95] Lawyers are those who,

skilled to snare

The feet of justice in the toils of law

Stand, ready to oppress the weaker still.[96]

"Government," he says, "cannot make a law, it can only pronounce that

which was the law before its organization, _viz._: the moral result of the

imperishable relations of things;"[97] and in his _Address to the Irish_:

"No act of a national representation can make anything wrong which was not

wrong before: it cannot change virtue and truth." All this is merely a

repetition of Godwin's principles. "Immutable reason," he says, "is the

true legislator, and her decrees it behooves us to investigate. The

functions of society extend, not to the making, but the interpreting of

law; it cannot decree, it can only declare that which the nature of things

has already decreed."[98]

Godwin was a communist rather than a socialist. Every kind of cooperation

was repugnant to him. With regard to the distribution of wealth he taught

that any given article belonged to him to whom it will give the greatest

sum of benefit or pleasure. A loaf of bread, _v. g._, belongs to the man

who needs it most. Shelley holds that if the properties of the aristocrats

were resolved into their original stock, and if each earned his own

living, each would be happy and contented, and crime and the temptation to

crime would scarcely exist. "If two children," he writes, "were placed

together in a desert island and they found some scarce fruit, would not

justice dictate an equal division? If this number is multiplied to any

extent of which number is capable, if these children are men, families--is

not justice capable of the same extension and multiplication? Is it not

the same, are not its decrees invariable?"[99] Again in his _Essay on

Christianity_: "With all those who are truly wise, there will be an entire

community not only of thoughts and feelings but also of external

possessions." Both Shelley and Godwin put the rent-roll of lands in the

same class as the pension-list which is supposed to be employed in the

purchase of ministerial majorities.

It is a calculation of Godwin, says Shelley, "that all the conveniences of

civilized life might be produced if society would divide the labor equally

among its members, by each individual being employed in labor two hours

during the day."[100] Godwin says that the means of subsistence belong

entirely to the owner. The fruits of labor belong to the laborer, but he

is only the steward of them. He can consume only what he needs, and must

preserve and dispense the rest for the benefit of others. In his _Essay on

Christianity_, Shelley writes "every man in proportion to his virtue

considers himself, with respect to the great community of mankind, as the

steward and guardian of their interests in the property which he chances

to possess."[101] When Shelley proposed to share his income with Elizabeth

Hitchener he said that he was not doing an act of generosity, but one of

justice--"bare, simple justice." Godwin says that new inventions and the

refinements of luxury are inimical to the welfare of society. These mean

more work for the poor while only the rich are benefited.[102] "The poor,"

writes Shelley, "are set to labor--for what? Not the food for which they

famish; not the blankets for want of which ... no; for the pride of power,

for the miserable isolation of pride, for the false pleasures of the

hundredth part of society." Godwin says that the direct pleasure which

luxuries give is very small. They are prized because of the love of

distinction which is characteristic of every human mind. Fine bonnets and

wealth would not be desired by a family living on a desert island. Why not

let the acquisition of learning and the practice of virtue instead of

wealth be the road to fame. Shelley writes--

And statesman boasts

Of wealth.... How vainly seek

The selfish for that happiness denied

To aught but virtue.[103]

Again: "the man who has fewest bodily wants approachest nearest to the

Divine Nature. Satisfy these wants at the cheapest rates and expend the

remaining energies of your nature in the attainment of virtue and

knowledge.... Ye can spend no labor on mechanism consecrated to luxury and

pride."[104] "There is no wealth in the world," says Godwin, "except this,

the labor of man."[105] Every new luxury is a new weight thrown on the

shoulders of the laborer, for which they receive no benefit. In the

_Notes to Queen Mab_, Shelley writes: "there is no real wealth but the

labor of man." "What is misnamed wealth," writes Godwin, "is merely a

power vested in certain individuals by the institutions of society to

compel others to labor for their benefit."[106] "Wealth," says Shelley,

"is a power usurped by the few to compel the many to labor for their

benefit."[107]

Shelley during his sojurn in Ireland, in the spring of 1813, published the

_Declaration of Rights_. This pamphlet afterwards led to the arrest of his

Irish servant, Daniel Hill, for distributing the same without authority.

Many propositions of the _Declaration of Rights_ bear considerable

resemblance to some of the proposals of the _Declaration of Rights_

adopted by the Constitutional Assembly of France in August, 1789.

No. 3 of Shelley's _Declaration_ reads as follows: "Government is devised

for the security of rights. The rights of men are liberty and an equal

participation in the commonage of nature." Proposition No. 2 of the

_Constituent Assembly_ is: "The object of every political association is

the conservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man. These

rights are liberty, security, resistance to oppression."

In No. 4 Shelley says: "As the benefit of the governed is, ought to be,

the origin of government, no man can have any authority that does not

expressly emanate from their will." The corresponding constituent

proposition is: "The principle of all authority resides essentially in the

nation; no body, no individual can exercise any authority that does not

expressly emanate from it."

Compare Shelley's No. 6 with Nos. 1 and 17. No. 6: "All have a right to an

equal share in the benefits and burdens of the government. Any

disabilities for opinions imply, by their very existence, barefaced

tyranny on the side of the government, ignorant slavishness on the side of

the governed." No. 1 of the _Assembly_: "Men are born and remain free and

equal. Social distinctions can only be founded on the common good." No.

17: "Property being an inviolable and sacred right, no one can be deprived

of it, unless public necessity evidently demands it, and then only on

condition that indemnity be made."

No. 7 of the _Declaration_ resembles the constituent Nos. 8 and 9. Shelley

says: "The rights of man in the present state of society are only to be

secured by some degree of coercion to be exercised on their violator. The

sufferer has a right that the degree of coercion employed be as light as

possible."

No. 8: "The law should establish only those punishments that are strictly

and evidently necessary, &c."

No. 9: "... all unnecessary severity should be repressed by law."

Shelley's No. 9 and the constituent No. 7 declare that no man has the

right to resist the law.

No. 15 of the _Declaration_ resembles No. 5 of the _Constituent Assembly_.

No. 15: "Law cannot make what is in its nature virtuous or innocent to be

criminal, any more than it can make what is criminal to be innocent.

Government cannot make a law; it can only pronounce that which was the law

before its organization, _viz._, the moral result of the imperishable

relation of things." No. 5: "Law has only the right to prohibit those

actions which are injurious to society. Anything that is not forbidden by

the law cannot be prevented, and no one can be constrained to do that

which is not ordained by law."

Shelley's No. 21 is: "The government of a country ought to be perfectly

indifferent to every opinion. Religious differences, the bloodiest and

most rancorous of all, spring from partiality." This corresponds to

constituent No. 10: "No one should be disturbed on account of his

opinions, even religious ones, provided their manifestation does not

endanger the public order established by law."

Finally compare Shelley's No. 27 with constituent No. 6. No. 27: "No man

has a right to be respected for any other possessions but those of virtue

and talents. Titles are tinsel, power a corruptor, glory a bubble, and

excessive wealth a libel on its possessor." No. 6: "All citizens, being

equal in the eyes of the law, are equally admissable to every dignity,

position, and public employment according to their capacity, and without

any other distinction but those of virtue and talents."

Shelley's political views were somewhat modified by the influence of Leigh

Hunt. The two friends probably met for the first time in January, 1814.

Both were sensitive and of a retiring disposition, dwelling in a world of

books and dreams. Hunt, like Shelley, advocated Catholic emancipation,

freedom of the press, and reform of parliamentary representation. He

differed from Shelley in this, that he was more practical, and had more

faith than his friend in the advantages of such partial reforms as the

abolition of child labor and of the slave trade, the reduction and

equalization of taxes, and the education of the poor. Hunt advocated the

reform of military discipline, while Shelley claimed that standing armies

should be abolished altogether. Hunt carried on his attacks against the

evils of the time in the pages of _The Examiner_, which everybody read in

those days. In 1813 the Hunt brothers were fined and imprisoned for an

offensive article on the Prince Regent which appeared in their paper.

Shelley must have offered to pay this fine, as Hunt records in his

autobiography that Shelley made him a princely offer. In December, 1816,

the Shelleys, after their return from the continent, were the guests of

Hunt at Hampstead and received his support and sympathy during the

Chancery suit. Through Hunt, Shelley made the acquaintance of the Cockney

circle, including Keats, Hazlitt, Reynolds, Novello, Brougham and Horace

Smith. In return for all this Shelley gave freely of his money to Hunt.

One acquainted with the Englishman's sense of honor may wonder at the

unusual way Hunt and Godwin accepted money from Shelley and others. It

must be remembered though that these men believed no man had exclusive

ownership in superfluous wealth. They received what Shelley could spare as

if they were taking what belonged to themselves.

Early in 1817 Shelley wrote _A Proposal for Putting Reform to a Vote_, a

pamphlet which today in England would be considered conservative. It

suggested that a meeting be held at the Crown and Anchor Tavern "to take

into consideration the most effectual measures for ascertaining whether or

no a reform in Parliament is the will of the majority of the individuals

of the British nation." It disclaimed any design of sanctioning the

revolutionary schemes which were imputed to the friends of reform, and

declares that its object is purely constitutional. The pamphlet advocates

annual parliaments, but not universal suffrage. In it Shelley expresses

himself in favor of retaining the regal and aristocratical branches of our

constitution until the public mind "shall have arrived at the maturity

that can disregard these symbols of its childhood." "Political

institutions," he there writes, "are undoubtedly susceptible of such

improvement as no rational person can consider possible as long as the

present degraded condition to which the vital imperfections in the

existing system of government has reduced the vast multitude of men shall

subsist. The securest method of arriving at such beneficial innovations is

to proceed gradually and with caution."

In February, 1817, the Shelleys went to live at Marlow. There was much

suffering among the lacemakers of that town and Shelley went continually

among the unfortunate population, relieving the most pressing cases of

distress to the best of his ability. He had a list of pensioners to whom

he made a weekly allowance. One day he returned home without shoes, having

given them away to a poor man.

On March 11, 1818, Shelley, accompanied by his family, quitted England,

never again to return. In Italy, as in England, he continually changed his

place of abode. During the year 1818 he wrote _Lines Written among the

Euganean Hills_, _Julian and Maddalo_, and also began _Prometheus

Unbound_. This last work was completed in Rome during the summer and fall

of 1819. "The poem," he says in the preface, "was chiefly written upon the

mountainous ruins of the baths of Caracalla, among the flowery glades and

thickets of odoriferous blossoming trees which are extended in everwinding

labyrinths upon its immense platforms and dizzy arches suspended in the

air." _Prometheus Unbound_ is considered by many to be Shelley's most

important work. Mr. J. A. Symonds declares that "a genuine liking for it

may be reckoned the touchstone of a man's capacity for understanding lyric

poetry." Mr. Rossetti waxes eloquent over "The immense scale and boundless

scope of the conception; the marble majesty and extra-mundane passions of

the personages; the sublimity of ethical aspiration; the radiance of

ideal and poetic beauty which saturates every phase of the subject."

Prometheus, according to W. Rossetti, is the mind of man. In his preface

to the poem Shelley writes: "But Prometheus is, as it were, the type of

the highest perfection of moral and intellectual nature impelled by the

purest and truest motives to the best and noblest ends." At the opening of

the drama Prometheus is discovered bound to an icy precipice in the Indian

Caucasus. He is kept there by the tyrant Jupiter, whom he helped to

enthrone in place of Saturn. Mercury is sent to Prometheus and offers him

freedom from torture on condition that he reveal the secret of averting

the fall of Jupiter. This Prometheus refuses to do because it would seat

the tyrant more securely on his throne. He is then left to the untender

mercies of the Furies. These torture him by making him contemplate all the

misery of the world and the futility of hoping for any release from it.

They expose to view the wrecks of all the schemes ever advanced for the

regeneration of society, and especially the hate, bloodshed, and misery

which followed in the wake of the most promising of them all, the French

Revolution. They remind him that Christ's mission is a failure; that His

followers are persecuted; and that Christianity has not lessened the

deceit and selfishness of man. The anguish of Prometheus is mental rather

than physical. He cries out to the Furies

Thy words are like a cloud of winged snakes,

And yet I pity those they torture not.

His hope and optimism, however, triumph over all; and the Furies vanish. A

chorus of spirits come to console him and promise that he shall overcome

Death. Prometheus feels, nevertheless, that all hope is vain without love.

Conditions will remain as they are until Asia, the spirit of love in

nature, will be freed. At the end of the first act one of the nymphs,

Panthea, departs to seek Asia. She is found in a lovely vale and is

described as a being of exquisite beauty, "whose footsteps pave the world

with loveliness." Panthea then conducted Asia to the cave of Demogorgon.

This being has neither limb, nor form, nor outline; yet it is felt to be a

living spirit. Asia asks it when will the destined hour arrive for the

release of Prometheus. The answer is "Behold!" and just then the roof of

the cave bursts asunder, and the chariots of the Hours are seen passing

by. One of them stops and tells Asia that nightfall "will wrap heaven's

kingless throne in lasting night." Asia is transformed before them. Misery

gives place to love and joy. Another spirit with "dove-like eyes of hope"

conducts Asia to the throne of Jupiter.

The third act presents the catastrophe. It opens with a long speech of

Jupiter in which he exults over what he believes to be the approaching

conquest of man's soul. Little does he realize, however, that his fall is

at hand. The car of the Hour arrives with Demogorgon. At this sight

Jupiter is filled with terror and exclaims, "Awful shape, what art thou?"

Demogorgon answers, "Eternity. Demand no direr name. Descend and follow me

down the abyss." The secret is now revealed. Jupiter has just married

Thetis and the child of this union is to destroy his father. The curse is

fulfilled; Jupiter falls into the abyss. Prometheus is then released by

Hercules. Strength ministers to wisdom, courage, and long-suffering Love,

as a slave to its master. Prometheus is united with Asia; mankind with

love. The Golden Age has at last arrived. Henceforth there is to be no

tyranny nor evil of any kind. Love is to be supreme and is to make all

wise and happy. Man is released from bondage and is now free to do as

reason directs.

The loathsome mask has fallen, the man remains,

Scepterless, free, uncircumscribed, but man

Equal, unclassed, tribeless, and nationless,

Exempt from awe, worship, degree, the king

Over himself; just, gentle, wise; but man,

Passionless? no, yet free from guilt or pain,

Which were, for his will made or suffered them,

Nor yet exempt, tho' ruling them like slaves,

From chance, and death, and mutability,

The clogs of that which else might oversoar

The loftiest star of unascended heaven,

Pinnacled dim in the intense inane.

The drama should end here. The tyrant is overthrown and man is happy. In a

note on the play Mrs. Shelley says that it originally had but three acts.

Later on a fourth act was added, a sort of hymn of rejoicing over the

fulfillment of the prophecies with regard to Prometheus. In it specters of

the dead hours bear time to tomb in eternity. The spirits of the mind

reappear and chant their hymns of praise and thanksgiving.

Prometheus represents mankind. He is oppressed by the very being, Jupiter,

to whom he himself has given power. Jupiter must not be considered as the

abstract power of moral evil. He represents those institutions, political

and religious, which man himself has created. Jupiter's downfall is

brought about by his own offspring; man himself can overthrow tyranny. In

the marriage of Jupiter and Thetis, Shelley seems to portray the

overweening arrogance through which a political tyranny invests itself

with the pomp of a false glory and which always precedes its downfall. The

form of Demogorgon assumed by the child of this union undoubtedly means

Revolution, that Revolution which follows the marriage of unrighteous

power to arrogant display.[108] Demogorgon may be looked upon, too, as

Reason; Asia, the Spirit of Love, comes in contact with Demogorgon,

Reason, and moves it to action. The poet here means to image to us the

profound truth, that it is only through contact with emotion that abstract

thought can become roused to action and be a vital and dynamic power in

the sphere of practical life. It is only after having met Demogorgon that

the power of Asia is set free. If reason must be inspired by passion

before it can prevail, "love on the other hand must become instinct with

wisdom before it can be made manifest in that glory which shall save the

world."

After the interview with Demogorgon, Asia, love, is transfigured, "its

rosy warmth pervades the whole creation, and its power is revealed

triumphantly supreme. This is the act through which, in the secret mystery

of creation, the redemption of Prometheus is achieved. Thus through a

double process, destructive and constructive--by revolution and by

love--is set free the human soul."[109] Rossetti regards Prometheus as the

anthropomorphic God, created by the mind of man, and tyrannizing over its

creator; but surely, as Miss Scudder says, the myth is quite as much

political as theological.

_Prometheus Unbound_ was fiercely attacked in the _Quarterly_, and

Shelley, thinking that Southey was the author of the article, wrote to him

about it. Southey answered him that he did not write the article in

question, and at the same time read him a lecture on the necessity of

giving up his evil principles. Shelley felt that he was being misjudged

and wrongfully accused by one whom he could not suspect of ill-will, and

this no doubt helped to keep him a radical, even if he were inclined at

this time to become more conservative.

During 1819, meetings were held all over the country by the laboring

classes to consider ways and means of bettering their condition. On August

16, 1819, a huge one was held at St. Peter's Field, Manchester, with the

view of urging parliamentary reform. The magistrates had previously

declared that such a meeting would be illegal and the city authorities had

made extensive preparations for the preservation of the peace. After an

enormous crowd had gathered around the speakers, forty of the yeomanry

cavalry attempted to make their way through the multitude to arrest the

ringleaders. When it was found that they could not reach the platform a

hasty order was given to three hundred hussars to disperse the crowd. They

made a terrific charge, which resulted in the killing of six people and in

the wounding of fifty or sixty others. The news of this affair roused in

Shelley violent emotions of indignation and compassion. Writing to his

publisher, Mr. Ollier, he thus comments on the affair: "The same day that

your letter came, came the news of the Manchester work, and the torrent of

my indignation has not yet done boiling in my veins. I wait anxiously to

hear how the country will express its sense of this bloody, murderous

oppression of its destroyers. Something must be done. What, yet, I know

not." He calls it "an infernal business" and says that it is but the

distant thunders of the terrible storm which is fast approaching. "The

tyrants here, as in the French Revolution, have first shed blood."

The Manchester "massacre" inspired Shelley to write the _Mask of Anarchy_.

Leigh Hunt was asked to print it in _The Examiner_, but he refused. "I did

not insert it," Hunt wrote, "because I thought that the public at large

had not become sufficiently discerning to do justice to the sincerity and

kind-heartedness of the spirit that walked in this flaming robe of verse."

In this poem Shelley is not so vague and indefinite as he is in

_Prometheus Unbound_. He shows there that he has a grasp of the practical

wants of men. "What art thou, Freedom?" Shelley asks, and he replies:

Thou art clothes, and fire, and food

For the trampled multitude--

No--in countries that are free

Such starvation cannot be

As in England now we see.

Even here Shelley exhorts his countrymen to seek reform through peaceful

methods. He tells them to oppose meekness and resoluteness to violence and

tyranny; and then the tyrants

will return with shame

To the place from which they came

And the blood thus shed will speak

In hot blushes on their cheek.

There is very little recorded concerning the relations that existed

between Robert Owen (England's first socialist of note) and Shelley. One

of Owen's biographers states that Shelley's spirit appeared to Owen at a

spiritualistic seance, and that Owen exclaimed, "Oh, there is my old

friend, Shelley." It is certain at any rate that Owen was a close friend

of Godwin, and consequently had at least an indirect influence on Shelley.

_Queen Mab_, moreover, was the gospel of the Owenites.

For Shelley's later views we are indebted to his _Philosophical View of

Reform_ which Professor Dowden discusses in his volume _Transcripts and

Studies_. Shelley wrote to Leigh Hunt on May 26, 1820, and enquired if he

knew any bookseller who would publish an octavo volume, entitled a

_Philosophical View of Reform_. The plan of the work was to include

chapters on: (1) The sentiment of the necessity of change; (2) its causes

and its objects; (3) practicability and necessity of change; (4) state of

parties as regards it; (5) probable, possible, and desirable mode in which

it should be effected. The work was never published, however, and it is

said that the manuscript cannot now be found.[110]

The treatise opens with a brief historical survey of the chief movements

on behalf of freedom which have taken place since the beginning of the

Christian era. He describes historical Christianity as a perversion of the

utterances and actions of the great reformer of Nazareth. "The names

borrowed from the life and opinions of Jesus Christ were employed as

symbols of domination and imposture; and a system of liberality and

equality, for such was the system preached by that great reformer, was

perverted to support oppression." He eulogizes the philosophers of the

eighteenth century and sees in the Government of the United States the

first fruits of their teaching. Two conditions are necessary to a perfect

government: first, "that the will of the people should be represented as

it is"; secondly, "that that will should be as wise and just as possible."

The former of these obtains in the United States; and, in so far as the

people are represented, "America fulfills imperfectly and indirectly the

last and most important condition of perfect government."

He then condemns "the device of public credit" and the new aristocracy

which arose with it. This new order has its basis in fraud, as the old had

its basis in force. It includes attorneys, excisemen, directors,

government pensioners, usurers, stock jobbers, with their dependents and

descendants.

What are the reforms that he advocates? Today some of them would be

considered too mild by even a conservative. He would abolish the national

debt, the standing army, and tithes, due regard had to vested interests.

He would grant complete freedom to thought and its expression, and make

the dispensation of justice cheap, speedy and attainable by all.

A reform government should appoint tribunals to decide upon the claims of

property holders. True, political institutions ought to defend every man

in the retention of property acquired through labor, economy, skill,

genius or any similar powers honorably and innocently exerted. "But there

is another species of property which has its foundation in usurpation or

imposture, or violence." "Of this nature is the principal part of the

property enjoyed by the aristocracy and the great fundholders." "Claims to

property of this kind should be compromised under the supervision of

public tribunals."

From an abstract point of view, universal suffrage is just and desirable,

but since it would lead to an attempt to abolish the monarchy and to civil

war some other measure must be tried instead. Mr. Bentham and other

writers have urged the admission of females to the right of suffrage.

"This attempt," Shelley writes, "seems somewhat immature." The people

should be better represented in the House of Commons than they are at

present. He would allow the House of Lords to remain for the present to

represent the aristocracy.

All reform should be based upon the principle of "the natural equality of

man, not as regards property, but as regards rights."

"Whether the reform, which is now inevitable, be gradual and moderate or

violent and extreme depends largely on the action of the government." If

the government refuse to act, the nation will take the task of reformation

into its own hands and the abolition of monarchy must inevitably follow.

"No friend of mankind and of his country can desire that such a crisis

should arrive." "If reform shall be begun by the existing government, let

us be contented with a limited beginning with any whatsoever opening.

Nothing is more idle than to reject a limited benefit because we cannot

without great sacrifices obtain an unlimited one." "We shall demand more

and more with firmness and moderation, never anticipating but never

deferring the moment of successful opposition, so that the people may

become capable of exercising the functions of sovereignty in proportion as

they acquire the possession of it."

The struggle between the oppressed and the oppressors will be merely

nominal if the oppressed are enlightened and animated by a distinct and

powerful apprehension of their object. "The minority perceive the

approaches of the development of an irresistible force, by the influence

of the public opinion of their weakness on those political forms, of which

no government but an absolute despotism is devoid. They divest themselves

of their usurped distinctions, and the public tranquillity is not

disturbed by the revolution." The true patriot, then, should endeavor to

enlighten the nation and animate it with enthusiasm and confidence. He

will endeavor to rally round one standard the divided friends of liberty,

and make them forget the subordinate objects with regard to which they

differ by appealing to that respecting which they are all agreed.

Shelley seems to think that revolutionary wars are seldom or never

necessary. A vigilant spirit of opposition, together with a campaign of

enlightenment, will usually suffice to bring about the desired reforms. It

is better to gain what we demand by a process of negotiation which would

occupy twenty years than to do anything which might tend towards civil

war. "The last resort of resistance is undoubtedly insurrection."

The work ends with a consideration of the nature and consequences of war.

"War waged from whatever motive extinguishes the sentiment of reason and

justice in the mind."

Shelley, following Godwin and Condorcet, was a firm believer in the

perfectibility of human nature. "By perfectible," Godwin writes, "it is

not meant that man is capable of being wrought to perfection. The idea of

absolute perfection is scarcely within the grasp of human understanding."

"The wise man is satisfied with nothing. Finite things must be perpetually

capable of increase and advancement; it would argue, therefore, extreme

folly to rest in any given state of improvement and imagine we had

attained our summit."[111] In a letter to E. Hitchener, July 25, 1811,

Shelley writes: "You say that equality is unattainable; so, will I observe

is perfection; yet they both symbolize in their nature, they both demand

that an unremitting tendency towards themselves should be made; and the

nearer society approaches towards this point the happier it will be."

The development of the race, they believe, has been along the following

lines: Man emerged from the savage state under the attraction of pleasure

and the repulsion of pain. Self-love, his only motive of action, made him

at once social and industrious, led him to confound happiness with

unregulated enjoyment, made him avaricious and violent, and caused the

strong to oppress the weak and the weak to conspire against the strong.

Slavery and corruption have consequently followed on the liberty and

innocence of primitive times. But as man is perfectible this condition of

things cannot last. The diffusion of knowledge together with the

discoveries and inventions recently made, have already been productive of

great progress. Humanity is now fairly started on a career of conquest;

the emancipation of the mind is rapidly advancing. Soon morality itself

will come to be rationally viewed; it will be universally acknowledged

that there is only one law, that of nature; only one code, that of reason;

only one throne, that of justice; and only one altar, that of

concord.[112] Shelley had unbounded faith in human nature and believed

that the downfall of tyranny must soon take place. He believed that the

world would resolve itself into one large communistic family, where every

man would be independent and free.

Godwin says that "there will be no war, no crime, no administration of

justice, as it is called, and no government. Besides this there will be

neither disease, anguish, melancholy or resentment."[113] The sun of

reason will of itself disperse all the mists of ignorance and the

pestilential vapors of vice. It will bring out all the beauty and goodness

of man. Love will be universal; everybody will seek the good of all.

Earth, Shelley thinks, will soon become a garden of delight.

O Happy Earth, reality of Heaven

Of purest Spirits thou pure dwelling-place

Where care and sorrow, impotence and crime

Languor, disease, and ignorance dare not come.[114]

CHAPTER IV.

RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY

We now come to that part of our subject which is the most difficult to

handle--Shelley's religion. There are so many seeming contradictions in

his utterances on this 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 attacked Christianity, still on his

entrance to that university he made the required profession of belief in

the doctrines of the Church of England as by law established. How are we

going to reconcile this with his love for truth? One cannot get away from

the difficulty by saying that this profession was a mere formality.

Thousands of non-conformists throughout the land denied themselves the

benefits of a university education because they scorned to play the

hypocrite.

Shelley's views were fairly orthodox up to the time of his going to

Oxford. _Zastrozzi_, printed in 1810, contains a bitter attack on atheism:

and in a letter to Stockdale Shelley disclaims any intention of advocating

atheism in _The Wandering Jew_. He, no doubt, was unorthodox in his views

regarding the nature of God; but his belief in the immortality of the soul

and in the existence of a First Cause is clearly shown in a letter to Hogg

dated January 3, 1811. He writes: "I may not be able to adduce proofs, 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,

spontaneously, as a necessary appendage to our nature, or that our nature

itself could be without cause--a God? When do we see effects arise without

causes?" From this point a rapid change takes place in his opinions. This

is the work of the sceptic Hogg, who sported with him, now arguing for,

now against Christianity, with the result that Shelley himself became

sceptical. His disbelief is due also to the influence of the works of

Godwin and the French materialists, Helvetius, Holbach, Condorcet and

Rousseau.

In his _System of Nature_ Helvetius makes an eloquent plea for atheism. He

denies that any kind of spiritual substance exists. In the universe there

is nothing but 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 of impostors to lash men into

obedience and submission. In _Queen Mab_ Shelley represents God and

religion as the cause of evil, and scoffs at the idea of creation.

From an eternity of idleness

I, God, awoke.[115]

A blasphemous caricature of our Savior and of the doctrine of redemption

is also there exhibited. Later on he grew to love Christ, although he

declaimed against Christianity as long as he lived. In _Prometheus

Unbound_ he treats our Savior more reverently than he did in _Queen Mab_.

He is there in sympathy with the spirit of Christ, and denounces

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 Christ to rescue it forever

from the imputations cast upon it by their ignorance and fanatacism. We

discover that He is the enemy of oppression and falsehood";[116] that He

was just, truthful, and merciful; "that He was a man of meek and majestic

demeanor; of natural and simple thought and habits; beloved by all,

unmoved, solemn and serene."

One of the greatest obstacles that prevented Shelley from understanding

Christianity was his belief in Godwin's doctrine that sin is but an error

of judgment. His wife writes that "he believed mankind had only to will

that there should be no evil and there would be none." To one believing

that 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

true.... I agree with him that the doctrines of the French and material

philosophy are as false as they are pernicious; but still they are better

than Christianity, inasmuch as anarchy is better than despotism; for this

reason, that the former is for a season, and the latter is eternal."[117]

The question whether Shelley was an atheist or not must not be decided on

one or two extracts from his writings or even on any one work. True he

argued against theism, but to call him an atheist on that account would be

as logical as to say St. Thomas was an atheist because he advanced

objections against the existence of God. One reason for the opinion that

he was an atheist 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 the spirit of the universe ... is to degrade

God into man." He denied the existence of the God represented as "a

venerable old man, seated on a throne of clouds, His breast the theater of

various passions analogous to those of humanity, His will changeable and

uncertain as that of an earthly king."[118] Even in _Queen Mab_ we find a

vague picture of his conception of God:

Spirit of Nature! all sufficing power

Necessity! thou mother of the world!

Unlike the God of human error, thou

Requirest no prayers or praise, the caprice

Of man's weak will belongs no more to thee

Than do the changeful passions of his breast

To thy unvarying harmony.[119]

But in the next canto does he not say explicitly, "There is no God"? In a

note, though, he explains that "this negation must be understood solely to

affect a creative Deity. The hypothesis of a pervading Spirit coeternal

with the universe remains unshaken." Elsewhere he writes: "The thoughts

which the word 'God' suggest to the human mind are susceptible of as many

variations as human minds themselves. The stoic, the platonist, and the

epicurean, the polytheist, the dualist, and the trinitarian differ

entirely in their conceptions of 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

neither the Jupiter who sends rain upon the earth; nor the Venus through

whom all living things are produced; nor the Vulcan who presides over the

terrestrial element of fire; nor the Vesta that preserves the light which

is enshrined in the sun, the moon, and the stars. He is neither the

Proteus, nor the Pan of the material world. But the word 'God' unites all

the attributes which these denominations contain and is the (inter-point)

and over-ruling spirit of all the energy and wisdom included within the

circle of existing things."[120]

But did he not write _The Necessity of Atheism_ for which he was expelled

from Oxford? Even if he did, this does not prove that he was an atheist.

We saw already that he loved to advance objections and propound

difficulties to people who thought they knew everything that can be known

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?" "It is a word

of abuse," Shelley replied, "to stop discussion; a painted devil to

frighten the foolish; a threat to intimidate the wise and good. I used it

to express my abhorrence of superstition. I took up the word as a knight

took up a gauntlet in defiance of injustice."[121]

Leigh Hunt said that Shelley "did himself injustice with the public in

using the popular name of the Supreme Being inconsiderately. He identified

it solely with the most vulgar and tyrannical notions of a God made after

the worst human fashion." Southey told him also that he ought not to call

himself an athiest, since in reality he believed that the universe is

God.[122] "I love to doubt and to discuss," Shelley writes, and it is for

this reason that he adopted the arguments of Locke, Hume, and Holbach. He

does not doubt the existence of God; he simply doubts that it is capable

of proof. In January 12, 1811, it seemed to him that he had hit upon the

long-sought-for-proof. In a letter to Hogg he writes: "Stay, 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 first cause a Deity?

Now nothing remains but to prove that this Deity has a care or rather that

its only employment consists in regulating the present and future

happiness of its creation.... Oh that this Deity were the soul of the

universe, the spirit of universal, imperishable love! Indeed, I believe it

is." "The Deity must be judged by us from attributes analogical to our

situation." In a letter of June 11, 1811, he says God is "the existing

power of existence." It is another word for the essence of the universe.

True he makes use of expressions which would seem to contradict the above,

but it seems to me that these should always be interpreted in the light of

his more explicit utterances as already explained.

There was a kind of discrepancy between his interior thought and his

exterior attitude. Apostle of reason though he was, he felt the necessity

of appealing to other sources to quench the thirst for higher things. His

fidelity to the doctrine of Locke, that all knowledge originates in the

senses, did not allow him to proclaim this necessity. "Negateur d'un Dieu

personnel dont les attributs seraient des reflets des pauvres attributs

humains, il 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 demonstrate by the aid of reason. "It does not," he

writes, "prove the nonexistence of a thing that it is not discoverable by

reason; feeling here affords us sufficient proof.... Those who really feel

the being of a God, have the best right to believe it."[124] (True he goes

on to say that he does not feel the being of God, and must be content with

reason; but by this he may mean that he does not feel the existence of the

God of the Christians.)

After all, this position with regard to the proof of God's existence is

not so very different from that of Newman. "Logic," says Newman, "does not

really prove." It enables us to join 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

demonstration; he often asserts it; but he holds that the demonstration

will not in fact convince."[126] We have really to desert a logical ground

and to take our stand upon instinct.

According to Shelley anything that could not be demonstrated should not be

given to others as gospel truth.[127] Now, feelings cannot be

demonstrated, and hence it is that one 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 white."

Later on he said that materialism "allows its disciples to talk and

dispenses them from thinking."[128] The opposition which Shelley

experienced forced him to argue.

When Shelley wrote _The Necessity of Atheism_ he was at most only an

agnostic. This word was first used by Huxley in 1859 and if it had been in

use in 1811 it may be that Shelley's pamphlet _The Necessity of Atheism_

would have had for its title "The Necessity of Agnosticism." No doubt

agnostics are often atheists, but they are not necessarily so. "A man may

be an agnostic simply or an agnostic who is also an atheist. He may be a

scientific materialist 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 individual expositions of

systems, that, to be impartially fair, each individual must be classed by

himself as atheist or theist. Indeed more upon his own assertion or direct

teaching than by reason of any supposed implication in the system he

advocates must this classification be made. The agnostic may be a theist

if he admits the existence of a being behind and beyond nature even while

he asserts that such a being is both unprovable and unknowable."[129]

With regard to the sources of Shelley's views on religion there is

considerable difference of opinion. S. Bernthsen maintains that nothing

contributed so much to the development of his genius and of his world-view

as Spinoza's philosophy.[130] Professor Dowden, on the other hand, holds

that although Shelley 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 Shelley than Spinoza or Kant were those

arrogant thinkers who prepared the soil of France for the ploughshare of

revolution."[131] And Helen Richter in two articles in _English Studies_,

vol. 30, shows that some of the quotations from Shelley used by Miss

Bernthsen may be traced to other sources besides Spinoza.

Shelley's notions on belief can be traced to Locke and not to Spinoza. In

the first book of the _Essay_ concerning the human understanding, Locke

attempts to prove that there are no innate ideas. To the objection that

the universal acceptance of certain principles is proof of their

innateness, he replies that no principles are universally accepted. You

cannot point to one principle of morality, he says, that is accepted by

all peoples. Standards of morality differ in different nations and 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 (mind) all the

materials of reason and knowledge? To this I answer in one word, from

experience; on that all our knowledge is founded and from that it

ultimately derives itself." In Book IV, 2, Locke says: "Rational knowledge

is the perception of the connection and agreement or disagreement and

repugnancy of any of our ideas.... Probability is the appearance of

agreement upon fallible proofs.... The entertainment the mind gives this

sort of proposition is called _belief_, assent, or opinion."

In his notes to _Queen Mab_, Shelley writes: "When a proposition is

offered to the mind, it perceives the agreement or disagreement of the

ideas of which it is composed. A perception of their agreement is termed

_belief_.... Belief then is a passion the strength of which, like 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 our experience, derived from

these sources, claims the next degree. The experience of others which

addresses itself to the former one, occupies the lowest degree." This

reminds one of Locke's division of knowledge into three parts--intuitive,

demonstrative, and sensitive.

In the same note to _Queen Mab_, Shelley says: "The mind is _active_ in

the investigation in order to perfect the state of perception of the

relation which the component ideas of the 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

and operations of things.... The origin of _mixed modes_ is, however,

quite different. The mind often exercises an _active_ power in making

these several combinations called notions."

According to Spinoza, judgment, perception, and volition are one and the

same thing. "At singularis volitio et idea unum et idem sunt."[132]

Shelley, on the other hand, 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 philosophical ideas of Sir William

Drummond, in whose _Academical Questions_, Shelley writes, "the most clear

and vigorous statement of the intellectual system is to be found."[134]

According to Drummond, reasoning is entirely independent of volition. No

man pretends that he can choose whether he shall feel or not. It is not

because the mind previously wills it that one association of ideas gives

place to another. It is because the new ideas excite that attention which

the old no longer employ. Trains of ideas may be always referred to one

principal idea. "Whatever be the state of 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 apprehension of the agreement or disagreement of the ideas which

compose any proposition. Belief is an involuntary operation of the mind,

and, like other passions, its intensity is purely proportionate to the

degrees of excitement."[136] There is no certainty that Shelley was

acquainted with the works of Spinoza when he wrote _Queen Mab_. It is

likely that he obtained his Spinozan views from William Drummond.

"It is necessary to prove," Shelley wrote, "that it (the universe) was

created; until that is clearly demonstrated we may reasonably suppose that

it has endured from all eternity.... It is easier to suppose that the

universe has existed 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, the animation of living things. Why should

that substance be assumed to be something essentially distinct from all

others and exempt from subjection to those laws from which no other

substance is exempt." To Shelley everything was God.

Spirit of Nature! here!

In this interminable wilderness

Of worlds, at whose immensity

Even soaring fancy staggers

Here is thy flitting temple.

Yet not the slightest leaf

That quivers to the breeze

Is less instinct with thee;

Yet not the meanest worm

That lurks in graves and fattens on the dead

Less shares thy eternal breath.[138]

With Spinoza, Drummond maintains that two substances having different

attributes can have nothing in common between them; and that there cannot

be two or more substances of the same nature. Infinite, immaterial,

eternal, substance has nothing in common with substance which is material,

finite, and perishable. How is it possible, then, that the former produced

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 body is

meant the mode which expresses the essence of God, inasmuch as it is

contemplated as extended substance, in a certain limited way, consequently

though we do not call the Deity corporeal, as that would express what is

finite, yet we say that all extended substance is contained in God, since

extension and mind are the eternal attributes of his essence."[139]

Matter moves and acts according to its own laws; it preserves what we term

the fair order of the universe, and it guides the motions of those worlds

that are constituted out of it, by the properties which are inherent in

it. "Why then should we not say that it feels, 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 we may conclude with certainty that all bodies are

capable of being affected by attraction and repulsion, of making

combinations, of suffering dissolution, and that they always strive to

persevere in that state in which they are while it is suitable to

them."[140]

Shelley has the same thought:

Throughout this varied and eternal world

Soul is the only element; the block

That for uncounted ages has remained

The moveless pillar of a mountain's weight

Is active living spirit. Every grain

Is sentient both in unity and part

And the minutest atom comprehends

A world of loves and hatreds.[141]

Again in a letter to Miss Hitchener, November 24, 1811: "Yet that flower

has a soul; for what is soul but that which makes an organized being to be

what it is?... I will say then that all nature is animated; that

microscopic vision, as it has discovered to us millions of animated

beings, so might it, if extended, find that nature itself was but a mass

of organized animation."

Southey told Shelley that he was a pantheist and not an atheist. He

(Southey) says: "I ought not to call myself an atheist, since in reality I

believe that the universe is God." "Pantheism in its narrower and proper

philosophic sense is any system which expressly (not merely by

implication) regards the finite world as simply 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 Revolt of Islam_, V, II, "dread nature"; and in the

_Refutation of Deism_ he speaks of "divine nature." Often though he

distinguishes between God and Nature; and in this respect differs from

Spinoza and those who are pantheists in the stricter use of the term. Thus

in _The Revolt of Islam_, IX, 14, "by God and nature and necessity."

There is another difference between the pantheism of Shelley and that of

Spinoza. Shelley does not make any difference between men, animals and

plants. They are all about on the same level. Spinoza on the other hand

makes man the king and center of the Universe.

Shelley may have gotten his pantheistic views from Volney and Holbach as

well as from Drummond. In the _Systeme de la Nature_, II, c. VI, we read:

"Tout nous pronne donc que ce n'est pas hors de la nature que nous devons

chercher la Divinite. Quand nous voudrons en avoir une idee, disons que

la nature est Dieu."

A characteristic of his later pantheism is that it identifies God with

love. "Great Spirit, deepest love! Which rulest and dost move all things

which live and are."[143] Again, "O Power!... thou which interpenetratest

all things and without which this glorious world were a blind and formless

chaos. Love, author of good, God, King, Father."[144]

Plato mounts up from sensuous love to intellectual love, and so does

Shelley. In the _Defence of Poetry_, III, s. 125, he shows us how another

great poet accomplished this. "His (Dante's) apotheosis of Beatrice in

Paradise 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 this highest stage, according to Spinoza, when one has

attained the intellectual love of God. "This intellectual love of God is

the highest kind of virtue and it not only makes man free, but it confers

immortality."[145]

Shelly makes all things love one another. Thus in _Adonais_:

All baser things pant with life's sacred thirst;

Diffuse themselves; and spend in love's delight,

The beauty and the joy of their renewed might (st. 19).

This harmonizes with his earlier views concerning inanimate objects. We

saw he believed that they all had life, that they were all possessed of

the "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

the _sine qua non_ of man's existence. His love is founded in beauty as

perceived by the senses. The Spirit of Beauty and the Spirit of Love are

one.

Great Spirit, _deepest Love_!

Which rulest and dost move

All things which live and are

... Who sittest in thy star o'er Ocean's western floor

Spirit of Beauty.[146]

We love that which is beautiful. "Love is a going out of one's own nature,

or an identification of ourselves with the beautiful which exists in

thought, action or person not our own."[147] The beauty of the world leads

us step by step to the love 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 participation

of it ... When any one ascending from the correct system of Love begins to

contemplate this supreme beauty he already touches the consummation of his

labor."[148] The earth is not Beauty, Love, Divinity itself; it is but the

shadow of God.

How glorious are thou, Earth! And if thou be

The shadow of some spirit lovelier still.[149]

Again

The awful shadow of some unseen Power

Floats unseen amongst us.[150]

This reminds us of platonism. The "Spirit" is the Idea, and the "shadow"

is the earth. Plato's Idea transcends the world of concrete existence. The

two functions of the Idea are to cause 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 which he meant God Himself. He says that the shadow of the power

of intellectual Beauty inspires us and not intellectual Beauty itself. We

could not endure that. Intellectual Beauty is God.

Since then Shelley's Great Spirit, Spirit of Nature, Light, Beauty, Love,

resembles the "Ideas" of Plato very closely, and since these Ideas have

been identified by St. Augustine and other Christian platonists with the

"mind of God," it is doubtful that Shelley was an atheist in the strict

sense of the term. His poetry at least will tend to imbue us with a

realization of God's Presence.

That Light whose smile kindles the Universe,

That Beauty in which all things work and move,

That Benediction which the eclipsing curse

Of birth can quench not, that sustaining Love

Which through the web of being blindly wove

By man and beast and earth and air and sea.

Burns bright or dim, as each are mirrors of

The fire for which all thirst; now beams on me,

Consuming the last clouds of cold mortality.[152]

In his later years Shelley became more and more of an idealist. Towards

the beginning of 1812 he became acquainted with Berkeley's writings at the

instance of Southey. Ideas, according to Berkeley, are communicated to the

mind through the immediate operation of the Deity without the intervention

of any actual matter. All our ideas are words which God speaks to us.

Matter is only a perception of the mind.

----this Whole

Of suns, and worlds, and men, and beasts, and flowers,

With all the silent or tempestuous workings

By which they have been, are, or cease to be,

Is but a vision; all that it inhabits

Are motes of a sick eye, bubbles and dreams;

Thought is its cradle and its grave, nor less

The future and the past are idle shadows

Of thoughts eternal flight--they have no being:

Nought is but that which feels itself to be.[153]

When Panthea, in _Prometheus Unbound_, describes to Asia a mysterious

dream, suddenly Asia sees another shape pass between her and the "golden

dew" which gleams through its 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 dreams are as

visible as the dreamers, and our minds are simply a collection of dreams.

Reality is reduced to the unsubstantiality of a dream, and dreams are the

only reality.

With regard to his belief in the immortality of the soul, we have the same

difficulty and the same solution. All that we see or know, he says,

perishes, and although life and thought differ from everything else, still

this distinction does not afford us any proof that it survives that

period beyond which we have no experience of its 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 dreamless sleep ... you witness another in

death. From the first, you well know that you cannot infer any diminution

of intellectual force. How contrary then to all analogy to infer

annihilation from death."[155] Again, "Whatever may be his true and final

destination there is a spirit within him at enmity with nothing and

dissolution."[156]

Plato claimed that the soul preexisted long before it was united to the

body. In its supercelestial home "the soul enjoyed a clear and unclouded

vision of ideas; and that, although it fell from that happy state 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 up to a woman

who was carrying a child in her arms and asked her if her child would tell

them anything about preexistence. He believed that after death the soul

returns to Plato's world of Ideas whence it came.

Whilst burning through the inmost veil of heaven

The soul of Adonais, like a star

Beacons from the abode where the eternal are.[158]

As to the nature of the soul his early views reflect the influence of Dr.

G. Aberthney, who believed in a kind of universal animism. On January 6,

1811, he writes to Hogg: "I think we may not inaptly define _soul_ 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 everything

appertaining to nature, consisting of constituent parts infinitely

divisible, is in a continual change, then do I suppose--and I think I have

a right to draw this inference--that neither will soul perish."[159]

In _Queen Mab_ we find Shelley believing in the doctrine of necessity.

There he denies the freedom of the will. Later on he exempted the will

from the law of necessity, but not the intelligence or reason 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 his birth a chain of causes was

generated, which, operating under the name of motives, make it impossible

that any thought of his mind and any action of his life should be

otherwise than it is."[160]

The actions of every human being are determined by the dictates of reason;

and, like the operations of nature, are subject to the law of necessity.

This idea of necessity is obtained from our experience of the uniformity

of the phenomena of nature. Similar causes invariably produce the same

effect. In the material world an immense chain of causes and 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 logical

impressions. The murderer is no more responsible for his deed than the

knife with which the crime was committed. Both were set in motion from

without; the knife, by material impulse; the man, by inducement and

persuasion. To hate a murderer, then, is as unreasonable as to hate his

weapon. Educate him, but do not punish. In the material world

No atom of this turbulence fulfills

A vague and unnecessitated chance,

Or acts but as it must and ought to act.[161]

In the same way

Not a thought, a will, an act,

No working of the tyrant's moody mind,

Nor one misgiving of the slaves who boast

Their servitude, to hide the shame they feel,

Nor the events enchaining every will,

That from the depths of unrecorded time

Have drawn all-influencing virtue, pass

Unrecognized, or unforeseen by thee,

Soul of the Universe![162]

In his notes to _Queen Mab_, Shelley admits that the doctrine of necessity

tends to introduce a great change into the established notions of

morality, and utterly to destroy Religion. It teaches that no event could

happen but as it did happen; and that if God is the author of good He is

also the author of evil.

Shelley soon broke away from the teaching of Godwin and Spinoza with

regard to the freedom of the will. He maintained that the will is

unrestrainedly 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

as renovates the world a will omnipotent" (Ibid., II, 41). "Who if ye

dared might not aspire less than ye conceive of power" (Ibid., XI, 16).

Man can obtain freedom if he really desires it. Godwin held that freedom

from external restraints leads to freedom of the mind, whereas Shelley

sees in external political freedom the blossoming forth of already

obtained freedom of the soul. The interior freedom is obtained 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 an accident that may be expelled.

"But we are taught," writes Shelley, "by the doctrine of necessity, that

there is neither good nor evil in the universe, otherwise than as the

events to which we apply these epithets have relation to our own peculiar

mode of being."[163]

This view is very similar to that of Drummond. He held that order and

disorder have no place but in our own imagination, and are the modes in

which we survey the eternal and necessary series of things. Ideas of

right and wrong depend upon the circumstances in which people are placed.

They vary 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 malum quod attinet, nihil etiam positivum in rebus, in se

scilicet consideratis, indicant, nec aliud sunt praeter cogitandi modos,

seu motiones, quas formamus ex eo, quod res ad invicem comparamus nam una

eademque res potest eodem tempore bona et mala, et etiam indiffereus

esse." _Ethics_, IV.

Shelley has two versions of the origin of good and evil. The first is

manichean and represents them as twin genii of balanced power and opposite

tendencies ruling the world. "This much is certain: that Jesus Christ

represents God as the fountain of all goodness, the eternal 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 is Shelley's own view, evil has not

the same power that good has, and came later into the world. Evil is

strong because man permits it to exist, and must disappear as soon as man

wills this. Since it could be entirely eliminated, it is not an integral

part of the world.

Man is naturally good. His vices are the result of bad education. They are

nothing but errors of judgment. Let truth prevail; educate men properly,

and then vice will entirely disappear. Shelley also writes:

Let priest-led slaves cease to proclaim that man

Inherits vice and misery, when force

And falsehood hang even over the cradled babe

Stifling with rudest grasp all natural good.

Godwin thinks that the influence of the emotions and passions has been

overestimated. It is not true that they can force one to act in opposition

to the dictates of one's reason. They maintain their hold on men but by

the ornaments with which they are decked out; and these are the things

which 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 past by the energies of intellectual resolution, and what these

accomplished can be done by all. Reason and truth, then, are sufficient to

change the whole complexion of society. They will ultimately prevail; and

then all will be wise and good. The following from Shelley is an echo of

this.

And when reason's voice

Loud as the voice of nature shall have waked

The nations; and mankind perceive that vice

Is discord, war, and misery; that virtue

Is peace and happiness and harmony

XX

How sweet a scene will earth become!

Of purest spirits a pure dwelling-place,

Symphonious with the planetary spheres.

Godwin went so far as to say that eventually all sickness would disappear;

and even in this Shelley follows his master. Shelley finds this view of

evil in the teaching of Christ. "According to Jesus Christ," he writes,

"some evil spirit has dominion in this imperfect world. But there will

come a time when the human mind shall be visited exclusively by the

influence of the benignant power."[165]

All the philosophists who influenced Shelley agreed in this that virtue

leads to happiness. The purpose of virtuous conduct, says Godwin, "is the

production of happiness." So with Shelley "virtue is peace, and 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;... disinterested

benevolence is the product of a cultivated imagination, and has an

intimate connection with all the arts which add ornament or dignity or

power, or stability to the social state of man."[166]

Shelley does not believe in the existence of hell. He thinks that this

doctrine is incompatible with the goodness of God. "Love your enemies,

bless those who curse you, that ye may be the sons of your Heavenly

Father, Who makes the sun to shine 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 life

overflowing with benevolence and forbearance and compassion."[167] God, he

says, would only be gratifying his revenge under pretence of satisfying

justice were he to inflict pain upon another for no better reason than

that he deserved it.

CHAPTER V

RADICALISM IN CONTEMPORARY POETRY

A poet is the product of his time. Shelley observes that there is a

resemblance, which does not depend on their own will, between the writers

of any particular age. They are all subjected to a common influence "which

arises out of a combination of circumstances belonging to the time in

which they live, though each is in a degree the author of the very

influence by which his being is thus pervaded." Hence it is that the works

of any poet cannot be thoroughly appreciated unless the spirit that

pervaded the life of the period be understood. This is particularly true

of the poetry of Shelley. It embodies the aspirations and ideals of the

philosophers of his time. Its themes are liberty, justice and revolt. On

every side are heard protests against conventionality, against government,

and against religion. The philosophers of the French Revolution are hailed

as the saviors of society and their theories put forth as a panacea for

all human ills. Shelley is the high water mark of the waves of revolt

which threatened to inundate the country. A brief investigation, then, of

the poetical atmosphere of the end of the eighteenth century will help us

in our study of the sources of his radicalism.