Percy Bysshe Shelley as a Philosopher and Reformer | Page 6

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 world, find perfect coincidence of opinion to
exist between them.... God is neither the Jupiter who sends rain upon
the earth; nor the Venus through whom all living things are produced;
nor the Vulcan who presides over the terrestrial element of fire; nor the
Vesta that preserves the light which is enshrined in the sun, the moon,
and the stars. He is neither the Proteus nor the Pan of the material
world. But the word 'God' unites all the attributes which these
denominations contain and is the (inter-point) and over-ruling spirit of
all the energy and wisdom included within the circle of existing
things."
Of these attributes generally supposed to appertain to Deity, he writes:
"There is no attribute of God which is not either borrowed from the
passions and powers of the human mind, or which is not a negation.
Omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, infinity, immutability,
incomprehensibility, and immateriality, are all words which designate
properties and powers peculiar to organized beings, with the addition of
negations, by which the idea of limitation is excluded."
There is no other writer, I think, who seems to grasp so clearly as
Shelley the everlasting and immutable laws of Naturismus, or who
believed so fully in the divine mission of man, and the religion of
humanity. Ever soaring into the ideal, philosophizing by the aid of his
emotional impulses, Shelley possessed, like all true Hermetists and
Theosophists imbued with mysticism, a wonderful power of continued
abstraction in the contemplation of the Supreme Power. His mentality,

described by one of his critics as essentially Greek, "simple, not
complex, imaginative rather than fanciful, abstract not concrete,
intellectual not emotional," contributed its share to his belief in a
pantheistic philosophy, making him find Supreme Intelligence
permeated through the whole of infinite and interminable Nature.
Regarding the universe as an abstract whole, he endorsed the
fundamental metaphysics of Plato, and believed that "passing
phenomena are types of eternal archetypes, embodiments of eternal
realities."
Even if despite of my assertions to the contrary, there be those who still
insist on the atheism of Shelley, they had better restudy the elementary
axioms and learn to think--to those who imagine that there is but little
difference between atheism and pantheism to the discredit of either, I
would remind them that Bacon in his "Moral Essays," lays down as a
principle that:--
"Atheism leaves to man reason, philosophy, nature, piety, laws,
reputation and everything 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
boundaries of the present life."
In making use of this quotation do not let it be presumed that I wish to
endorse Materialism; my desire is to add the authority of a great mind
like that of the Elizabethan philosopher, to the fact that superstition is
so hateful that even blank, bald atheism is preferable thereto. I should
state that Bacon in extension of the extract I have quoted, speaking of
this soul-destroying incubus on humanity observes that:--"A little
philosophy inclineth men's minds to atheism; but depth in philosophy
bringeth men's minds to religion."
No amount of mere reasoning, or argument a priori or a posteriori, can
prove the existence of the Most High or destroy the same; in every
breast is implanted an innate belief in Deity, the inner consciousness of
the race, by the "Vox Dei" speaking within, has throughout all time, the
past and the present revelled in this sublimity, and will continue to do

so in the future, notwithstanding the insane and insensate efforts of
pseudo scientists or iconoclastic materialists--the brain and the heart
must act in harmony to consolidate a pure philosophy, for mere
intellect alone is an untrustworthy guide. By logic Whately proved
apparently indisputably the non-existence of Napoleon Bonaparte, at
the time when there was no doubt in any reasonable mind that he was
actually living in the flesh, by the same means one can disprove one's
own being, and so by this unsafe method have I frequently heard the
God idea very learnedly overthrown. On such occasions I have simply
taken the words of the logicians for what all their idle wind is
worth--ZERO.
The Immortality of the Soul has ever been a subject of primary
importance to all philosophers--the last dying efforts of Socrates,
noblest of Greece's sons, as Plato has shown us in the Phaedo, were
expended in a discussion on the pros and cons of an argument in favor
of a future life. Many of the