[bdgak] SHELLEY'S DEBT TO XVIII. CENTURY THOUGHT 19S 



upon the stage." Eousseau, on the conti'ary, saw in the progress even 

 of a kingless civilization only further inducements to vice and misery. 

 We now come to the English philosopher who gathered up these 

 various theories and welded them into a closely reasoned system of 

 thought. William Godwin's fame is now obscured. His commanding, 

 though transitory, influence among his contemporaries is unquestioned, 

 and the sway which this cold and pedantic philosopher exercised over 

 Shelley's early opinions is one of the curious problems of literature. 

 His chief book, the " Political Justice," was published in 1793. " No 

 work/' wrote Hazlitt, " gave in our time such a blow to the philosophical 

 mind oC our country as the celebrated ' Political Justice.' Tom l'aine, 

 in comparison with Godwin, was considered a Tom Fool, Paley an old 

 woman, and Burke a flashy sophist." De Quincey, with less enthusiasm, 

 gave similar testimony. " Godwin as a philosopher now forgotten 

 carried one single shock into the bosom of English society, fearful but 

 momentary." " Throw away your books of chemistry," was Words- 

 worth's advice to a young student of the Temple, " and read Godwin 

 en Necessity." 



If the serene equipoise of Wordsworth's nature was not undisturbed, 

 we can possibly understand the delirious enthusiasm with which Shelley 

 welcomed this new evangel. Already at Eton he had begun to read 

 him with delight, and reinforced by the theories of the French material- 

 ists, Godwin's gospel of perfection was the inspiration of his early 

 writings. 



In Godwin we find a rehearsal of the several theories of nature and 

 of government which we have already traversed. His ideas are the 

 ideas of Rousseau, amended by d'Holbach, Helvétius, Hume and Hartley. 

 What was most original in him was his temperament. As the late Sir 

 Leslie Stephen has remarked, " Godwin was admirably fitted for that 

 high post by the negative qualifications of placid temper and singular 

 frigidity of disposition. He works out the most startling and sub- 

 versive conclusions with all the calmness of a mathematician manipulat- 

 ing a set of algebraical symbols. He lays down doctrines which shock 

 not only the religious reverence, but the ordinary conscience of man- 

 kind, as quietly as if he were stating a proposition of Euclid." 



For Shelley, as I have said, the doctrines had a fatal fascination. 

 Few poets have sought so persistently as he to penetrate into and 

 through the secret mystery of things: — 



" While yet a boy I sought for ghosts, anH sped 

 Thro' many a listening chamber, cave and ruin. 

 And starlight wood, with fearful steps pursuing 



