A Defence of Poetry and Other Essays by Percy Bysshe Shelley


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Page 3

The view of life presented by the most refined deductions of the
intellectual philosophy, is that of unity. Nothing exists but as
it is perceived. The difference is merely nominal between those two
classes of thought, which are vulgarly distinguished by the names
of ideas and of external objects. Pursuing the same thread of
reasoning, the existence of distinct individual minds, similar to
that which is employed in now questioning its own nature, is likewise
found to be a delusion. The words _I_, YOU, THEY, are not signs of
any actual difference subsisting between the assemblage of thoughts
thus indicated, but are merely marks employed to denote the different
modifications of the one mind.

Let it not be supposed that this doctrine conducts to the monstrous
presumption that I, the person who now write and think, am that one
mind. I am but a portion of it. The words _I_, and YOU, and THEY,
are grammatical devices invented simply for arrangement, and totally
devoid of the intense and exclusive sense usually attached to
them. It is difficult to find terms adequate to express so subtle
a conception as that to which the Intellectual Philosophy has
conducted us. We are on that verge where words abandon us, and what
wonder if we grow dizzy to look down the dark abyss of how little
we know. The relations of THINGS remain unchanged, by whatever system.
By the word THINGS is to be understood any object of thought, that
is any thought upon which any other thought is employed, with an
apprehension of distinction.

The relations of these remain unchanged; and such is the material
of our knowledge. What is the cause of life? that is, how was it
produced, or what agencies distinct from life have acted or act
upon life? All recorded generations of mankind have weariedly busied
themselves in inventing answers to this question; and the result
has been,--Religion. Yet, that the basis of all things cannot be,
as the popular philosophy alleges, mind, is sufficiently evident.
Mind, as far as we have any experience of its properties, and beyond
that experience how vain is argument! cannot create, it can only
perceive. It is said also to be the cause. But cause is only a
word expressing a certain state of the human mind with regard to
the manner in which two thoughts are apprehended to be related to
each other. If any one desires to know how unsatisfactorily the
popular philosophy employs itself upon this great question, they
need only impartially reflect upon the manner in which thoughts
develop themselves in their minds. It is infinitely improbable that
the cause of mind, that is, of existence, is similar to mind.

[1815; publ. 1840]



ON A FUTURE STATE

It has been the persuasion of an immense majority of human beings
in all ages and nations that we continue to live after death,--that
apparent termination of all the functions of sensitive and intellectual
existence. Nor has mankind been contented with supposing that
species of existence which some philosophers have asserted; namely,
the resolution of the component parts of the mechanism of a living
being into its elements, and the impossibility of the minutest
particle of these sustaining the smallest diminution. They have
clung to the idea that sensibility and thought, which they have
distinguished from the objects of it, under the several names
of spirit and matter, is, in its own nature, less susceptible of
division and decay, and that, when the body is resolved into its
elements, the principle which animated it will remain perpetual
and unchanged. Some philosophers-and those to whom we are indebted
for the most stupendous discoveries in physical science, suppose,
on the other hand, that intelligence is the mere result of certain
combinations among the particles of its objects; and those among
them who believe that we live after death, recur to the interposition
of a supernatural power, which shall overcome the tendency inherent
in all material combinations, to dissipate and be absorbed into
other forms.

Let us trace the reasonings which in one and the other have conducted
to these two opinions, and endeavour to discover what we ought to
think on a question of such momentous interest. Let us analyse the
ideas and feelings which constitute the contending beliefs, and
watchfully establish a discrimination between words and thoughts.
Let us bring the question to the test of experience and fact; and
ask ourselves, considering our nature in its entire extent, what
light we derive from a sustained and comprehensive view of its
component parts, which may enable, us to assert, with certainty,
that we do or do not live after death.

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Books | Photos | Paul Mutton | Fri 29th Mar 2024, 14:35