‘Reason claims the 2nd place, it is urged that man knows that whatever is, must either have had a beginning or existed from all eternity, he also knows that whatever is not eternal must have had a cause.—Where this is applied to the existence of the universe, it is necessary to prove that it was created; until that is clearly demonstrated, we may reasonably suppose that it has endured from all eternity.—In a case where two propositions are diametrically opposite, the mind believes that which is less incomprehensible, it is easier to suppose that the universe has existed from all eternity, than to conceive a being capable of creating it; if the mind sinks beneath the weight of the one, is it an alleviation to increase the intolerability of the burden?—The other argument which is founded upon a man’s knowledge of his own existence stands thus:—A man knows not only he now is, but that there was a time when he did not exist, consequently there must have been a cause.—But what does this prove? we can only infer from effects causes exactly adequate to those effects:—But there certainly is a generative power which is effected by particular instruments; we cannot prove that it is inherent in these instruments, nor is the contrary hypothesis capable of demonstration; we admit that the generative power is incomprehensible, but to suppose that the same effect is produced by an eternal, omniscient, Almighty Being, leaves the cause in the same obscurity, but renders it more incomprehensible.
‘The 3rd and last degree of assent is claimed by Testimony—it is required that it should not be contrary to reason.—The testimony that the Deity convinces the senses of men of his existence can only be admitted by us, if our mind considers it less probable that these men should have been deceived, than that the Deity should have appeared to them—our reason can never admit the testimony of men, who not only declare that they were eye-witnesses of miracles but that the Deity was irrational, for he commanded that he should be believed, he proposed the highest rewards for faith, eternal punishments for disbelief—we can only command voluntary actions, belief is not an act of volition, the mind is even passive, from this it is evident that we have not sufficient testimony, or rather that testimony is insufficient to prove the being of a God, we have before shewn that it cannot be deduced from reason,—they who have been convinced by the evidence of the senses, they only can believe it.
‘From this it is evident that having no proofs from any of the three sources of conviction: the mind cannot believe the existence of a God, it is also evident that as belief is a passion of the mind, no degree of criminality can be attached to disbelief, they only are reprehensible who willingly neglect to remove the false medium thro’ which their mind views the subject.
‘It is almost unnecessary to observe, that the general knowledge of the deficiency of such proof, cannot be prejudicial to society: Truth has always been found to promote the best interests of mankind.—Every reflecting mind must allow that there is no proof of the existence of a Deity. Q.E.D.’
On a separate leaf between the title-page and the first page of the text of the tract the author put this
‘Advertisement:—As a love of truth is the only motive which actuates the Author of this little tract, he earnestly entreats that those of his readers who may discover any deficiency in his reasoning, or may be in possession of proofs which his mind could never obtain, would offer them, together with their objections, to the Public, as briefly as methodically, as plainly as he has taken the liberty of doing. Thro’ deficiency of proof,—An Atheist.’
In the middle of the title-page appears this title, ‘Quod clarâ et perspicuâ demonstratione careat pro vero habere mens omnino nequit humana.’—Bacon de Augment. Scient.; whilst at the foot of the same page appears this announcement:—‘Worthing.—Printed By E. & W. Phillips. Sold in London and Oxford.’ It having been so often asserted that this tract was neither published nor printed with a view to ordinary publication, readers should take note of the words, ‘Sold in London and Oxford.’ The promise of these words was fulfilled, at least so far as Oxford was concerned. Duly advertised in the Oxford Herald of 9th February, 1811, on the eve of its publication, the tract was offered for sale at Oxford in the usual way. Even by Mr. Buxton Forman it is admitted that the tract ‘was “on sale” in Oxford for twenty minutes.’ Mr. Forman does not say who counted the minutes. Possibly the expression was merely meant by Mr. Forman to signify that the work was on sale for part only of a single day. That it was no longer on sale within their jurisdiction was, of course, due to the authorities of the University, whose prompt action for the suppression of the work may be presumed to have been the direct or indirect cause of the destruction of the copies of the pamphlet, lying in the hands of the author’s Oxford bookseller.
However they may differ about the literary style and logical force of this tract, all fair readers must allow that it exhibits no signs of levity, no indication of having been thrown off in jest as a satire on the class of performances to which it really belongs. From the first line to the last, it accords with the Atheist’s declaration (in the advertisement) that he is actuated by a love of truth, and is earnestly desirous that its arguments may receive serious consideration. Yet it has been described as a mere harmless piece of fun.
The Shelleyan apologists call attention to the brevity of the monograph, as though it were a fact in Shelley’s favour. It is suggested that serious books are long books of many pages with many words on a page; and that so short an essay (even if it was wrong of Shelley to produce it) should be regarded as a trivial performance, and its publication as nothing worse than a trivial indiscretion; the implication being that the Master and Fellows of University College were guilty of monstrous injustice and cruelty in expelling the author of so small a work. In thus prating about the insignificant size of the work, these apologists resemble the peccant maid-servant, who pleaded that, if she had given birth to an infant without having gone through any form of lawful marriage, it should be remembered, in palliation of the misdemeanour, that her baby was an unusually little one. Writing from those ‘authentic sources,’ which have afforded her much strange misinformation, Lady Shelley assures us that the little pamphlet was a ‘publication consisting of only two pages;’ whereas if she will only return to her original sources and count the duly numbered pages, the author of Shelley Memorials will discover that the text of the small treatise occupies seven pages, besides the title-page and the page exhibiting the ‘advertisement,’ which is no immaterial part of the composition. How came Lady Shelley to count the pages so carelessly? Lady Shelley is curiously wrong on other points about this little pamphlet. ‘In point of fact,’ we are told by the lady who suffered so acutely from Hogg’s inaccuracies, ‘the pamphlet did not contain any positive assertion.’ Why, the tract is made of positive assertions; it would not be easy for Lady Shelley to find another tract of the same length, containing a greater number of positive assertions. The tract concludes with a sentence of these words:—‘Every reflecting mind must allow that there is no proof of the existence of a Deity;’ words followed by what the lady calls ‘a Q. E. D.’ What more does this assertion require to render it ‘positive?’ Speaking from her original sources, Lady Shelley tells us that Shelley wrote the little pamphlet ‘hastily,’ and ‘with his habitual disregard of consequences.’ How a pamphlet, made up out of the ‘very careful analysis’ of Hume’s Essays, which Shelley and his friend had prepared in the previous term, can be said to have been written hastily, is not apparent.
Hogg’s narrative, and the extant letter that passed between him and Shelley in the Christmas holidays, abound with evidence that the latter came gradually to his opinions touching the non-existence of Deity, and that the pamphlet was the result of much deliberation. It is no less certain that instead of publishing the tract with ‘habitual disregard of consequences,’ Shelley gave much thought to the consequences of a discovery that he wrote it. Publishing it anonymously, he was at much pains to keep the authorship a secret. Yet further we are assured by Lady Shelley:—