' LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA ^ SELECTED PROSE WORKS OF SHELLEY SELECTED PROSE WORKS OF SHELLEY WITH FOREWORD BY HENRY S. SALT [issued for the rationalist press ASSOCIATION', LIMITED London : WATTS & CO. 17 JOHNSON'S COURT, FLEET STREET, E.C 1915 FOREWORD In any selection that may be made from the prose works of Shelley with the object of illustrating the development of his thought, a marked inequality will be found in the value, literary and intellectual, of the essays included in the book ; thus, in the case of the present volume, the first thing that will strike the reader's notice is the disparity between such a juvenile effort as "The Necessity of Atheism " and so finished and stately a piece of writing as "A Defence of Poetry." A few years, in a life such as Shelley's, represent a great advance. One feature, however, all the prose essays have in common ; they are valuable as throwing light, as fur- nishing an autheiitic commentary, on the meaning of the poems. For Shelley's poetry — whatever opinion, real or pretended, Matthew Arnold may have expressed to the contrary — is of much more importance than his prose, as being the supreme vehicle of his thought ; and it is certain that not only the beauty of his verse, but the significance of the message embodied in it, will be more fully realised as time goes on. For this reason the prose writings also will be studied with increasing 966 viii FOREWORD Refutation of Deism," published in 1814, was that there is no middle course between accepting revealed religion and disbelieving in the existence of a deity — another way of stating the necessity of atheism. Shelley resembled Blake in the contrast of feeling with which he regarded the Christian religion and its founder. For the human character of Christ he could feel the deepest veneration, as may be seen not only from the *' Essay on Christianity," but from the "Letter to Lord Ellenborough " (1812), and also from the notes to "Hellas " and passages in that poem and in " Prometheus Unbound " ; but he held that the spirit of established Christianity was wholly out of harmony with that of Christ, and that a similarity to Christ was one of the qualities most detested by the modern Christian. The dogmas of the Christian faith were always repudiated by him, and there is no warrant whatever in his writings for the strange pretension that, had he lived longer, his objections to Christianity might in some way have been overcome. Apart from its inherent interest, the "Essay en Christianity," albeit fragmentary in parts, is the most- important of all Shelley's prose writings next to "A Defence of Poetry " ; and in view of its maturity of style, and the great beauty of some of its passages, it may be conjectured that it was written at a date con- siderably later than that usually assigned to it, viz. the year 1815. Shelley's highest mark as a prose writer was attained in his "Defence of Poetry," written in Italy in 1821, almost at the close of his life, when his powers were at their full. If the early essays and pamphlets are FOREWORD ix remarkable rather for vigour and logical force than for real insight and feeling, and if their literary style was affected, perhaps unavoidably, by the polemical nature of the subjects with which they dealt, no such faults can be alleged against "A Defence of Poetry," where the train of thought is as profound as the language is majestic. The essay is a worthy vindication not only of poetry in general, but of the function of the poet- prophet, the class of singer to which Shelley himself so unmistakably belongs. In conclusion, it may be said that Shelley's prose, if not great in itself, is the prose of a great poet, for which reason it possesses an interest that is not likely to fail. It is the key to the right understanding of his intellect, as his poetry is the highest expression of his genius. Henry S. Salt. CONTENTS PAOK FOREWORD ....... V THE NECESSITY OF ATIlElhiM .... 1 A LETTER TO LORD ELLENBOROUGII . . 15 A REFUTATION OF DEISM 32 A DEFENCE OF POETRY ... .75 ESSAY ON THE LITERATURE, THE ARTS, AND THE MANNERS OF THE ATHENIANS . .119 ON LIFE 129 ON A FUTURE STATE . . . . .136 ESSAY ON CHRISTIANITY 143 SELECTED PROSE WORKS OF SHELLEY THE NECESSITY OF ATHEISM [Note. — The Necessity of Atheism was published by Shelley in 1811. In 1813 he printed a revised and expanded version of it as one of the notes to his poem Qioev Mab. The revised and expanded version is the one here reprinted. A type facsimile of the original edition was issued by tlie R.F.A. in 1906.] THERE IS NO GOD This negation must be understood solely to affect a creative Deity. The hypothesis of a pei*vading Spirit coeternal with the universe remains unshaken. A close examination of the validity of the proofs adduced to support any proposition is the only secure way of attaining truth, on the advantages of which it is unnecessary to descant : our knowledge of the exist- ence of a Deity is a subject of such importance that it cannot be too minutely investigated ; in consequence of this conviction we proceed briefly and impartially to examine the proofs which have been adduced. It is necessary first to consider the nature of belief. When a proposition is offered to the mind, it perceives 2 THE NECESSITY OF ATHEISM the agreement or disagreement of the ideas of which it is composed. A perception of their agreement is termed belief. Many obstacles frequently prevent this perception from being immediate; these the mind at- tempts to remove in order that the perception may be distinct. 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 : the investigation being confused with the perception has induced many falsely to imagine that the mind is active in belief, — that belief is an act of volition, — in consequence of which it may be regu- lated by the mind. Pursuing, continuing this mistake, they have attached a degree of criminality to disbelief ; of which, in its nature, it is incapable : it is equally incapable of merit. 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 own experience, derived from these sources, claims the next degree. The experience of others, which addresses itself to the former one, occupies the lowest degree. (A graduated scale, on which should be marked the capabilities of propositions to approach to the test of the senses, would be a just barometer of the belief which ought to be attached to them.) THE NECESSITY OF ATHEISM 3 Consequently no testimony can be admitted which is contrary to reason ; reason is founded on tlie evidence of our senses. Every proof may be referred to one of these three divisions : it is to be considered what arguments we receive from each of them, which should convince us of the existence of a Deity. 1st, The evidence of the senses. If the Deity should appear to us, if he should convince our senses of his existence, this revelation would necessarily command belief. Those to whom the Deity has thus appeared have the strongest possible conviction of his existence. But the God of Theologians is incapable of local visibility. 2d, Reason. It is urged that man knows that what- ever is must either have had a beginning, or have existed from all eternity : he also knov/s that whatever is not eternal must have had a cause. When this reason- ing is applied to the universe, it is necessary to prove that it was created : until that is clearly demonstrated we may reasonably suppose that it has endured from all eternity. We must prove design before we can infer a designer. The only idea which we can form of causa- tion is derivable from the constant conjunction of objects, and the consequent inference of one from the other. In a case where two propositions are diametric- ally opposite, the mind believes that which is least incomprehensible ; — 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 : if the mind sinks beneath the weight of one, is it an allevia- tion to increase the intolerabihty of the burthen? 4 THE NECESSITY OF ATHEISM The other argument, which is founded on a man's knowledge of his own existence, stands thus. A man knows not only that he now is, but that once he was not ; consequently there must have been a cause. But our idea of causation is alone derivable from the constant conjunction of objects and the consequent inference of one from the other ; and, reasoning experimentally, we can only infer from effects causes exactly adequate to those effects. But there certainly is a generative power which is effected by certain instru- ments : we cannot prove that it is inherent in these instruments ; nor is the contrary hypothesis capable of demonstration : we admit that the generative power is incomprehensible ; but to suppose that the same effect is produced by an eternal, omniscient, omnipotent being leaves the cause in the same obscurity, but renders it more incomprehensible. 3d, Testimony. It is required that testimony should not be contrary to reason. The testimony that the Deity convinces the senses of men of his existence can only be admitted by us if our mind considers it less probable that these men should have been deceived than that the Deity should have appeared to them. Our reason can never admit the testimony of men, who not only declare that they were eye-witnesses of miracles, but that the Deity was irrational ; for he commanded that he should be believed, he proposed the highest rewards for faith, eternal punishments for disbelief. We can only command voluntary actions ; belief is not an act of volition ; the mind is even passive, or involun- tarily active ; from this it is evident that we have no sufficient testimony, or rather that testimony is insuffi- THE NECESSITY OF ATHEISM 5 cient to prove the being of a God. It has been before shown that it cannot be deduced from reason. They alone, then, who have been convinced by the evidence of the senses can believe it. Hence it is evident that, having no proofs from either of the three sources of conviction, the mind cannot believe the existence of a creative God : it is also evident that, as belief is a passion of the mind, no degree of criminality is attachable to disbelief ; and that they only are reprehensible who neglect to remove the false medium through which their mind views any subject of discussion. Every reflecting mind must acknowledge that there is no proof of the existence of a Deity. God is an hypothesis, and, as such, stands in need of proof : the onus probandi rests on the theist. Sir Isaac Newton says : Hypotheses non fingo, quicquid cnim ex phaenomenis Jion deducitur hypothesis vo- canda est, et hypothesis vel metaphysicae, vel physicae, vel qualitatum occultarum, seu mechanicac, in philoso- phia locum non habcnt. To all proofs of the existence of a creative God apply this valuable rule. We see a variety of bodies possessing a variety of powers : we merely know their effects ; we are in a state of ignor- ance with respect to their essences and causes. These Newton calls the phenomena of things ; but the pride of philosophy is unwilling to admit its ignorance of their causes. From the phenomena, which are the objects of our senses, we attempt to infer a cause, which we call God, and gratuitously endow it with all negative and contradictory qualities. From this hypothesis we invent this general name, to conceal our ignorance of B 6 THE NECESSITY OF ATHEISM causes and essences. The being called God by no means answers with the conditions prescribed by Newton ; it bears every mark of a veil woven by philosophical con- ceit, to hide the ignorance of philosophers even from themselves. They borrow the threads of its texture from the anthropomorphism of the vulgar. Words have been used by sophists for the same purposes, from the occult qualities of the peripatetics to the effluvium of Boyle and the crinities or nebulae of Herschel. God is represented as infinite, eternal, incomprehensible ; he is contained under every predicate in non that the logic of ignorance could fabricate. Even his worshippers allow that it is impossible to form any idea of him : they exclaim with the French poet, Pour dire ce qu^il est, il faut etre lui-meme. Lord Bacon says that atheism leaves to man reason, philosophy, natural piety, laws, reputation, and every- thing that can serve to conduct him to virtue; but superstition destroys all these, and erects itself into a tyranny over the understandings of men : hence atheism never disturbs the government, but renders man more clear-sighted, since he sees nothing beyond the boun- daries of the present life. — Bacon's Moral Essays. La premiere theologie de I'homme lui fit d'abord craindre et adorer les elements meme, des objets materiels et grossiers ; il rendit ensuite ses hommages a des agents presidant aux elements, a des genies infe- rieurs, a des heros, ou a des hommes doues de grandes qualites. A force de reflechir il crut simplifier les choses en soumettant la nature entiere a un seul agent, a un THE NECESSITY OF ATHEISM 7 esprit, a une ame universelle, qui mettait cette nature et ses parties en mouvement. En remontant de causes en causes, les mortels ont fini par ne rien voir ; et c'est dans cette obscurite qu'ils ont place leur Dieu ; c'est dans cet abime tenebreux que leur imagination inquiete travaille toujours a se fabriquer des chimeres, qui les affligeront jusqu'a ce que la connaissance de la nature les detrompe des fantomes qu'ils ont toujours si vainement adores. Si nous voulons nous rendre compte de nos idees sur la Divinite, nous serons obliges de convenir que, par le mot DieUf les hommes n'ont jamais pu designer que la cause la plus cachee, la plus eloignee, la plus inconnue des effets qu'ils voyaient : ils ne font usage de ce mot, que lorsque le jeu des causes naturelles et connues cesse d'etre visible pour eux ; des qu'ils perdent le fil de ces causes, ou des que leur esprit ne peut plus en suivre la chaine, ils tranclient leur difficulte, et terminent leurs recherches en appellant Dieu la derniere des causes, c'est-a-dire celle qui est au-dela de toutes les causes qu'ils connaissent ; ainsi ils ne font qu'assigner une denomina- tion vague a une cause ignoree, a laquelle leur paresse ou les bornes de leurs connaissances les forcent de s'arreter. Toutes les fois qu'on nous dit que Dieu est I'auteur de quelque phenomene, cela signifie qu'on ignore comment un tel phenomene a pu s'operer par le secours des forces ou des causes que nous connaissons dans la nature. C'est ainsi que le commun des hommes, dont I'ignorance est le partage, attribue a la Divinite non seulement les effets inusites qui les frappent, mais encore les evene- mens les plus simples, dont les causes sont les plus faciles a connaitre pour quiconque a pu les mediter. En 8 THE NECESSITY OF ATHEISM un mot, Phomme a toujours respecte les causes incon- nues des effets surprenans, que son ignorance l*empe- chait de demeler. Ce fut sur les debris de la nature que les hommes eleverent le colosse imaginaire de la Divinite. Si 1 'ignorance de la nature donna la naissance aux dieux, la connaissance de la nature est faite pour les detruire. A mesure que I'homme s'instruit, ses forces et ses ressources augmentent avec ses lumieres ; les sciences, les arts conservateurs, I'industrie, lui four- nissent des secours; I'experience le rassure ou lui pro- cure des moyens de resister aux efforts de bien des causes qui cessent de I'alarmer des qu'il les a connues. En un mot, ses terreurs se dissipent dans la meme proportion que son esprit s'eclaire. L'homme instruit cesse d'etre superstitieux. Ce n'est jamais que sur parole que des peuples entiers adorent le Dieu de leurs peres et de leurs pretres : I'autorite, la confiance, la soumission, et I'habitude leur tiennent lieu de conviction et de preuves ; ils se pro- stement et prient, parce que leurs peres leur ont appris a se prosterner et prier : mais pourquoi ceux-ci se sont- ils mis a genoux? C'est que dans les temps eloignes leurs legislateurs et leurs guides leur en ont fait un devoir. "Adorez et croyez," ont-ils dit, "des dieux que vous ne pouvez comprendre ; rapportez-vous-en a notre sagesse profonde; nous en savons plus que vous sur la divinite." Mais pourquoi m'en rapporterais-je a vous? C'est que Dieu le veut ainsi, c'est que Dieu vous punira si vous osez resister. Mais ce Dieu n'est- il done pas la chose en question ? Cependant les hommes se sont toujours payes de ce cercle vicieux ; la paresse THE NECESSITY OF ATHEISM 9 de Icur esprit leur fit trouver plus court de s'en rap- porter au jugement des autres. Toutes les notions reli^ieuses sont fondees uniquement sur I'autorite ; toutes les religions du monde defendent I'examen et ne veulent pas que Pon raisonne ; c*est I'autorit^ qui veut qu*on croie en Dieu ; ce Dieu n'est lui-meme fonde que sur I'autorite de quelques hommes qui pretendent le connaitre, et venir de sa part pour Tannoncer h la terre. Un Dieu fait par les hommes a sans doute besoin des hommes pour se faire connaitre aux hommes. Ne serait-ce done que pour des pretres, des inspires, des metaphysiciens que serait reservee la conviction de I'existence d'un Dieu, que I'on dit neanmoins si neccs- saire a tout le genre humain? Mais trouvons-nous de I'harmonie entre les opinions theologiques des differens inspires, ou des penseurs repandus sur la terre? Ceux meme qui font profession d 'adorer le meme Dieu, sont- ils d'accord sur son compte? Sont-ils contents des preuves que leurs collegues apportent de son existence? Souscrivent-ils unanimement aux idees qu'ils presentent sur sa nature, sur sa conduite, sur la fa^on d'entendre ses pretendus oracles? Est-il une contree sur la terre on la science de Dieu se soit reellement perf ectionnee ? A-t-elle pris quelque part la consistance et runiformite que nous voyons prendre aux connaissances humaines, aux arts les plus f utiles, aux metiers les plus meprises? Ces mots d^esprit, dHmmaterialite, de crcatioUf de pre- destination^ de frrdce ; cette foule de distinctions subtiles dont la theologie s'est partout remplie dans quelques pays, ces inventions si ingenieuses, imaginees par des penseurs qui se sont succedes depuis tant de siecles, n'ont fait, helas ! qu'embrouiller les choses, et jamais 10 THE NECESSITY OF ATHEISM la science la plus necessaire aux hommes n'a jusqu'ici pu acquerir la moindre fixite. Depuis des milliers d'annees ces reveurs oisifs se sont perpetuellement relayes pour mediter la Divinite, pour deviner ses voies cachees, pour inventer des hypotheses propres a develop- per cette enigme importante. Leur peu de succes n'a point decourage la vanite theologique; toujours on a parle de Dieu : on s'est egorge pour lui, et cet etre sublime demeure toujours le plus ignore et le plus discute. Les hommes auraient ete trop heureux, si, se bornant aux objets visibles qui les inter essent, ils eussent employe a perfectionner leurs sciences reelles, leurs lois, leur morale, leur education, la moitie des efforts qu'ils ont mis dans leurs recherches sur la Divinite. Ils auraient ete bien plus sages encore, et plus fortunes, s'ils eussent pu consentir a laisser leurs guides desoeuvres se que- reller entre eux, et sonder des profondeurs capables de les etourdir, sans se meler de leurs disputes in- sensees. Mais il est de I'essence de I'ignorance d'at- tacher de I'importance a ce qu'elle ne comprend pas. La vanite humaine fait que I'esprit se roidit contre des difficultes. Plus un objet se derobe a ncs yeux, plus nous faisons d 'efforts pour le saisir, parce que des-lors il aiguillonne notre orgueil, il excite notre curiosite, il nous parait interessant. En combattant pour son Dieu chacun ne combattit en effet que pour les interets de sa propre vanite, qui de toutes les pas- sions produites par la mal-organisation de la societe est la plus prompte a s'alarmer, et la plus propre a produire de tres grandes folies. Si ecartant pour un moment les idevS facheuses que THE NECESSITY OF ATHEISM 11 la theologie nous donne d'un Dieu capricieux, dont les decrets partiaux et despotiques decident du sort des humains, nous ne voulons fixer nos yeux que sur la bonte pretendue, que tous les hommes, meme en trem- blant devant ce Dieu, s'accordent a lui donner ; si nous lui supposons le projet qu'on lui prete de n'avoir travaille que pour sa propre gloire, d'exiger les hommages des etres intelligens ; de ne chercher dans ses oeuvres que le bien-etre du genre humain : comment concilier ces vues et ces dispositions avec I'ignorance vraiment in- vincible dans laquelle ce Dieu, si glorieux et si bon, laisse la plupart des hommes sur son compte? Si Dieu veut etre connu, cheri, remercie, que ne se montre-t-il sous des traits favorables a tous ces etres intelligens dont il veut etre aime et adore? Pourquoi ne point se manifester a toute la terre d'une fagon non equivoque, bien plus capable de nous convaincre que ces revela- tions particulieres qui semblent accuser la Divinite d'une partialite facheuse pour quelques-unes de ses creatures? Le tout-puissant n'aurait-il done pas des moyens plus convainquans de se montrer aux hommes que ces meta- morphoses ridicules, ces incarnations pretendues, qui nous sont attestees par des ecrivains si peu d'accord entre eux dans les recits qu'ils en font? Au lieu de tant de miracles, inventes pour prouver la mission divine de tant de legislateurs reveres par les differens peuples du monde, le souverain des esprits ne pouvait-il pas convaincre tout d'un coup I'esprit humain des choses qu'il a voulu lui faire connaitre? Au lieu de suspendre un soleil dans la voute du firmament ; au lieu de repandre sans ordre les etoiles et les constellations qui remplissent I'espace, n'eut-il pas ete plus conforme aux vues d'un 12 THE NECESSITY OF ATHEISM Dieu si jaloux de sa gloire et si bien-intentionne pour I'homme d'ecrire, d'une fagon non sujette a dispute, son nom, ses attributs, ses volontes permanentes en carac- teres ineffa9ables, et lisibles egalement pour tous les habitants de la terre? Personne alors n'aurait pu douter de I'existence d'un Dieu, de ses volontes claires, de ses intentions visibles. Sous les yeux de ce Dieu si terrible, personne n'aurait eu I'audace de violer ses ordonnances; nul mortel n'eut ose se mettre dans le cas d'attirer sa colere : enfin nul homme n'eut eu le front d'en imposer en son nom, ou d'interpreter ses volontes suivant ses propres fantaisies. En ejflpet, quand meme on admettrait I'existence du Dieu theologique et la realite des attributs si discordans qu'on lui donne, I'on n'en pent rien conclure, pour autoriser la conduite ou les cultes qu'on prescrit de lui rendre. La theologie est vraiment le tonneau des Dana'ides. A force de qualites contradictoires et d'as- sertions hasardees, elle a, pour ainsi dire, tellement garrotte son Dieu qu'elle I'a mis dans I'impossibilite d'agir. S'il est infiniment bon, quelle raison aurions- nous de le craindre? S'il est infiniment sage, de quoi nous inquieter sur notre sort? S'il salt tout, pourquoi I'avertir de nos besoins, et le fatiguer de nos prieres? S'il est partout, pourquoi lui elever des temples? S'il est maitre de tout, pourquoi lui faire des sacrifices et des offrandes? S'il est juste, comment croire qu'il punisse des creatures qu'il a rempli de faiblesses? Si la grace fait tout en elles, quelle raison aurait-il de les recom- penser? S'il est tout-puissant, comment I'offenser, com- ment lui resister? S'il est raisonnable, comment se mettrait-il en colere centre des aveugles, a qui il a THE NECESSITY OF ATHEISM 13 laissc la liberie de deraisonner ? S'il est immuable, de quel droit pretendrions-nous faire changer ses de- crets? S'il est inconcevable, pourquoi nous en occuper? S'IL A PARLE, POURQUOI L'UNIVERS N'EST- IL PAS CONVAINCU? Si la connaissance d'un Dieu est la plus necessaire, pourquoi u'est-elle pas la plus evidente et la plus claire? — Systeme de la Nature. London, 1781. The enlightened and benevolent Pliny thus publicly professes himself an atheist : — Quapropter effigiem Dei formamque quaerere imbecillitatis humanae reor. Quis- quis est Deus (si modo est alius) et quacunque in parte, totus est sensus, totus est visus, totus auditus, totus animae, totus animi, totus sui. . . . Imperfectae vero in homine naturae praecipua solatia ne deum quidem posse omnia. Namque nee sibi potest mortem con- sciscere, si velit, quod homini dedit optimum in tantis vitae poenis : nee mortales aeternitate donare, aut revo- care def unctos ; nee facere ut qui vixit non vixerit, qui honores gessit non gesserit, nullumque habere in prae- teritum ius, praeterquam oblivionis, atque (ut facetis quoque argumentis societas haec cum deo copuletur) ut bis dena viginti non sint, et multa similiter efficere non posse. — Per quae declaratur baud dubie naturae poten- tiam id quoque esse quod Deum vocamus. — Plin. Nat. Hist. cap. de Deo. The consistent Newtonian is necessarily an atheist. See Sir W. Drummond's Academical Questions f chap, iii. — Sir W. seems to consider the atheism to which it leads as a sufficient presumption of the falsehood of the system of gravitation ; but surely it is more consistent U THE NECESSITY OF ATHEISM with the good faith of philosophy to admit a deduc- tion from facts than an hypothesis incapable of proof, although it might militate with the obstinate pre- conceptions of the mob. Had this author, instead of inveighing against the guilt and absurdity of atheism, demonstrated its falsehood, his conduct would have been more suited to the modesty of the sceptic and the toleration of the philosopher. Omnia enim per Dei potentiam facta sunt : imo quia naturae potentia nulla est nisi ipsa Dei potentia. Certum est nos eatenus Dei potentiam non intelligere, quatenus causas naturales ignoramus; adeoque stulte ad eandem Dei potentiam recurritur, quando rei alicuius causani naturalem, sive est, ipsam Dei potentiam ignoramus. — Spinoza, Tract. Theologico-Pol. chap. i. p. 14. A LETTER TO LORD ELLENBOROUGH [Note. — The occasion which called forth this Open Letter was the sentence of eighteen months' imprisonment and one hour in the pillory passed by Lord EUenborough on Daniel Isaac Eaton in May 1812 for publishing Part III. of Paine's Age of Eeason.] ADVERTISEMENT / have waited impatiently for these last four months, in the hopes that some pen, fitter for the important task, would have spared me the perilous pleasure of becoming the champion of an innocent man. — This may serve as an excuse for delay, to those who think that I have let pass the aptest opportunity, but it is not to be supposed that in four short months the public indignation, raised by Mr. Eaton s unmerited suffering, can have subsided. LETTER My Lord, As the station to which you have been called by your country is important, so much the more a\v£ul is your responsibility, so much the more does it become you to watch lest you inadvertently punish the virtuous and reward the vicious. You preside over a court which is instituted for the suppression of crime, and to whose authority the people submit on no other conditions than that its decrees should be conformable to justice. 15 16 A LETTER TO LORD ELLENBOROUGH If it should be demonstrated that a judge had con- demned an innocent man, the bare existence of laws in conformity to which the accused is punished, would but little extenuate his offence. The inquisitor when he burns an obstinate heretic may set up a similar plea, yet few are sufficiently blinded by intolerance to ac- knowledge its validity. It will less avail such a judge to assert the policy of punishing one who has committed no crime. Policy and moraUty ought to be deemed synonymous in a court of justice, and he whose conduct has been regulated by the latter principle, is not justly amenable to any penal law for a supposed violation of the former. It is true, my Lord, laws exist which suffice to screen you from the animadversions of any constituted power, in consequence of the unmerited sen- tence which you have passed upon Mr. Eaton ; but there are no laws which screen you from the reproof of a nation's disgust, none which ward off the just judgment of posterity, if that posterity will deign to recollect you. By what right do you punish Mr. Eaton? What but antiquated precedents, gathered from times of priestly and tyrannical domination, can be adduced in palliation of an outrage so insulting to humanity and justice? Whom has he injured? What crime has he committed? Wherefore may he not walk abroad like other men and follow his accustomed pursuits? What end is proposed in confining this man, charged with the commission of no dishonourable action? Wherefore did his aggressor avail himself of popular prejudice, and return no answer but one of common place contempt to a defence of plain and simple sincerity? Lastly, when the prejudices of the jury, as Christians, were strongly and unfairly in- A LETTER TO LORD ELLENBOROUGH 17 flamed ^ against this injured man as a Deist, wherefore did not you, my Lord, check such unconstitutional pleading, and desire the jury to pronounce the accused imiocent or criminal ^ without reference to the particular faith which he professed? In the name of justice, what answer is there to these questions? The answer which Heathen Athens made to Socrates, is the same with which Christian England must attempt to silence the advocates of this injured man — ''He has questioned established opinions." — Alas ! the crime of inquiry is one which religion never has forgiven. Implicit faith and fearless inquiry have in all ages been irreconcilable enemies. Unrestrained philosophy has in every age opposed itself to the reveries of credulity and fanaticism. — The truths of astronomy demonstrated by Newton have superseded astrology ; since the modern discoveries in chemistry the philosopher's stone has no longer been deemed attainable. Miracles of every kind have become rare,, in proportion to the hidden principles which those who study nature have developed. That which is false will ultimately be controverted by its own falsehood. That which is true needs but publicity to be acknowledged. It is ever a proof that the falsehood of a proposition is felt by those who use power and coercion, not reasoning and persuasion, to procure its admission. — Falsehood skulks in holes and corners, "it lets I dare not wait upon I would, like the poor cat in the adage," ^ except ^ See the Attorney Oeneral's speech. ' By Mr, Fox's bill (1791) Juries are, in eases of libel, judges both of the law and the fact. ' Shakespeare. 18 A LETTER TO LORD ELLENBOROUGH when it has power, and then, as it was a coward, it is a tyrant; but the eagle-eye of truth darts through the undazzling sunbeam of the immutable and just, gathering thence wherewith to vivify and illuminate a universe ! Wherefore, I repeat, is Mr. Eaton punished? — Be- cause he is a Deist? — And what are you, my Lord? — A Christian. Ha then! the mask is fallen off; you persecute him because his faith differs from yours. You copy the persecutors of Christianity in j^our actions, and are an additional proof that your religion is as bloody, barbarous, and intolerant as theirs. — If some deistical Bigot in power (supposing such a char- acter for the sake of illustration) should in dark and barbarous ages have enacted a statute making the profession of Christianity criminal, if you my Lord w^ere a Christian bookseller, and Mr. Eaton a judge, those arguments which you consider adequate to justify your- self for the sentence which you have passed must likewise suffice, in this suppositionary case to justify Mr. Eaton, in sentencing you to Newgate and the pillory for being a Christian. Whence is any right derived but that which power confers for persecution ?\ Do you think to convert Mr. Eaton to your religion Xry embittering his existence? You might force him by torture to profess your tenets, but he could not believe them, except you should make them credible, which perhaps exceeds your power. Do you think to please the God you worship by this exhibition of your zeal? If so, the Demon to whom some nations oifer human hecatombs is less barbarous than the Deity of civilised society. A LETTER TO LORD ELLENBOROUGH 19 You consider iiian as an accountable being — but he can only be accountable for those actions whicli are influenced by his will. 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 precisely proportionate to the degrees of excitement. Volition is essential to merit or demerit. How then can merit or demerit be attached to what is distinct from that faculty of the mind whose presence is essential to their being? 1 am aware that religion is founded on the voluntariness of belief, as it makes it a subject of reward and punishment ; but before we extinguish the steady ray of reason and common sense, it is fit that we should discover, which we cannot do without their assistance, whether or no there be any other which may suffice to guide us through the labyrinth of life. If the law "de heretico comburendo " has not been formally repealed, I conceive that, from the promise held out by your Lordship's zeal, we need not despair of beholding the flames of persecution rekindled in Smithfield. Even now the lash that drove Descartes and Voltaire from their native country, the chains which bound Galileo, the flames which burned Vanini, again resound : — And where? in a nation that pre- sumptuously calls itself the sanctuary of freedom. Under a government which, whilst it infringes the very right of thought and speech, boasts of permitting the liberty of the press ; in a civilised and enlightened 20 A LETTER TO LORD ELLENBOROUGH country, a man is pilloried and imprisoned because he is a Deist, and no one raises his voice in the indigna- tion of outraged humanity. Does the Christian God, whom his followers eulogise as the Deity of humiUty and peace ; he, the regenerator of the world, the meek reformer, authorise one man to rise against another, and because lictors are at his beck, to chain and torture him as an Infidel? When the Apostles went abroad to convert the nations, were they enjoined to stab and poison all who disbelieved the divinity of Christ's mission ; assuredly, they would have been no more justifiable in this case than he is at present who puts into execution the law which inflicts pillory and imprisonment on the Deist. Has not Mr. Eaton an equal right to call your Lord- ship an Infidel, as you have to imprison him for pro- mulgating a different doctrine from that which you profess? — What do I say ! — Has he not even a stronger plea? — The word Infidel can only mean any thing when applied to a person who professes that which he disbelieves. The test of truth is an undivided reliance on its inclusive powers; — the test of conscious false- hood is the variety of the forms under which it presents itself, and its tendency towards employing whatever coercive means may be within its command, in order to procure the admission of what is unsusceptible of support from reason or persuasion. A dispassionate observer would feel himself more powerfully interested in favour of a man, who depending on the truth of his opinions, simply stated his reasons for entertaining them, than in that of his aggressor, who daringly avowing his unwillingness to answer them by argument. A LETTER TO LORD ELLENBOROUGH 21 proceeded to repress the activity and breali the spirit of their promulgator, by that torture and imprisonment whose infliction he could command. I hesitate not to affirm that tiie opinions which Mr. Eaton sustained, when underfroing that mockery of a trial at which your Lordship presided, appear to me more true and good than those of his accuser; — but were they false as the visions of a Calvinist, it still would be the duty of those who love liberty and virtue, to raise their voice indignantly against a reviving system of per- secution, against the coercively repressing any opinion, which, if false, needs but the opposition of truth which, if true, in spite of force, must ultimately prevail. Mr. Eaton asserted that the scriptures were, from beginning to end, a fable and imposture,^ that the Apostles were liars and deceivers. He denied the miracles, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ. — He did so, and the Attorney General denied the pro- positions which he asserted, and asserted those which he denied. What singular conclusion is deducible from this fact? None, but that the Attorney General and Mr. Eaton sustained two opposite opinions. The Attorney General puts some obsolete and tyrannical laws in force against Mr. Eaton, because he publishes a book tending to prove that certain supernatural events, which are supposed to have taken place eighteen cen- turies ago, in a remote corner of the world, did not actually take place. But how are the truth or falsehood of the facts in dispute relevant to the merit or demerit attachable to the advocates of the two opinions? No man is accountable for his belief, because no man is ^ See the Attorney General's speech. C 22 A LETTER TO LORD ELLENBOROUGH capable of directing it. Mr. Eaton is therefore totally blameless. What are we to think of the justice of a sentence, which punishes an individual against whom it is not even attempted to attach the slightest stain of criminality ? It is asserted that Mr. Eaton's opinions are calculated to subvert morality — How? What moral truth is spoken of with irreverence or ridicule in the book which he published? Morality, or the duty of a man and a citizen, is founded on the relations which arise from the association of human beings, and which vary with the circumstances produced by the different states of this association. — This duty in similar situations must be precisely the same in all ages and nations. — The opinion contrary to this has arisen from a supposition that the will of God is the source or criterion of morality : it is plain that the utmost exertion of Omnipotence could not cause that to be virtuous which actually is vicious. An all-powerful Demon might, indubitably, annex punishments to virtue and rewards to vice, but could not by these means effect the slightest change in their abstract and immutable natures. — Omnipotence could vary, by a providential interposition, the relations of human society ; — in this latter case, what before was virtuous would become vicious, according to the neces- sary and natural result of the alteration ; but the abstract natures of the opposite principles would have sustained not the slightest change ; for instance, the punishment with which society restrains the robber, the assassin, and the ravisher is just, laudable, and requisite. We admire and respect the institutions which curb those who would defeat the ends for which society was estab- A LETTER TO LORD ELLENBOROUGH 23 lished ; — but, should a precisely similar coercion be exercised against one who merely expressed his disbelief of a system admitted by those entrusted with tiie execu- tive power, using at the same time no metliods of pro- mulgation but those atlorded by reason, certainly this coercion would be eminently inhuman and immoral ; and the supposition that any revelation from an unknown power avails to palliate a persecution so senseless, un- provoked, and indefensible, is at once to destroy the barrier which reason places between vice and virtue, and leave to unprincipled fanaticism a plea whereby it may excuse every act of frenzy, which its own wild passions, not the inspirations of the Deity, have engendered. Moral qualities are such as only a human being can possess. To attribute them to the Spirit of the Universe, or to suppose that it is capable of altering them, is to degrade God into man, and to annex to this incompre- hensible being qualities incompatible with any possible definition of his nature. It may here be objected — Ought not the Creator to possess the perfections of the creature? No. To attribute to God the moral qualities of man, is to suppose him susceptible of passions which, arising out of corporeal organisation, it is plain that a pure spirit cannot possess. A bear is not perfect except he is rough, a tyger is not perfect if he be not voracious, an elephant is not perfect if otherwise than docile. How deep an argument must that not be which proves that the Deity is as rough as a bear, as voracious as a tyger, and as docile as an elephant ! But even suppose with the vulgar, that God is a venerable old man, seated on a throne of clouds, his breast the theatre of various passions, analogous to those of humanity, his will 24 A LETTER TO LORD ELLENBOROUGH changeable and uncertain as that of an earthly king, — still goodness and justice are qualities seldom nominally denied him, and it will be admitted that he disapproves of any action incompatible with these qualities. Per- secution for opinion is unjust. With what consistency, then, can the worshippers of a Deity whose benevolence they boast, embitter the existence of their fellow being, because his ideas of that Deity are different from those which they entertain. — Alas ! there is no consistency in those persecutors who worship a benevolent Deity ; those v/ho worship a Demon would alone act consonantly to these principles, by imprisoning and torturing in his name. Persecution is the only name applicable to punishment inflicted on an individual in consequence of his opinions. — What end is persecution designed to answer? Can it convince him whom it injures? Can it prove to the people the falsehood of his opinions? It may make him a hypocrite, and them cowards, but bad means can promote no good end. The unprejudiced mind looks with suspicion on a doctrine that needs the sustaining hand of power. Socrates v/as poisoned because he dared to combat the degrading superstitions in which his countrymen were educated. Not long after his death, Athens recognised the injustice of his sentence ; his accuser Melitus was condemned, and Socrates became a demigod. Jesus Christ was crucified because he attempted to supersede the ritual of Moses with regulations more moral and humane — his very judge made public acknowledgment of his innocence, but a bigoted and ignorant mob demanded the deed of horror. — Barabbas A LETTER TO LORD ELLENBOROUGH 25 the murderer and traitor was released. The meek reformer Jesus was immolated to the sanguinary Deity of the Jews. Time rolled on, time changed tlie situa tions, and with them, the opinions of men. The vulgar, ever in extremes, hecame persuaded that the crucifixion of Jesus was a supernatural event, and testimonies of miracles, so frequent in unenliglitened ages, were not wanting to prove that he was something divine. This belief, rolling through the lapse of ages, acquired force and extent, until the divinity of Jesus became a dogma, which to dispute was death, which to doubt was infamy. Christianity is now the established religion; he who attempts to disprove it, must behold murderers and traitors take precedence of him in public opinion, though, if his genius be equal to Iiis courage, and assisted by a peculiar coalition of circumstances, future ages may exalt him to a divinity, and persecute others in his name, as he was persecuted in the name of his predecessor, in the homage of the world. The same means that have supported every other '^ popular belief, have supported Christianity. War, ^ imprisonment, murder, and falsehood ; deeds of un- exampled and mcomparable atrocity have made it what it is. We derive from our ancestors a belief thus fostered and supported. — W^e quarrel, persecute, and hate for its maintenance. — Does not analogy favour the opinion that, as like other systems it has arisen and augmented, so like them it will decay and perish ; that, as violence and falsehood, not reasoning and persuasion, have procured its admission among mankind ; so, when enthusiasm has subsided, and time, that infallible con- ^ 26 A LETTER TO LORD ELLENBOROUGH troverter of false opinions, has involved its pretended evidences in the darkness of antiquity, it will become obsolete, and that men will then laugh as heartily at grace, faith, redemption, and original sin, as they now do at the metamorphoses of Jupiter, the miracles of Romish saints, the efficacy of witchcraft, and the appearance of departed spirits. Had the Christian religion commenced and continued by the mere force of reasoning and persuasion, by its self-evident excellence and fitness, the preceding analogy would be inadmissible. Vv^e should never speculate upon the future obsoleteness of a system perfectly con- formable to nature and reason. It would endure so long as they endured, it would be a truth as indisputable as the light of the sun, the criminality of murder, and other facts, physical and moral, which, depending on our organisation, and relative situations, must remain ac- knowledged so long as man is man. — It is an incon- trovertible fact, the consideration of which ought to repress the hasty conclusions of credulity, or moderate its obstinacy in maintaining them, that, had the Jews not been a barbarous and fanatical race of men, had even the resolution of Pontius Pilate been equal to his candour, the Christian religion never could have prevailed, it could not even have existed. Man ! the very existence of w^hose most cherished opinions de- pends from a thread so feeble, arises out of a source so equivocal, learn at least humility ; own at least that it is possible for thyself also to have been seduced by education and circumstances into the admission of tenets destitute of rational proof, and the truth of which has not yet been satisfactorily demonstrated. Acknowledge A LETTER TO LORD ELLENBOROUGH 27 at least that the falsehood of thy brother's opinions is no sufficient reason for liis meriting thy hatred. — What! beeause a fellow being disputes the reasonableness of thy faith, wilt thou punish liim with torture and im- I)risonnient? If persecution for reUgious opinions were admitted by the moralist, how wide a door would not be opened by which convulsionists of every kind might make inroads on the peace of society ! How many deeds of barbarism and blood would not receive a sanction ! — But I will demand, if that man is not ratlier entitled to the respect than the discountenance of society, who, b}' disputing a received doctrine, either proves its falsehood and inutility, thereby aiming at the abolition of what is false and useless, or giving to its adherents an opportunity of estabhshing its excellence and truth. — Surely this can be no crime. Surely the individual who devotes his time to fearless and unre- stricted inquiry into the grand questions arising out of our moral nature, ought rather to receive the patronage, than encounter the vengeance, of an enlightened legis- J lature. I would have you to know, my Lord, that -» fetters of iron cannot bind or subdue the soul of virtue. From the damps and solitude of its dungeon it ascends free and undaunted, whither thine, from the pompous seat of judgment, dare not soar. I do not warn you to beware lest your profession as a Christian, should make you forget that you are a man ; — but I warn you against festinatingthat period, which, under the present coercive system, is too rapidly maturing, when the seats of jus- tice shall be the seats of venality and slavishness, and the cells of Newgate become the abode of all that is honourable and true. 28 A LETTER TO LORD ELLENBOROUGH I mean not to compare Mr. Eaton with Socrates or Jesus ; he is a man of blameless and respectable character, he is a citizen unimpeached with crime; if, therefore, his rights as a citizen and a man have been infringed, they have been infringed by illegal and im- moral violence. But I will assert that, should a second Jesus arise among men ; should such a one as Socrates again enUghten the earth, lengthened imprisonment and infamous punishment (according to the regimen of per- secution revived by your Lordship) would effect, what hemlock and the cross have heretofore effected, and the stain on the national character, like that on Athens and Judea, would remain indelible, but by the destruction of the history in which it is recorded. When the Christian Religion shall have faded from the earth, when its memory like that of Polytheism now shall remain, but remain only as the subject of ridicule and wonder, indignant posterity would attach im- mortal infamy to such an outrage; like the murder of Socrates, it would secure the execration of every age. The horrible and wide-wasting enormities which gleam like comets through the darkness of gothic and super- stitious ages, are regarded by the moralist as no more than the necessary effects of known causes ; but, when an enlightened age and nation signalises itself by a deed, becoming none but barbarians and fanatics, Philo- ^A sophy itself is even induced to doubt whether human nature will ever emerge from the pettishness and im- becility of its childhood. The system of persecution at whose new birth, you, my Lord, are one of the presiding midwives, is not more impotent and wicked than incon- A LETTER TO LORD ELLENBOROUGH 29 sis tent. The press is loaded with what are called (ironically, I should conceive) proofs of the Christian Religion : these books are replete with invective and calumny against Infidels, they presuppose that he who rejects Christianity must be utterly divested of reason and feeling. They advance the most unsupported asser- tions, and take as first principles the most revolting dogmas. The inferences drawn from these assumed premises are imposingly logical and correct ; but if a foundation is weak, no architect is needed to foretell the instability of the superstructure. — If the truth of Chris- tianity is not disputable, for what purpose are these books written? If they are sufficient to prove it, what further need of controversy? // God has spoken, zchy is not the universe convinced ? If the Christian Religion needs deeper learning, more painful investigation, to establish its genuineness, wherefore attempt to accom- plish that by force, which the human mind can alone effect with satisfaction to itself? If, lastly, its truth cannot be demonstrated, wherefore impotently attempt to snatch from God the government of his creation, and impiously assert that the Spirit of Benevolence has left that knowledge most essential to the well being of man, the only one which, since its promulgation, has been the subject of unceasing cavil, the cause of irreconcileable hatred? — Either the Christian Religion is true, or it is not. If true, it comes from God, and its authenticity can admit of doubt and dispute no further than its Omnipotent Author is willing to allow ; — if true, it admits of rational proof, and is capable of being placed equally beyond controversy, as the principles which have been established concerning matter and mind, by Locke 30 A LETTER TO LORD ELLENBOROUGH and Newton ; and in proportion to the usefulness of the fact in dispute, so must it be supposed that a benevolent being is anxious to procure the diffusion of its knowledge on the earth. — If false, surely no enlightened legislature would punish the reasoner, who opposes a system so much the more fatal and pernicious as it is extensively admitted ; so much the more productive of absurd and ruinous consequences, as it is entwined by education, with the prejudices and affections of the human heart, in the shape of a popular belief. Let us suppose that some half-witted philosopher should assert that the earth was the centre of the universe, or that ideas could enter the human mind independently of sensation or reflection. This man would assert what is demonstrably incorrect ; — he would promulgate a false opinion. Yet, would he therefore deserve pillory and imprisonment ? By no means ; probably few would discharge more correctly the duties of a citizen and a man. I admit that the case above stated is not precisely in point. The thinking part of the community has not received as indisputable the truth of Christianity, as they have that of the New- tonian system. A very large portion of society, and that powerfully and extensively connected, derives its sole emolument from the belief of Christianity, as a popular faith. To torture and imprison the asserter of a dogma, however ridiculous and false, is highly barbarous and impolitic : — How, then, does not the cruelty of persecu- tion become aggravated when it is directed against the opposer of an opinion yet under dispute, and which men of unrivalled acquirements, penetrating genius, and A LETTER TO LORD ELLENBOROUGH 31 stainless \irtue, have spent, and at last sacrificed, their lives in combating. The time is rapidly approaching, I hope, that you, my Lord, may live to behold its arrival, when the Mahometan, the Jew, the Christian, the Deist, and the Atheist, will live together in one community, equally sharing the benefits which arise from its association, and united in the bonds of charity and brotherly love. — My Lord, you have condenmed an innocent man — no crime was imputed to him — and you sentenced him to torture and imprisonment. I have not addressed this letter to you with the hopes of convincing you that you have acted wrong. The most unprincipled and bar- barous of men are not unprepared with sophisms, to prove that they would have acted in no other manner, and to show that vice is virtue. But I raise my solitary voice, to express my disapprobation, so far as it goes, of the cruel and unjust sentence you, passed upon Mr. Eaton, to assert, so far as I am capable of influencing, those rights of humanity, which you have wantonly and unlawfully infringed. My Lord, Yours, &c. A REFUTATION OF DEISM EUSEBES AND THEOSOPHUS EUSEBES O Theosophus, I have long regretted and observed the strange infatuation which has blinded your under- standing. It is not without acute uneasiness that I have beheld the progress of your audacious scepticism trample on the most venerable institutions of our fore- fathers, until it has rejected the salvation which the only begotten Son of God deigned to proffer in person to a guilty and unbelieving world. To this excess, then, has the pride of the human understanding at length arrived? To measure itself with Omniscience! To scan the intentions of Inscrutability ! You can have reflected but superficially on this awful and important subject. The love of paradox, an affecta- tion of singularity, or the pride of reason has seduced you to the barren and gloomy paths of infideUty. Surely you have hardened yourself against the truth with a spirit of coldness and cavil. Have you been wholly inattentive to the accumulated evidence which the Deity has been pleased to attach to the revelation of his will ? The ancient books in which the advent of the Messiah was predicted, the miracles by which its truth has been so conspicuously confirmed, the martyrs who have undergone every variety of tor- ment in attestation of its veracity ? You seem to require 32 A REFUTATION OF DEISM 33 mathematical demonstration in a case which admits of no more than strong moral probability. Surely the merit of tliat faith which we are required to repose in our Redeemer would be thus entirely done away. W'liere is the (hfficulty of accordinon hold to be most apparent in the Universe. Intelligence is only known to us as a mode of animal being. We cannot conceive intelligence distinct from sensation a.id perception, which are attributes to organised bodies. To assert that God is intelligent, is to assert that he has ideas ; and Locke has proved that ideas result from sensation. Sensation can exist only in an organised bod}', an organised body is necessarily limited both in extent and operation. The God of the rational Theo- Sophies is a vast and wise animal. You have laid it down as a maxim that the power of beginning motion is an attribute of mind as much as thought and sensation. Mind cannot create, it can only perceive. Mind is the recipient of impressions made on the organs of sense, and without the action of external objects we should not only be deprived of all knowledge of the existence of mind, but totally incapable of the knowledge of any thing. It is evident, therefore, that mind deserves to be considered as the effect, rather than the cause of motion. The ideas which suggest themselves too are prompted by the circumstances of our situation, these are the elements of thought, and from the various combinations of these our feelings, opinions, and volitions inevitably result. 72 A REFUTATION OF DEISM That which is infinite necessarily includes that which is finite. The distinction therefore between the Universe, and that by which the Universe is upheld, is manifestly erroneous. To devise the word God, that you may express a certain portion of the universal system, can answer no good purpose in philosophy : In the language of reason, the words God and Universe are synonj'^mous. Omnia enim per Dei potentiam facta sunt, imoy quia naturce potentia nulla est nisi ipsa Dei potentia, artem est nos eatenus Dei potentiam non in- telligere quatenus causas naturales ignoramus: adeoque stulte ad eandam Dei potentiam recurritur, quando rei alicujus, causam naturalem, hoc est, ipsam Dei poten- tiam ignoramus.^ Thus from the principles of that reason to which you so rashly appealed as the ultimate arbiter of our dis- pute, have I shown that the popular arguments in favour of the being of a God are totally destitute of colour. I have shown the absurdity of attributing intelligence to the cause of those effects which we perceive in the Universe, and the fallacy which lurks in the argument from design. I have showTi that order is no more than a peculiar manner of contemplating the operation of necessary agents, that mind is the effect, not the cause of motion, that power is the attribute, not the origin of Being. I have proved that we can have no evidence of the existence of a God from the principles of reason. You will have observed, from the zeal with which I have urged arguments so revolting to my genuine senti- ments, and conducted to a conclusion in direct contra- ' Spinosa. Tract. Theologico. -Pol. chap. i. p. 14. A REFUTATION OF DEISM 73 diction lo that faith which every pood man must eternally preserve, how Httle I am inclined to sympathise witli those of my rehgion wiio have pretended to prove the existence of God by the unassisted light of reason. I confess that the necessity of a revelation has been compromised by treacherous friends to Christianity, who have maintained that tlie sublime m.vsteries of the being of a God and the immortality of the soul are discover- able from other sources than itself. I have proved that on tlie principles of that philo- sophy to which Epicurus, Lord Bacon, Newton, Locke, and Hume were addicted, the existence of God is a chimera. The Christian religion then, alone, affords indisput- able assurance that the world was created b}^ the power, and is preserved by the Providence of an Almighty God, who, in justice has appointed a future life for the punishment of the vicious and the remuneration of the virtuous. Now, O Theosophus, I call upon you to decide be- tween Atheism and Christianity^; to declare whether you will pursue your principles to the destruction of the bonds of civilised society, or wear the easy yoke of that religion which proclaims ''peace upon earth, goodwill to all men." Theosophus I AM not prepared at present, I confess, to reply clearly to your unexpected arguments. I assure j'ou that no considerations, however specious, should seduce me to deny the existence of my Creator. 74 A REFUTATION OF DEISM I am willing to promise that if, after mature delibera- tion, the arguments which you have advanced in favour of Atheism should appear incontrovertible, I will endea- vour to adopt so much of the Christian scheme as is consistent with my persuasion of tlie goodness, unity, and majesty of God. A DEFENCE OF POETRY According to one mode of regarding those two classes of mental action, which are called reason and imagination, the former may be considered as mind contemplating the relations borne by one thougiit to another, however produced; and the latter, ns mind acting upon those thoughts so as to colour them with its own light, and composing from them, as from elements, other thoughts, each containing within itself the i)iin- ciple of its own integrity. The one is the to ttouii/, or the principle of synthesis, and has for its object those forms which are common to universal nature and exist- ence itself ; the other is the to Xoyi^etr, or principle of analysis, and its action regards the relations of things simply as relations; considering thoughts, not in their integral unity, but as the algebraical representations which conduct to certain general results. Reason is the enumeration of quantities already known ; imagination is the perception of the value of those quantities, both separately and as a whole. Reason respects the differ- ences, and imagination the similitudes of things. Reason is to the imagination as the instrument to the agent, as the body to the spirit, as the shadow to the substance. Poetry, in a general sense, may be defined to be ** the 75 76 A DEFENCE OF POETRY expression of the imagination :" and poetry is connate with the origin of man. Man is an instrument over which a series of external and internal impressions are driven, like the alternations of an ever-changing wind over an JEolian lyre, which move it by their motion to ever-changing melody. But there is a principle within the human being, and perhaps within all sentient beings, which acts otherwise than in a lyre, and produces not melody alone, but harmony, by an internal adjustment of the sounds and motions thus excited to the impres- sions which excite them. It is as if the lyre could accommodate its chords to the motions of that which strikes them, in a determined proportion of sound ; even as the musician can accommodate his voice to the sound of the lyre. A child at play by itself will express its delight by its voice and motions ; and every inflexion of tone and gesture will bear exact relation to a corresponding antitype in the pleasurable impressions which awakened it ; it will be the reflected image of that impression ; and as the lyre trembles and sounds after the ^\ind has died away, so the child seeks, by prolonging in its voice and motions the duration of the effect, to prolong also a consciousness of the cause. In relation to the objects which delight a child, these expressions are what poetry is to higher objects. The savage (for the savage is to ages what the child is to years) expresses the emotions produced in him by surrounding objects in a similar manner ; and language and gesture, together with plastic or pictorial imitation, become the image of the combined effect of those objects and his apprehension of them. Man in society, with all his passions and his pleasures, next becomes A DEFENCE OF POETRY 77 the object of the passions and pleasures of man ; an addilii)nal class of emotions produces an augmented treasure of expression ; and language, gesture, and the imitative arts become at once the representation and the medium, the pencil and the picture, the chisel and the statue, the chord and the harmony. The social sympathies, or those laws from which as from its elements society results, begin to develop themselves from the moment that two human beings coexist ; the future is contained within the present as the plant within the seed ; and equality, diversity, unity, con- trast, mutual dependence, become the principles alone capable of affording the motives according to which the will of a social being is determined to action, inasmuch as he is social ; and constitute pleasure in sensation, virtue in sentiment, beauty in art, truth in reasoning, and love in the intercourse of kind. Hence men, even in the infancy of society, observe a certain order in their words and actions, distinct from that of the objects and the impressions represented b}^ them, all expression being subject to the laws of that from which it pro- ceeds. But let us dismiss those more general considera- tions which might involve an inquiry into the principles of society itself, and restrict our view to the manner in which the imagination is expressed upon its forms. In the youth of the world, men dance and sing and imitate natural objects, observing in these actions, as in all others, a certain rhytlmi or order. And, although all men observe a similar, they observe not the same order, in the motions of the dance, in the melody of the song, in the coinbinalions of language, in the series of their imitations of natural objects. For there is a 78 A DEFENCE OF POETRY certain order or rhythm belonging to each of these classes of mimetic representation, from which the hearer and the spectator receive an intenser and purer pleasure than from any other : the sense of an approximation to this order has been called taste by modern writers. Every man in the infancy of art, observes an order which approximates more or less closely to that from which this highest delight results : but the diversity is not sufficiently marked, as that its gradations should be sensible, except in those instances where the predomi- nance of this faculty of approximation to the beautiful (for so we may be permitted to name the relation between this highest pleasure and its cause) is very great. Ihose in whom it exists to excess are poets, in the most universal sense of the word ; and the pleasure resulting from the manner in which they express the influence of society or nature upon their own minds, communicates itself to others, and gathers a sort of reduplication from the community. Their language is vitally metaphorical ; that is, it marks the before un- apprehended relations of things and perpetuates their apprehension, until words, which represent them, be- come, through time, signs for portions or classes of thought, instead of pictures of integral thoughts ; and then, if no new poets should arise to create afresh the associations which have been thus disorganised, language will be dead to all the nobler purposes of human inter- course. These similitudes or relations are finely said by Bacon to be "the same footsteps of nature impressed upon the various subjects of the world ; " ^ — and he considers the faculty which perceives them as the store- ^ Dc Augment. Scient. cap. 1. lib. iii. A DEFENCE OF POETRY 79 house of axioms common to all knowledge. In the infancy of society every author is necessarily a poet, because language itself is poetry ; and to be a poet is to apprehend the true and the beautiful, in a word, the good which exists in the relation subsisting, first be- tween existence and perception, and secondly between perception and expression. Every original language near to its source is in itself the chaos of a cyclic poem : the copiousness of lexicography and the distinctions of grammar are the works of a later age, and are merely the catalogue and the form of the creations of poetry. But poets, or those who imagine and express this indestructible order, are not only the authors of lan- guage and of music, of the dance, and architecture, and statuary, and painting ; they are the institutors of laws i:nd the founders of civil society, and the inventors of the arts of life, and the teachers, who draw into a certain propinquity with the beautiful and the true, that partial apprehension of the agencies of the invisible world which is called religion. Hence all original religions are allegorical or susceptible of allegory, and, like Janus, have a double face of false and true. Poets, according to the circumstances of the age and nation in which they appeared, were called, in the earlier epochs of the world, legislators or prophets : a poet essentially comprises and unites both these characters. For he not only beholds intensely the present as it is, and discovers those laws according to which present things ought to be ordered, but he beholds the future in the present, and his thoughts are the germs of the flower and the fruit of latest time. Not that I assert poets to be proi)hets in the gross sense of the word, or that they can foretell the 80 A DEFENCE OF POETRY form as surely as they foreknow the spirit of events : such is the pretence of superstition, which would make poetry an attribute of prophecy, rather than prophecy an attribute of poetry. A poet participates in the eternal, the infinite, and the one ; as far as relates to his conceptions, time and place and number are not. The grammatical forms which express the moods of time, and the difference of persons, and the distinction of place, are convertible with respect to the highest poetry without injuring it as poetry ; and the choruses of ^schylus, and the book of Job, and Dante's Paradisoy would afford, more than any other writings, examples of this fact, if the limits of this essay did not forbid cita- tion. The creations of sculpture, painting, and music, are illustrations still more decisive. Language, colour, form, and religious and civil habits of action, are all the instruments and materials of poetry ; they may be called poetry by that figure of speech which considers the effect as a synonym of the cause. But poetry in a more restricted sense expresses those arrangements of language, and especially metrical language, which are created by that imperial faculty, whose throne is curtained within the invisible nature of man. And this springs from the nature itself of language, which is a more direct representation of the actions and passions of our internal being, and is sus- ceptible of more various and delicate combinations, than colour, form, or motion, and is more plastic and obedient to the control of that faculty of which it is the creation. For language is arbitrarily produced by the imagina- tion, and has relation to thoughts alone ; but all other materials, instruments, and conditions of art, have A DEFENCE OF POETRY 81 relations among each otlicr, whicli limit and interpose between conception and expression. The former is as a mirror wliich reflects, the latter as a cloud which enfeebles, the li^ht of which both are mediums of com- munication. Hence the fame of sculptors, painters, and musicians, although the intrinsic powers of the great masters of these arts may yield in no degree to that of those who have employed language as the hiero- glyphic of their thoughts, has never equalled that of poets in the restricted sense of the term ; as two per- formers of equal skill will produce unequal effects from a guitar and a harp. The fame of legislators and founders of religion, so long as their institutions last, alone seems to exceed that of poets in the restricted sense ; but it can scarcely be a question, whether, if we deduct the celebrity which their flattery of the gross opinions of the vulgar usually conciliates, together with that which belonged to them in their higher character of poets, any excess will remain. We have thus circumscribed the word poetrj^ within the limits of that art which is the most familiar and the most perfect expression of the faculty itself. It is necessary, however, to make the circle still narrower, and to determine the distinction between measured and unmeasured language ; for the popular division into prose and verse is inadmissible in accurate philosophy. Sounds as well as thouglits have relation both be- tween each other and towards that which they repre- sent, and a perception of the order of those relations has always been found connected with a perception of the order of the relations of thought. Hence the 82 A DEFENCE OF POETRY language of poets has ever affected a sort of uniform and harmonious recurrence of sound, without which it M ere not poetry, and which is scarcely less indispensable to the communication of its influence, than the words themselves, without reference to that peculiar order. Hence the vanity of translation ; it were as wise to cast a violet into a crucible that you might discover the formal principle of its colour and odour, as seek to transfuse from one language into another the creations of a poet. The plant must spring again from its seed, or it will bear no flower — and this is the burthen of the curse of Babel. An observation of the regular mode of the recurrence of harmony in tlie language of poetical minds, together witli its relation to music, produced metre, or a certain system of traditional forms of harmony and language. Yet it is by no means essential that a poet should accommodate his language to this traditional form, so that the harmony, which is its spirit, be observed. The practice is indeed convenient and popular, and to be preferred, especially in such composition as includes much action : but every great poet must inevitably innovate upon the example of his predecessors in the exact structure of his peculiar versification. Tiie dis- tinction between poets and prose-writers is a vulgar error. The distinction between philosophers and poets has been anticipated. Plato was essentially a poet — the truth and splendour of his imagery, and the melody of his language, are the most intense that it is possible to conceive. He rejected the harmony of the epic, dramatic, and lyrical forms, because he sought to kindle a harmony in thoughts divested of shape and action, A DKFRNCH OF POiyfRY 83 aiul he loibore to invent any regular plan of rliythni which Nvouhl include, under determinate forms, the varied pauses of liis style. Cicero sought to imitate the cadence of liis periods, but witli little success. Bacon was a poet.^ His language has a sweet and majestic rhythm, which satisfies the sense, no less than the almost superhuman wisdom of his philosophy satisfies the intellect; it is a strain which distends, and then bursts the circumference of the reader's mind, and pours itself forth together with it into the universal element with which it has perpetual sympathy. All the autliors of revolutions in o{)inion are not only necessarily poets as they are inventors, nor even as their words unveil t!ie permanent analogy of things by images which participate in the life of truth ; but as their periods are harn-ionious and rhythmical, and contain in themselves the elements of verse ; being the echo of the eternal music. Nor are those supreme poets, who have em- ployed traditional forms of rhythm on account of the form and action of their subjects, less capable of per- ceiving and teaching the truth of things, than those who have omitted that form. Shakespeare, Dante, and Milton (to confine ourselves to modern writers) are philosophers of the very loftiest power. A j)oem is the very image of life expressed in its eternal truth. There is this difference between a story and a poem, that a story is a catalogue of detached facts, which have no other connexion than time, place, circumstance, cause, and effect ; the other is the crea- tion of actions according to the unchangeable forms of human nature, as existing in the mind of the Creator, ^ See the Filu/n Laby r i ,ithi , and tl\e K-ssay on Doath particularly. 84 A DEFENCE OF POETRY which is itself the image of all other minds. The one is partial, and applies only to a definite period of time, and a certain combination of e\ents which can never again recur ; the otlier is universal, and contains within itself the germ of a relation to whatever motives or actions have place in the possible varieties of human nature. Time, which destroys the beauty and the use of the story of particular facts, stripped of the poetry which should invest them, augments that of poetry, and for ever develops new and wonderful applications of the eternal truth which it contains. Hence epitomes have been called the moths of just history ; they eat out the poetry of it. A story of particular facts is as a mirror which obscures and distorts that which should be beautiful : poetry is a mirror which makes beautiful that which is distorted. The parts of a composition may be poetical, without the composition as a whole being a poem. A single sentence may be considered as a whole, though it may be found in the midst of a series of unassimilated portions ; a single word even may be a spark of inex- tinguishable thought. And thus all the great historians, Herodotus, Plutarch, Livj'^, were poets ; and although the plan of these writers, especially that of Livy, re- strained them from developing this faculty in its highest degree, they made copious and ample amends for their subjection, by filling all the interstices of their subjects with living images. Having determined what is poetry, and who are poets, let us proceed to estimate its effects upon society. Poetry is ever accompanied with pleasure : all spirits upon which it falls open themselves to receive the A DEFENCE OF POETRY 85 wisdom whicli is mingled with its delight. In the infancy of the world, neitiier poets themselves nor their auditors are fully aware of the excellence of poetry : for it acts in a divine and unapprehended manner, beyond and above consciousness ; and it is reserved for future generations to contemplate and measure the mighty cause and effect in all the strength and splendour of their union. Even in modern times, no living poet ever arrived at the fulness of his fame ; the jury which sits in judgment upon a poet, belonging as he does to all time, must be composed of his peers : it must be em- l)annelled by time from the selectest of the wise of many generations. A poet is a nightingale, who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds ; his auditors are as men entranced by the melody of an unseen musician, who feel that they are moved and softened, yet know not whence or why. The poems of Homer and his contemporaries were the delight of infant Greece ; they were the elements of that social system which is the column upon which all succeeding civilisation has reposed. Homer embodied the ideal perfection of his age in human character ; nor can Me doubt that those who read his verses were awakened to an ambition of becoming like to Achilles, Hector, and Ulysses : the truth and beauty of friendship, patriotism, and persevering devotion to an object, were unveiled to their depths in these immortal creations : the sentiments of the auditors must have been refined and enlarged by a sympathy with such great and lovelv impersonations, until from admiring they imitated, and from imitation they identified themselves with the objects of their admiration. Nor let it be objected, that 86 A DEFENCE OF POETRY these characters are remote from moral perfection, and that they are by no means to be considered as edifying patterns for general imitation. Every epoch, under names more or less specious, has deified its peculiar errors; Revenge is the naked idol of the worship of a semi-barbarous age ; and Self-deceit is the veiled image of unknown evil, before which luxury and satiety lie prostrate. But a poet considers the vices of his con- temporaries as the temporary dress in which his creations must be arrayed, and which cover without concealing the eternal proportions of their beauty. An epic or dramatic personage is understood to wear them around his soul, as he may the ancient armour or modern uniform around his body ; whilst it is easy to conceive a dress more graceful than either. The beauty of the internal nature cannot be so far concealed by its accidental vesture, but that the spirit of its form shall communicate itself to the very disguise, and indicate the shape it hides from the manner in which it is worn. A majestic form and graceful motions Mill express themselves through the most barbarous and tasteless costume. Few poets of the highest class have chosen to exhibit the beauty of their conceptions in its naked truth and splendour ; and it is doubtful whether the alloy of costume, habit, &c., be not necessary to temper this planetary music for mortal ears. The whole objection, however, of the immorality of poetry rests upon a misconception of the manner in which poetry acts to produce the moral improvement of man. Ethical science arranges the elements which poetry has created, and propounds schemes and pro- poses examples of civil and domestic life : nor is it for A DEFENCE OF POETKY 87 \vant of admirable doctrines that men hate, and despise, and censure, and deceive, and subjugate one another. But poetry acts in another and diviner manner. It awakens and enlarges the mind itself by rendering it the receptacle of a thousand unapprehended combina- tions of thought. Poetry lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world, and makes familiar objects be as if they were not familiar; it reproduces all that it re- presents, and the impersonations clothed in its Elysian light stand thenceforward in tlie minds of those who have once contemplated them, as memorials of that gentle and exalted content which extends itself over all thoughts and actions with which it coexists. The great secret of morals is love ; or a going out of our own nature, and an identification of ourselves with the beautiful which exists in thought, action, or person, not our own. A man, to be greatly good, must imagine intensely and comprehensively; he must |;ut himself in the place of another and of manj^ others ; the pains and pleasures of his species must become his own. The great instrument of moral good is the imagination; and poetry administers to the effect by acting upon the cause. Poetry enlarges the circumference of the imagination by replenishing it with tiioughts of ever new delight, which have the power of attracting and assimi- lating to their own nature all other thoughts, and which form new intervals and interstices whose void for ever craves fresh food. Poetry strengthens the faculty which is the organ of the moral nature of man, in the same manner as exercise strengthens a limb. A poet therefore would do ill to embody his own conceptions of right and wrong, which are usually those of his place and time, in 88 A DEFENCE OF POETRY his poetical creations, which participate in neither. By this assumption of the inferior office of interpreting the effect, in which perhaps after all he might acquit himself but imperfectly, he would resign a glory in the participation of the cause. There was little danger that Homer, or any of the eternal poets, should have so far misunderstood themselves as to have abdicated this throne of their widest dominion. Those in whom the poetical faculty, though great, is less intense, as Euripides, Lucan, Tasso, Spenser, have frequently affected a moral aim, and the effect of their poetry is diminished in exact proportion to the degree in which they compel us to advert to this purpose. Homer and the cyclic poets were followed at a certain interval by the dramatic and Ij^'ical poets of Athens, who flourished contemporaneously with all that is most perfect in the kindred expressions of the poetical faculty ; architecture, painting, music, the dance, sculpture, philosophy, and we maj^ add, the forms of civil life. For although the scheme of Athenian society was de- formed by many imperfections which the poetry existing in chivalry and Christianity has erased from the habits and institutions of modern Europe ; yet never at any other period has so much energy, beauty and virtue, been developed ; never was blind strength and stubborn form so disciplined and rendered subject to the will of man, or that will less repugnant to the dictates of the beautiful and the true, as during the century which preceded the death of Socrates. Of no other epoch in the history of our species have we records and frag- ments stamped so visibly with the image of the divinity in man. But it is poetry alone, in form, in action, and A DEFENCE OF POETRY 89 in lan'orthy of the maturity of science. The astonishing invention of geometry, that series of discoveries which have enabled man to command the elements and fore- see future events, before the subjects of his ignorant wonder, and which have opened as it were the doors of the mysteries of nature, had already been brought to great perfection. Metaphysics, the science of man's inti- mate nature, and logic, or the grammar and elementary principles of that science, received from the latter philo- sophers of the Periclean age a firm basis. All our more exact philosophy is built upon the labours of these great men, and many of the words which we employ in metaphysical distinctions were invented by them to give accuracy and system to their reasonings. The science of morals, or the voluntary conduct of men in relation to themselves or others, dates from this epoch. How inexpressibly bolder and more pure were the doctrines of those great men, in comparison with the timid maxims which prevail in the writings of the most esteemed modern moralists! They were such as Phocion, and Epaminondas, and Timoleon, who formed themselves on their influence, were to the wretched heroes of our own age. Their political and religious institutions are more difficult to bring into comparison with those of other times. A summary idea may be formed of the worth of any political and religious system, by observing the LITERATURE AND ARTS OF ATHENIANS 123 comparative (le^^ree of happiness and of intellect j)ro- duced under its influence. And whilst many institutions ;uid opinions, wliich in ancient Greece were obstacles to the improvement of the human race, have been abolished among modern nations, how many pernicious supersti- tions and new contrivances of misrule, and unheard-of complications of public mischief, have not been invented among them by the ever-watchful spirit of avarice and tyranny ! The modern nations of the civilised world owe the pro