Let priest-led slaves cease to proclaim that man
Inherits vice and misery, when force
And falsehood hang even over the cradled babe
Stifling with rudest grasp all natural good.
Godwin thinks that the influence of the emotions and passions has been overestimated. It is not true that they can force one to act in opposition to the dictates of one’s reason. They maintain their hold on men but by the ornaments with which they are decked out; and these are the things which compel a man to yield. Reduce sensual acts to their true nakedness and they would be despised. Whatever power the passions have to incline men to act will, in future, be offset by consideration of justice and self-interest. Many have overcome the influence of pain and pleasure in the past by the energies of intellectual resolution, and what these accomplished can be done by all. Reason and truth, then, are sufficient to change the whole complexion of society. They will ultimately prevail; and then all will be wise and good. The following from Shelley is an echo of this.
And when reason’s voice
Loud as the voice of nature shall have waked
The nations; and mankind perceive that vice
Is discord, war, and misery; that virtue
Is peace and happiness and harmony
XX
How sweet a scene will earth become!
Of purest spirits a pure dwelling-place,
Symphonious with the planetary spheres.
Godwin went so far as to say that eventually all sickness would disappear; and even in this Shelley follows his master. Shelley finds this view of evil in the teaching of Christ. “According to Jesus Christ,” he writes, “some evil spirit has dominion in this imperfect world. But there will come a time when the human mind shall be visited exclusively by the influence of the benignant power.”[165]
All the philosophists who influenced Shelley agreed in this that virtue leads to happiness. The purpose of virtuous conduct, says Godwin, “is the production of happiness.” So with Shelley “virtue is peace, and happiness, and harmony.” Virtue, says Godwin, is the offspring of the understanding; and vice is always the result of narrow views. “Selfishness,” writes Shelley, “is the offspring of ignorance and mistake;... disinterested benevolence is the product of a cultivated imagination, and has an intimate connection with all the arts which add ornament or dignity or power, or stability to the social state of man.”[166]
Shelley does not believe in the existence of hell. He thinks that this doctrine is incompatible with the goodness of God. “Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, that ye may be the sons of your Heavenly Father, Who makes the sun to shine on the good and the evil, and the rain to fall on the just and unjust.” How monstrous a calumny have not impostors dared to advance against the mild and gentle author of this just sentiment, and against the whole tenor of his doctrines and his life overflowing with benevolence and forbearance and compassion.”[167] God, he says, would only be gratifying his revenge under pretence of satisfying justice were he to inflict pain upon another for no better reason than that he deserved it.
CHAPTER V
RADICALISM IN CONTEMPORARY POETRY