The Radicalism of Shelley and Its Sources Part 7

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, excis.e.m.e.n, 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 t.i.thes, 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 inst.i.tutions 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 princ.i.p.al 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," Sh.e.l.ley 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 antic.i.p.ating 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.

Sh.e.l.ley 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."

Sh.e.l.ley, following G.o.dwin and Condorcet, was a firm believer in the perfectibility of human nature. "By perfectible," G.o.dwin 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, Sh.e.l.ley 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 emanc.i.p.ation 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] Sh.e.l.ley 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.

G.o.dwin 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, Sh.e.l.ley 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--Sh.e.l.ley'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.

Sh.e.l.ley'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 Sh.e.l.ley disclaims any intention of advocating atheism in _The Wandering Jew_. He, no doubt, was unorthodox in his views regarding the nature of G.o.d; 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 G.o.d? 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 Sh.e.l.ley himself became sceptical. His disbelief is due also to the influence of the works of G.o.dwin 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. G.o.d, the soul, and immortality are the inventions of impostors to lash men into obedience and submission. In _Queen Mab_ Sh.e.l.ley represents G.o.d and religion as the cause of evil, and scoffs at the idea of creation.

From an eternity of idleness I, G.o.d, 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 Sh.e.l.ley from understanding Christianity was his belief in G.o.dwin'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 Sh.e.l.ley 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 Sh.e.l.ley 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 G.o.d. 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 G.o.d his negation was directed against the notions of G.o.d which exhibited Him as a Being with human pa.s.sions, 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 G.o.d into man." He denied the existence of the G.o.d represented as "a venerable old man, seated on a throne of clouds, His breast the theater of various pa.s.sions a.n.a.logous 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 G.o.d:

Spirit of Nature! all sufficing power Necessity! thou mother of the world!

Unlike the G.o.d 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 pa.s.sions of his breast To thy unvarying harmony.[119]

But in the next canto does he not say explicitly, "There is no G.o.d"? 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 'G.o.d' 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.... G.o.d 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 'G.o.d' 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 G.o.d and it was against these that Sh.e.l.ley directed his artillery. "Why,"

Trelawny asked him once, "do you call yourself an atheist?" "It is a word of abuse," Sh.e.l.ley 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 superst.i.tion. I took up the word as a knight took up a gauntlet in defiance of injustice."[121]

Leigh Hunt said that Sh.e.l.ley "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 G.o.d made after the worst human fas.h.i.+on." Southey told him also that he ought not to call himself an athiest, since in reality he believed that the universe is G.o.d.[122] "I love to doubt and to discuss," Sh.e.l.ley writes, and it is for this reason that he adopted the arguments of Locke, Hume, and Holbach. He does not doubt the existence of G.o.d; 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 s.p.a.ce, 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 a.n.a.logically. 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 a.n.a.logical to our situation." In a letter of June 11, 1811, he says G.o.d 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 att.i.tude. 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d, have the best right to believe it."[124] (True he goes on to say that he does not feel the being of G.o.d, and must be content with reason; but by this he may mean that he does not feel the existence of the G.o.d of the Christians.)

After all, this position with regard to the proof of G.o.d'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 a.s.serts 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 Sh.e.l.ley 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 Sh.e.l.ley experienced forced him to argue.

When Sh.e.l.ley 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 Sh.e.l.ley's pamphlet _The Necessity of Atheism_ would have had for its t.i.tle "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 cla.s.s 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 cla.s.sed by himself as atheist or theist. Indeed more upon his own a.s.sertion or direct teaching than by reason of any supposed implication in the system he advocates must this cla.s.sification be made. The agnostic may be a theist if he admits the existence of a being behind and beyond nature even while he a.s.serts that such a being is both unprovable and unknowable."[129]

With regard to the sources of Sh.e.l.ley'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 Sh.e.l.ley 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 G.o.d. Of far greater influence with Sh.e.l.ley 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 Sh.e.l.ley used by Miss Bernthsen may be traced to other sources besides Spinoza.

Sh.e.l.ley'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_, a.s.sent, or opinion."

In his notes to _Queen Mab_, Sh.e.l.ley 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 pa.s.sion the strength of which, like every other pa.s.sion, 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 a.s.sent. 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_, Sh.e.l.ley 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 _pa.s.sive_." And in Locke, II, 22, we read: "The mind in respect of its simple ideas is wholly _pa.s.sive_ 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]

Sh.e.l.ley, 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_, Sh.e.l.ley writes, "the most clear and vigorous statement of the intellectual system is to be found."[134]