Part 7 (1/2)

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.