Queen Mab, by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Notes on Queen Mab.

Shelley’s Notes.

1. 242, 243:—

The sun’s unclouded orb

Rolled through the black concave.

Beyond our atmosphere the sun would appear a rayless orb of fire in the midst of a black concave. The equal diffusion of its light on earth is owing to the refraction of the rays by the atmosphere, and their reflection from other bodies. Light consists either of vibrations propagated through a subtle medium, or of numerous minute particles repelled in all directions from the luminous body. Its velocity greatly exceeds that of any substance with which we are acquainted: observations on the eclipses of Jupiter’s satellites have demonstrated that light takes up no more than 8 minutes 7 seconds in passing from the sun to the earth, a distance of 95,000,000 miles. — Some idea may be gained of the immense distance of the fixed stars when it is computed that many years would elapse before light could reach this earth from the nearest of them; yet in one year light travels 5,422,400,000,000 miles, which is a distance 5,707,600 times greater than that of the sun from the earth.

1. 252, 253:—

Whilst round the chariot’s way

Innumerable systems rolled.



4. 178, 179:—

These are the hired bravos who defend

The tyrant’s throne.



To these more serious and momentous considerations it may be proper to add a recollection of the ridiculousness of the military character. Its first constituent is obedience: a soldier is, of all descriptions of men, the most completely a machine; yet his profession inevitably teaches him something of dogmatism, swaggering, and sell-consequence: he is like the puppet of a showman, who, at the very time he is made to strut and swell and display the most farcical airs, we perfectly know cannot assume the most insignificant gesture, advance either to the right or the left, but as he is moved by his exhibitor.’— Godwin’s “Enquirer”, Essay 5.


Falsehood and Vice.
A Dialogue.

Whilst monarchs laughed upon their thrones

To hear a famished nation’s groans,

And hugged the wealth wrung from the woe

That makes its eyes and veins o’erflow —

Those thrones, high built upon the heaps

Of bones where frenzied Famine sleeps,

Where Slavery wields her scourge of iron,

Red with mankind’s unheeded gore,

And War’s mad fiends the scene environ,

Mingling with shrieks a drunken roar,

There Vice and Falsehood took their stand,

High raised above the unhappy land.


Brother! arise from the dainty fare,

Which thousands have toiled and bled to bestow;

A finer feast for thy hungry ear

Is the news that I bring of human woe.


And, secret one, what hast thou done,

To compare, in thy tumid pride, with me?

I, whose career, through the blasted year,

Has been tracked by despair and agony.


What have I done! — I have torn the robe

From baby Truth’s unsheltered form,

And round the desolated globe

Borne safely the bewildering charm:

My tyrant-slaves to a dungeon-floor

Have bound the fearless innocent,

And streams of fertilizing gore

Flow from her bosom’s hideous rent,

Which this unfailing dagger gave . . .

I dread that blood! — no more — this day

Is ours, though her eternal ray

Must shine upon our grave.

Yet know, proud Vice, had I not given

To thee the robe I stole from Heaven,

Thy shape of ugliness and fear

Had never gained admission here.


And know, that had I disdained to toil,

But sate in my loathsome cave the while,

And ne’er to these hateful sons of Heaven,


Hadst thou with all thine art essayed

One of thy games then to have played,

With all thine overweening boast,

Falsehood! I tell thee thou hadst lost! —

Yet wherefore this dispute? — we tend,

Fraternal, to one common end;

In this cold grave beneath my feet,



I brought my daughter, RELIGION, on earth:

She smothered Reason’s babes in their birth;

But dreaded their mother’s eye severe —

So the crocodile slunk off slily in fear,

And loosed her bloodhounds from the den. . . .

They started from dreams of slaughtered men,

And, by the light of her poison eye,

Did her work o’er the wide earth frightfully:

The dreadful stench of her torches’ flare,

Fed with human fat, polluted the air:

The curses, the shrieks, the ceaseless cries

Of the many-mingling miseries,

As on she trod, ascended high

And trumpeted my victory! —

Brother, tell what thou hast done.


I have extinguished the noonday sun,

In the carnage-smoke of battles won:

Famine, Murder, Hell and Power

Were glutted in that glorious hour

Which searchless fate had stamped for me

With the seal of her security . . .

For the bloated wretch on yonder throne

Commanded the bloody fray to rise.

Like me he joyed at the stifled moan

Wrung from a nation’s miseries;

While the snakes, whose slime even him DEFILED,

In ecstasies of malice smiled:

They thought ’twas theirs — but mine the deed!

Theirs is the toil, but mine the meed —

Ten thousand victims madly bleed.

They dream that tyrants goad them there

With poisonous war to taint the air:

These tyrants, on their beds of thorn,

Swell with the thoughts of murderous fame,

And with their gains to lift my name

Restless they plan from night to morn:

I— I do all; without my aid

Thy daughter, that relentless maid,

Could never o’er a death-bed urge

The fury of her venomed scourge.


Brother, well:— the world is ours;

And whether thou or I have won,

The pestilence expectant lowers

On all beneath yon blasted sun.

Our joys, our toils, our honours meet

In the milk-white and wormy winding-sheet:

A short-lived hope, unceasing care,

Some heartless scraps of godly prayer,

A moody curse, and a frenzied sleep

Ere gapes the grave’s unclosing deep,

A tyrant’s dream, a coward’s start,

The ice that clings to a priestly heart,

A judge’s frown, a courtier’s smile,

Make the great whole for which we toil;

And, brother, whether thou or I

Have done the work of misery,

It little boots: thy toil and pain,

Without my aid, were more than vain;

And but for thee I ne’er had sate

The guardian of Heaven’s palace gate.

5. 1, 2:—

Thus do the generations of the earth

Go to the grave, and issue from the womb.


5. 4-6.

Even as the leaves

Which the keen frost-wind of the waning year

Has scattered on the forest soil.

Oin per phullon genee, toiede kai andron.

Phulla ta men t’ anemos chamadis cheei, alla de th’ ule

Telethoosa phuei, earos d’ epigignetai ore.

Os andron genee, e men phuei, e d’ apolegei.

Iliad 2, line 146.

5. 58:—

The mob of peasants, nobles, priests, and kings.

Suave mari magno turbantibus aequora ventis

E terra magnum alterius spectare laborem;

Non quia vexari quemquam est iucunda voluptas,

Sed quibus ipse malis careas quia cernere suave est.

Suave etiam belli certamina magna tueri

Per campos instructa, tua sine parte pericli;

Sed nil dulcius est bene quam munita tenere

Edita doctrina sapientum templa serena,

Despicere undo queas alios, passimque videre

Errare atque viam palantis quaerere vitae;

Certare ingenio; contendere nobilitate;

Noctes atque dies niti praestante labore

Ad summas emergere opes, rerumque potiri.

O miseras hominum mentes! O pectora caeca!

Lucret. lib. 2.

5. 93, 94.

And statesmen boast

Of wealth!






. . .

‘It was perhaps necessary that a period of monopoly and oppression should subsist, before a period of cultivated equality could subsist. Savages perhaps would never have been excited to the discovery of truth and the invention of art but by the narrow motives which such a period affords. But surely, after the savage state has ceased, and men have set out in the glorious career of discovery and invention, monopoly and oppression cannot be necessary to prevent them from returning to a state of barbarism.’ — Godwin’s “Enquirer”, Essay 2. See also “Pol. Jus.”, book 8, chapter 2.


5. 112, 113:—

or religion

Drives his wife raving mad.


Nam iam saepe homines patriam, carosquo parentes

Prodiderunt, vitare Acherusia templa petentes. — Lucretius.

5. 189:—

Even love is sold.



The state of society in which we exist is a mixture of feudal savageness and imperfect civilization. The narrow and unenlightened morality of the Christian religion is an aggravation of these evils. It is not even until lately that mankind have admitted that happiness is the sole end of the science of ethics, as of all other sciences; and that the fanatical idea of mortifying the flesh for the love of God has been discarded. I have heard, indeed, an ignorant collegian adduce, in favour of Christianity, its hostility to every worldly feeling! (The first Christian emperor made a law by which seduction was punished with death; if the female pleaded her own consent, she also was punished with death; if the parents endeavoured to screen the criminals, they were banished and their estates were confiscated; the slaves who might be accessory were burned alive, or forced to swallow melted lead. The very offspring of an illegal love were involved in the consequences of the sentence. — Gibbon’s “Decline and Fall”, etc., volume 2, page 210. See also, for the hatred of the primitive Christians to love and even marriage, page 269.)






6. 45, 46:—

To the red and baleful sun

That faintly twinkles there.


Bones of animals peculiar to the torrid zone have been found in the north of Siberia, and on the banks of the river Ohio. Plants have been found in the fossil state in the interior of Germany, which demand the present climate of Hindostan for their production. (Cabanis, “Rapports du Physique et du Moral de l’Homme”, volume 2 page 406.) The researches of M. Bailly establish the existence of a people who inhabited a tract in Tartary 49 degrees north latitude, of greater antiquity than either the Indians, the Chinese, or the Chaldeans, from whom these nations derived their sciences and theology. (Bailly, “Lettres sur les Sciences, a Voltaire”.) We find, from the testimony of ancient writers, that Britain, Germany, and France were much colder than at present, and that their great rivers were annually frozen over. Astronomy teaches us also that since this period the obliquity of the earth’s position has been considerably diminished.

6. 171-173:—

No atom of this turbulence fulfils

A vague and unnecessitated task,

Or acts but as it must and ought to act.

‘Deux examples serviront a nous rendre plus sensible le principe qui vient d’etre pose; nous emprunterons l’un du physique at l’autre du moral. Dans un tourbillon de poussiere qu’eleve un vent impetueux, quelque confus qu’il paraisse a nos yeux; dans la plus affreuse tempete excitee par des vents opposes qui soulevent les flots — il n’y a pas une seule molecule de poussiere ou d’eau qui soit placee au HASARD, qui n’ait sa cause suffisante pour occuper le lieu ou elle se trouve, et qui n’agisse rigoureusement de la maniere dont ella doit agir. Un geometre qui connaitrait exactement les differentes forces qui agissent dans ces deux cas, at las proprietes des molecules qui sent mues, demontrerait que d’apres des causes donnees, chaque molecule agit precisement comme ella doit agir, et ne peut agir autrement qu’elle ne fait.

‘Dans les convulsions terribles qui agitent quelquefois les societes politiques, et qui produisent souvent le renversement d’un empire, il n’y a pas une seule action, une seule parole, une seule pensee, une seule volonte, une seule passion dans las agens qui concourent a la revolution comme destructeurs ou comme victimes, qui ne soit necessaire, qui n’agissa comme ella doit agir, qui n’opere infailliblemont les effets qu’eile doit operer, suivant la place qu’occupent ces agens dana ce tourbillon moral. Cela paraitrait evident pour une intelligence qui sera en etat de saisir et d’apprecier toutes las actions at reactions des esprits at des corps de ceux qui contribuent a cette revolution.’ —“Systeme de la Nature”, volume 1, page 44.

6. 198:—

Necessity! thou mother of the world!








But we are taught, by the doctrine of Necessity, that there is neither good nor evil in the universe, otherwise than as the events to which we apply these epithets have relation to our own peculiar mode of being. Still less than with the hypothesis of a God will the doctrine of Necessity accord with the belief of a future state of punishment. God made man such as he is, and than damned him for being so: for to say that God was the author of all good, and man the author of all evil, is to say that one man made a straight line and a crooked one, and another man made the incongruity.

A Mahometan story, much to the present purpose, is recorded, wherein Adam and Moses are introduced disputing before God in the following manner. Thou, says Moses, art Adam, whom God created, and animated with the breath of life, and caused to be worshipped by the angels, and placed in Paradise, from whence mankind have been expelled for thy fault. Whereto Adam answered, Thou art Moses, whom God chose for His apostle, and entrusted with His word, by giving thee the tables of the law, and whom He vouchsafed to admit to discourse with Himself. How many years dost thou find the law was written before I was created? Says Moses, Forty. And dost thou not find, replied Adam, these words therein, And Adam rebelled against his Lord and transgressed? Which Moses confessing, Dost thou therefore blame me, continued he, for doing that which God wrote of me that I should do, forty years before I was created, nay, for what was decreed concerning me fifty thousand years before the creation of heaven and earth? — Sale’s “Prelim. Disc. to the Koran”, page 164.

7. 13:—

There is no God.



When a proposition is offered to the mind, it perceives the agreement or disagreement of the ideas of which it is composed. A perception of their agreement is termed BELIEF. Many obstacles frequently prevent this perception from being immediate; these the mind attempts to remove in order that the perception may be distinct. The mind is active in the investigation in order to perfect the state of perception of the relation which the component ideas of the proposition bear to each, which is passive: the investigation being confused with the perception has induced many falsely to imagine that the mind is active in belief — that belief is an act of volition — in consequence of which it may be regulated by the mind. Pursuing, continuing this mistake, they have attached a degree of criminality to disbelief; of which, in its nature, it is incapable: it is equally incapable of merit.


The degrees of excitement are three.













Pour dire ce qu’il est, il faut etre lui-meme.

Lord Bacon says that atheism leaves to man reason, philosophy, natural piety, laws, reputation, and everything that can serve to conduct him to virtue; but superstition destroys all these, and erects itself into a tyranny over the understandings of men: hence atheism never disturbs the government, but renders man more clear-sighted, since he seas nothing beyond the boundaries of the present life. — Bacon’s “Moral Essays”.

La premiere theologie de l’homme lui fit d’abord craindre at adorer les elements meme, des objets materiels at grossiers; il randit ensuite ses hommages a des agents presidant aux elements, a des genies inferieurs, a des heros, ou a des hommes doues de grandes qualites. A force de reflechir il crut simplifier les choses en soumettant la nature entiere a un seul agent, a un esprit, a una ame universelle, qui mettait cette nature et ses parties en mouvement. En remontant de causes en causes, les mortels ont fini par ne rien voir; at c’est dans cette obscurite qu’ils ont place leur Dieu; c’est dans cat abime tenebreux que leur imagination inquiete travaille toujours a se fabriquer des chimeres, qui les affligeront jusqu’a ce que la connaissance da la nature les detrompe des fantomes qu’ils ont toujours si vainement adores.

Si nous voulons nous rendre compte de nos idees sur la Divinite, nous serons obliges de convanir que, par le mot “Dieu”, les hommes n’ont jamais pu designer que la cause la plus cachee, la plus eloignee, la plus inconnue des effets qu’ils voyaient: ils ne font usage de ce mot, que lorsque le jeu des causes naturelles at connues cesse d’etre visible pour eux; des qu’ils perdent le fil de ces causes, on des que leur esprit ne peut plus en suivre la chaine, ils tranchent leur difficulte, at terminent leurs recherches en appellant Dieu la derniere des causes, c’est-a-dire celle qui est au-dela de toutes les causes qu’ils connaissent; ainsi ils ne font qu’assigner une denomination vague a une cause ignoree, a laquelle leur paresse ou les bornes de leurs connaissances les forcent de s’arreter. Toutes les fois qu’on nous dit que Dieu est l’auteur de quelque phenomene, cela signifie qu’on ignore comment un tel phenomene a pu s’operer par le secours des forces ou des causes que nous connaissons dans la nature. C’est ainsi que le commun des hommes, dont l’ignorance est la partage, attribue a la Divinite non seulement les effets inusites qui las frappent, mais encore les evenemens les plus simples, dont les causes sont les plus faciles a connaitre pour quiconque a pu les mediter. En un mot, l’homme a toujours respecte les causes inconnues des effets surprenans, que son ignorance l’empechait de demeler. Ce fut sur les debris de la nature que les hommes eleverent le colosse imaginaire de la Divinite.

Si l’ignorance de la nature donna la naissance aux dieux, la connaissance de la nature est faite pour les detruire. A mesure que l’homme s’instruit, ses forces at ses ressources augmentent avec ses lumieres; les sciences, les arts conservateurs, l’industrie, lui fournissent des secours; l’experience le rassure ou lui procure des moyens de resister aux efforts de bien des causes qui cessent de l’alarmer des qu’il les a connues. En un mot, ses terreurs se dissipent dans la meme proportion que son esprit s’eclaire. L’homnme instruit cesse d’etre superstitieux.

Ce n’est jamais que sur parole que des peuples entiers adorent le Dieu de leurs peres at de leurs pretres: l’autorite, la confiance, la soumission, et l’habitude leur tiennent lieu de conviction et de preuves; ils se prosternent et prient, parce que leurs peres leur out appris a se prosterner at prier: mais pourquoi ceux-ci se sont-ils mis a genoux? C’est que dans les temps eloignes leurs legislateurs et leurs guides leur en ont fait un devoir. ‘Adorez at croyez,’ ont-ils dit, ‘des dieux que vous ne pouvez comprendre; rapportez-vous-en a notre sagesse profonde; nous en savons plus que vous sur la divinite.’ Mais pourquoi m’en rapporterais-je a vous? C’est que Dieu le veut ainsi, c’est que Dieu vous punira si vous osez resister. Mais ce Dieu n’est-il donc pas la chose en question? Cependant las hommes se sont toujours payes de ce cercle vicieux; la paresse de leur esprit leur fit trouver plus court de s’en rapporter au jugament des autres. Toutes las notions religieuses sent fondees uniquement sur l’autorite; toutes les religions du monde defendent l’examen et ne veulent pas que l’on raisonne; c’est l’autorite qui veut qu’on croie en Dieu; ce Dieu n’est lui-meme fonde que sur l’autorite de quelques hommes qui pretendent le connaitre, et venir de sa part pour l’annoncer a la terre. Un Dieu fait par les hommes a sans doute bosom des hommes pour se faire connaitre aux hommes.

Ne serait-ce donc que pour des pretres, des inspires, des metaphysiciens que serait reservee la conviction de l’existence d’un Dieu, que l’on dit neanmoins si necessaire a tout le genre humain? Mais trouvons-nous de l’harmonie entre les opinions theologiques des differens inspires, ou des penseurs repandus sur la terre? Ceux meme qui font profession d’adorer le meme Dieu, sent-ils d’accord sur son compte? Sont-ils contents des preuves que leurs collegues apportent de son existence? Souscrivent-ils unanimement aux idees qu’ils presentent sur sa nature, sur sa conduite, sur la facon d’entendre ses pretandus oracles? Est-il une centree sur la terre ou la science de Dieu se soit reellement parfectionnee? A-t-elle pris quelqne part la consistance et l’uniformite que nous voyons prendre aux connaissances humaines, aux arts les plus futiles, aux metiers les plus meprises? Ces mots d’esprit, d’immaterialite, de creation, de predestination, de grace; cette foule de distinctions subtiles dont la theologie s’est parteut remplie dans quelques pays, ces inventions si ingenieuses, imaginees par des penseurs qui se sont succedes depuis taut de siecles, n’ont fait, helas! qu’embrouiller les choses, et jamais la science la plus necassaire aux hommes n’a jusqu’ici pu acquerir la moindre fixite. Depuis des milliers d’annees ces reveurs oisifs se sont perpetuellement relayes pour mediter la Divinite, pour deviner ses voies cachees, pour inventer des hypotheses propres a developper cette enigme importante. Leur peu de succes n’a point decourage la vanite theologique; toujours on a parle de Dieu: on s’est egorge pour lui, et cet etre sublime demeure toujours le plus ignore et le plus discute.

Les hommes auraient ete trop heureux, si, se bornant aux objets visibles qui les interessent, ils eussent employe a perfectionner leurs sciences reelles, leurs lois, leur morale, leur education, la moitie des efforts qu’ils ont mis dans leurs recherches sur la Divinite. Ils auraiant ete bien plus sages encore, et plus fortunes, s’ils eussent pu consentir a laisser leurs guides desoeuvres se quereller entre eux, et sonder des profondeurs capables de les etourdir, sans se meler de leurs disputes insensees. Mais il est de l’essence de l’ignorance d’attacher de l’importance a ce qu’elle ne comprend pas. La vanite humaine fait que l’esprit se roidit contra des difficultes. Plus un objet se derobe a nos yeux, plus nous faisons d’efforts pour le saisir, parce que des-lors il aiguillonne notre orgueil, il excite notre curiosite, il nous parait interessant. En combattant pour son Dieu chacun ne combattit en effet que pour les interets de sa propra vanite, qui de toutes les passions produites par la mal-organisation de la societe est la plus prompte a s’alarmer, et la plus propre a produire de tres grandes folies.

Si ecartant pour un moment les idees facheuses que la theologie nous donne d’un Dieu capriciaux, dont les decrets partiaux et despotiques decident du sort des humains, nous ne voulons fixer nos yeux que sur la bonte pretendue, que tous les hommes, meme en tramblant devant ce Dieu, s’accordent a lui donner; si nous lui supposons le projet qu’on lui prete de n’avoir travaille que pour sa propre gloire, d’exiger les hommages des etres intelligens; de ne chercher dans ses oeuvres que le bien-etre du genre humain: comment concilier ces vues et ces dispositions avec l’ignorance vraiment invincible dans laquelle ce Dieu, si glorieux et si bon, laisse la plupart des hommes sur son compte? Si Dieu veut etre connu, cheri, remercie, que ne se montre-t-il sous des traits favorables a tous ces etres intelligens dont il veut etre aime et adore? Pourquoi ne point se manifester a toute la terre dune facon non equivoque, bien plus capable de nous convaincre que ces revelations particulieres qui semblent accuser la Divinite d’une partialite facheuse pour quelques-unes de ses creatures? La tout-puissant n’auroit-il donc pas des moyens plus convainquans de se montrer aux hommas que ces metamorphoses ridicules, cas incarnations pretendues, qui nous sont attestees par des ecrivains si peu d’accord entre eux dans les recits qu’ils en font? Au lieu de tant de miracles, inventes pour prouver la mission divine de tant de legislateurs reveres par les differens peuples du monde, le souverain des esprits ne pouvait-il pas convaincre tout d’un coup l’esprit humain des choses qu’il a voulu lui faire connaitre? Au lieu de suspendre un soleil dans la voute du firmament; au lieu de repandre sans ordre les etoiles et les constellations qui remplissent l’espace, n’eut-il pas ete plus conforme aux vues d’un Dieu si jaloux de sa gloire et si bien-intentionne pour l’homme d’ecrire, d’une facon non sujette a dispute, son nom, ses attributs, ses volontes permanentes en caracteres ineffacables, et lisibles egalement pour tous les habitants de la terre? Personne alors n’aurait pu douter de l’existence d’un Dieu, de ses volontes claires, de ses intentions visibles. Sous les yeux de ce Dieu si terrible, personne n’aurait eu l’audace de violer ses ordonnances; nul mortel n’eut ose se mettre dans le cas d’attirer sa colere: enfin nul homme n’eut eu le front d’en imposer en son nom, ou d’interpreter ses volontes suivant ses propres fantaisies.

En effet, quand meme on admettrait l’existence du Dieu theologique et la realite des attributs si discordans qu’on lui donne, l’on n’en peut rien conclure, pour autoriser la conduite ou les cultes qu’on prescrit de lui rendre. La theologie est vraiment “le tonneau des Danaides”. A force de qualites contradictoires et d’assartions hasardees, ella a, pour ainsi dire, tellement garrotte son Dieu qu’elle l’a mis dans l’impossibilite d’agir. S’il est infiniment bon, quelle raison aurions-nous de le craindre? S’il est infiniment sage, de quoi nous inquieter sur notre sort? S’il sait tout, pourquoi l’avertir de nos besoins, et le fatiguer de nos prieres? S’il est partout, pourquoi lui elever des temples? S’il est maitre de tout, pourquoi lui faire des sacrifices et des offrandes? S’il est juste, comment croire qu’il punisse des creatures qu’il a rempli de faiblesses? Si la grace fait tout en elles, quelle raison aurait-il de les recompenser? S’il est tout-puissant, comment l’offenser, comment lui resister? S’il est raisonnable, comment se mattrait-il en colere contre des aveugles, a qui il a laisse la liberte de deraisonner? S’il est immuable, de quel droit pretendrions-nous faire changer ses decrets? S’il est inconcevable, pourquoi nous en occuper? S’IL A PARLE, POURQUOI L’UNIVERS N’EST-IL PAS CONVAINCU? Si la connaissance d’un Dieu est la plus necessaire, pourquoi n’est-elle pas la plus evidente et a plus claire? —“Systeme de la Nature”, London, 1781.

The enlightened and benevolent Pliny thus publicly professes himself an atheist:— Quapropter effigiem Dei formamque quaerere imbecillitatis humanae reor. Quisquis est Deus (si modo est alius) et quacunque in parte, totus est sensus, totus est visus, totus auditus, totus animae, totus animi, totus sui . . . Imperfectae vero in homine naturae praecipua solatia ne deum quidem posse omnia. Namque nec sibi potest mortem consciscere, si velit, quad homini dedit optimum in tantis vitae poenis: nec mortales aeternitata donare, aut revocare defunctos; nec facere ut qui vixit non vixerit, qui honores gessit non gessarit, nullumque habere in praeteritum ius, praeterquam oblivionis, atque (ut facetis quoque argumentis societas haec cum deo copuletur) ut bis dena viginti non sint, et multa similiter efficere non posse. — Per quae declaratur haud dubie naturae potentiam id quoque esse quad Deum vocamus. — Plin. “Nat. Hist.” cap. de Deo.


Omnia enim per Dei potentiam facta sunt: imo quia naturae potentia nulla est nisi ipsa Dei potentia. Certum est nos eatenus Dei potentiam non intelligere, quatenus causas naturales ignoramus; adeoque stulte ad eandem Dei potentiam recurritur, quando rei alicuius causam naturalem, sive est, ipsam Dei potantiam ignoramus. — Spinosa, “Tract. Theologico-Pol.” chapter 1, page 14.

7. 67:—

Ahasuerus, rise!



‘Ahasuerus crept forth from the dark cave of Mount Carmel — he shook the dust from his beard — and taking up one of the skulls heaped there, hurled it down the eminence: it rebounded from the earth in shivered atoms. “This was my father!” roared Ahasuerus. Seven more skulls rolled down from rock to rock; while the infuriate Jew, following them with ghastly looks, exclaimed —“And these were my wives!” He still continued to hurl down skull after skull, roaring in dreadful accents —“And these, and these, and these were my children! They COULD DIE; but I! reprobate wretch! alas! I cannot die! Dreadful beyond conception is the judgement that hangs over me. Jerusalem fell — I crushed the sucking babe, and precipitated myself into the destructive flames. I cursed the Romans — but, alas! alas! the restless curse held me by the hair — and I could not die!

‘“Rome the giantess fell — I placed myself before the falling statue — she fell and did not crush me. Nations sprang up and disappeared before me; — but I remained and did not die. From cloud-encircled cliffs did I precipitate myself into the ocean; but the foaming billows cast me upon the shore, and the burning arrow of existence pierced my cold heart again. I leaped into Etna’s flaming abyss, and roared with the giants for ten long months, polluting with my groans the Mount’s sulphureous mouth — ah! ten long months. The volcano fermented, and in a fiery stream of lava cast me up. I lay torn by the torture-snakes of hell amid the glowing cinders, and yet continued to exist. — A forest was on fire: I darted on wings of fury and despair into the crackling wood. Fire dropped upon me from the trees, but the flames only singed my limbs; alas! it could not consume them. — I now mixed with the butchers of mankind, and plunged in the tempest of the raging battle. I roared defiance to the infuriate Gaul, defiance to the victorious German; but arrows and spears rebounded in shivers from my body. The Saracen’s flaming sword broke upon my skull: balls in vain hissed upon me: the lightnings of battle glared harmless around my loins: in vain did the elephant trample on me, in vain the iron hoof of the wrathful steed! The mine, big with destructive power, burst upon me, and hurled me high in the air — I fell on heaps of smoking limbs, but was only singed. The giant’s steel club rebounded from my body; the executioner’s hand could not strangle me, the tiger’s tooth could not pierce me, nor would the hungry lion in the circus devour me. I cohabited with poisonous snakes, and pinched the red crest of the dragon. — The serpent stung, but could not destroy me. The dragon tormented, but dared not to devour me. — I now provoked the fury of tyrants: I said to Nero, ‘Thou art a bloodhound!’ I said to Christiern, ‘Thou art a bloodhound!, I said to Muley Ismail, ‘Thou art a bloodhound!’— The tyrants invented cruel torments, but did not kill me. Ha! not to be able to die — not to be able to die — not to be permitted to rest after the toils of life — to be doomed to be imprisoned for ever in the clay-formed dungeon — to be for ever clogged with this worthless body, its lead of diseases and infirmities — to be condemned to [be]hold for millenniums that yawning monster Sameness, and Time, that hungry hyaena, ever bearing children, and ever devouring again her offspring! — Ha! not to be permitted to die! Awful Avenger in Heaven, hast Thou in Thine armoury of wrath a punishment more dreadful? then let it thunder upon me, command a hurricane to sweep me down to the foot of Carmel, that I there may lie extended; may pant, and writhe, and die.!”’

This fragment is the translation of part of some German work, whose title I have vainly endeavoured to discover. I picked it up, dirty and torn, some years ago, in Lincoln’s-Inn Fields.

7. 135, 136:—

I will beget a Son, and He shall bear

The sins of all the world.


During many ages of misery and darkness this story gained implicit belief; but at length men arose who suspected that it was a fable and imposture, and that Jesus Christ, so far from being a God, was only a man like themselves. But a numerous set of men, who derived and still derive immense emoluments from this opinion, in the shape of a popular belief, told the vulgar that if they did not believe in the Bible they would be damned to all eternity; and burned, imprisoned, and poisoned all the unbiassed and unconnected inquirers who occasionally arose. They still oppress them, so far as the people, now become more enlightened, will allow.








There is this passage in the Christian Scriptures: ‘Those who obey not God, and believe not the Gospel of his Son, shall be punished with everlasting destruction.’ This is the pivot upon which all religions turn:— they all assume that it is in our power to believe or not to believe; whereas the mind can only believe that which it thinks true. A human being can only be supposed accountable for those actions which are influenced by his will. But belief is utterly distinct from and unconnected with volition: it is the apprehension of the agreement or disagreement of the ideas that compose any preposition. Belief is a passion, or involuntary operation of the mind, and, like other passions, its intensity is precisely proportionate to the degrees of excitement. Volition is essential to merit or demerit. But the Christian religion attaches the highest possible degrees of merit and demerit to that which is worthy of neither, and which is totally unconnected with the peculiar faculty of the mind, whose presence is essential to their being.




Miracles resolve themselves into the following question (See Hume’s Essay, volume 2 page 121.):— Whether it is more probable the laws of nature, hitherto so immutably harmonious, should have undergone violation, or that a man should have told a lie? Whether it is more probable that we are ignorant of the natural cause of an event, or that we know the supernatural one? That, in old times, when the powers of nature were less known than at present, a certain set of men were themselves deceived, or had some hidden motive for deceiving others; or that God begat a Son, who, in His legislation, measuring merit by belief, evidenced Himself to be totally ignorant of the powers of the human mind — of what is voluntary, and what is the contrary?


But even supposing that a man should raise a dead body to life before our eyes, and on this fact rest his claim to being considered the son of God; — the Humane Society restores drowned persons, and because it makes no mystery of the method it employs, its members are not mistaken for the sons of God. All that we have a right to infer from our ignorance of the cause of any event is that we do not know it: had the Mexicans attended to this simple rule when they heard the cannon of the Spaniards, they would not have considered them as gods: the experiments of modern chemistry would have defied the wisest philosophers of ancient Greece and Rome to have accounted for them on natural principles. An author of strong common sense has observed that ‘a miracle is no miracle at second-hand’; he might have added that a miracle is no miracle in any case; for until we are acquainted with all natural causes, we have no reason to imagine others.

There remains to be considered another proof of Christianity — Prophecy. A book is written before a certain event, in which this event is foretold; how could the prophet have foreknown it without inspiration? how could he have been inspired without God? The greatest stress is laid on the prophecies of Moses and Hosea on the dispersion of the Jews, and that of Isaiah concerning the coming of the Messiah. The prophecy of Moses is a collection of every possible cursing and blessing; and it is so far from being marvellous that the one of dispersion should have been fulfilled, that it would have been more surprising if, out of all these, none should have taken effect. In Deuteronomy, chapter 28, verse 64, where Moses explicitly foretells the dispersion, he states that they shall there serve gods of wood and stone: ‘And the Lord shall scatter thee among all people, from the one end of the earth even to the other; AND THERE THOU SHALT SERVE OTHER GODS, WHICH NEITHER THOU NOR THY FATHERS HAVE KNOWN, EVEN GODS OF WOOD AND STONE.’ The Jews are at this day remarkably tenacious of their religion. Moses also declares that they shall be subjected to these curses for disobedience to his ritual: ‘And it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe to do all the commandments and statutes which I command thee this day; that all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee.’ Is this the real reason? The third, fourth, and fifth chapters of Hosea are a piece of immodest confession. The indelicate type might apply in a hundred senses to a hundred things. The fifty-third chapter of Isaiah is more explicit, yet it does not exceed in clearness the oracles of Delphos. The historical proof that Moses, Isaiah, and Hosea did write when they are said to have written is far from being clear and circumstantial.






Mox numine viso

Virgineei tumuere sinus, innuptaque mater

Arcano stupuit compleri viscera partu,

Auctorem paritura suum. Mortalia corda

Artificem texere poli, latuitque sub uno

Pectore, qui totum late complectitur orbem.

— Claudian, “Carmen Paschale”.


8. 203-207:—

Him, still from hope to hope the bliss pursuing

Which from the exhaustless lore of human weal

Draws on the virtuous mind, the thoughts that rise

In time-destroying infiniteness, gift

With self-enshrined eternity, etc.


Dark flood of time!

Roll as it listeth thee — I measure not

By months or moments thy ambiguous course.

Another may stand by me on the brink

And watch the bubble whirled beyond his ken

That pauses at my feet. The sense of love,

The thirst for action, and the impassioned thought

Prolong my being: if I wake no more,

My life more actual living will contain

Than some gray veteran’s of the world’s cold school,

Whose listless hours unprofitably roll,

By one enthusiast feeling unredeemed. —

See Godwin’s “Pol. Jus.” volume 1, page 411; and Condorcet, “Esquisse d’un Tableau Historique des Progres de l’Esprit Humain”, epoque 9.

8. 211, 212:—

No longer now

He slays the lamb that looks him in the face.


Immediately a place

Before his eyes appeared, sad, noisome, dark;

A lazar-house it seemed; wherein were laid

Numbers of all diseased — all maladies

Of ghastly spasm, or racking torture, qualms

Of heart-sick agony, all feverous kinds,

Convulsions, epilepsies, fierce catarrhs,

Intestine stone and ulcer, colic pangs,

Demoniac frenzy, moping melancholy,

And moon-struck madness, pining atrophy,

Marasmus, and wide-wasting pestilence,

Dropsies and asthmas, and joint-racking rheums.



Audax omnia perpeti,

Gens humana ruit per vetitum nefas;

Audax Iapeti genus

Ignem fraude mala gentibus intulit:

Post ignem aetheria domo

Subductum, macies et nova febrium

Terris incubuit cohors,

Semotique prius tarda necessitas

Lethi corripuit gradum.


‘Making allowance for such transposition of the events of the allegory as time might produce after the important truths were forgotten, which this portion of the ancient mythology was intended to transmit, the drift of the fable seems to be this:— Man at his creation was endowed with the gift of perpetual youth; that is, he was not formed to be a sickly suffering creature as we now see him, but to enjoy health, and to sink by slow degrees into the bosom of his parent earth without disease or pain. Prometheus first taught the use of animal food (primus bovem occidit Prometheus (Plin. “Nat. Hist”. lib. 7 sect. 57.)) and of fire, with which to render it more digestible and pleasing to the taste. Jupiter, and the rest of the gods, foreseeing the consequences of these inventions, were amused or irritated at the short-sighted devices of the newly-formed creature, and left him to experience the sad effects of them. Thirst, the necessary concomitant of a flesh diet’ (perhaps of all diet vitiated by culinary preparation), ‘ensued; water was resorted to, and man forfeited the inestimable gift of health which he had received from heaven: he became diseased, the partaker of a precarious existence, and no longer descended slowly to his grave. (“Return to Nature”. Cadell, 1811.)

But just disease to luxury succeeds,

And every death its own avenger breeds;

The fury passions from that blood began,

And turned on man a fiercer savage — man.

Man, and the animals whom he has infected with his society, or depraved by his dominion, are alone diseased. The wild hog, the mouflon, the bison, and the wolf; are perfectly exempt from malady, and invariably die either from external violence or natural old age. But the domestic hog, the sheep, the cow, and the dog, are subject to an incredible variety of distempers; and, like the corruptors of their nature, have physicians who thrive upon their miseries. The supereminence of man is like Satan’s, a supereminence of pain; and the majority of his species, doomed to penury, disease, and crime, have reason to curse the untoward event that, by enabling him to communicate his sensations, raised him above the level of his fellow-animals. But the steps that have been taken are irrevocable. The whole of human science is comprised in one question:— How can the advantages of intellect and civilization be reconciled with the liberty and pure pleasures of natural life? How can we take the benefits and reject the evils of the system, which is now interwoven with all the fibres of our being? — I believe that abstinence from animal food and spirituous liquors would in a great measure capacitate us for the solution of this important question.

It is true that mental and bodily derangement is attributable in part to other deviations from rectitude and nature than those which concern diet. The mistakes cherished by society respecting the connection of the sexes, whence the misery and diseases of unsatisfied celibacy, unenjoying prostitution, and the premature arrival of puberty, necessarily spring; the putrid atmosphere of crowded cities; the exhalations of chemical processes; the muffling of our bodies in superfluous apparel; the absurd treatment of infants:— all these and innumerable other causes contribute their mite to the mass of human evil.


Man resembles no carnivorous animal. There is no exception, unless man be one, to the rule of herbivorous animals having cellulated colons.

The orang-outang perfectly resembles man both in the order and number of his teeth. The orang-outang is the most anthropomorphous of the ape tribe, all of which are strictly frugivorous. There is no other species of animals, which live on different food, in which this analogy exists. (Cuvier, “Lecons d’Anat. Comp”. tom. 3, pages 169, 373, 448, 465, 480. Rees’s “Cyclopaedia”, article Man.) In many frugivorous animals, the canine teeth are more pointed and distinct than those of man. The resemblance also of the human stomach to that of the orang-outang is greater than to that of any other animal.










I address myself not only to the young enthusiast, the ardent devotee of truth and virtue, the pure and passionate moralist, yet unvitiated by the contagion of the world. He will embrace a pure system, from its abstract truth, its beauty, its simplicity, and its promise of wide-extended benefit; unless custom has turned poison into food, he will hate the brutal pleasures of the chase by instinct; it will be a contemplation full of horror, and disappointment to his mind, that beings capable of the gentlest and most admirable sympathies should take delight in the death-pangs and last convulsions of dying animals. The elderly man, whose youth has been poisoned by intemperance, or who has lived with apparent moderation, and is afflicted with a wide variety of painful maladies, would find his account in a beneficial change produced without the risk of poisonous medicines. The mother, to whom the perpetual restlessness of disease and unaccountable deaths incident to her children are the causes of incurable unhappiness, would on this diet experience the satisfaction of beholding their perpetual healths and natural playfulness. (See Mr. Newton’s book. His children are the most beautiful and healthy creatures it is possible to conceive; the girls are perfect models for a sculptor; their dispositions are also the most gentle and conciliating; the judicious treatment, which they experience in other points, may be a correlative cause of this. In the first five years of their life, of 18,000 children that are born, 7,500 die of various diseases; and how many more of those that survive are not rendered miserable by maladies not immediately mortal? The quality and quantity of a woman’s milk are materially injured by the use of dead flesh. In an island near Iceland, where no vegetables are to be got, the children invariably die of tetanus before they are three weeks old, and the population is supplied from the mainland. — Sir G. Mackenzie’s “History of Iceland”. See also “Emile”, chapter 1, pages 53, 54, 56.) The most valuable lives are daily destroyed by diseases that it is dangerous to palliate and impossible to cure by medicine. How much longer will man continue to pimp for the gluttony of Death, his most insidious, implacable, and eternal foe?

Αλλα δρακοντασ αγριουσ καλειτε και παρδαλεισ και λεοντασ, αυτοι δε μιαιφονειτε εισ ομοτετα καταλιποντεσ εκεινοισ ουδεν εκεινοισ μεν γαρ ο φονοσ τροφε, υμιν δε οψον εστιν . . . “Οτι γαρ ουκ εστιν ανθροπο κατα φυσιν το σαρκοφαγειν, προτον μεν απο τον σοματον δελουται τεσ κατασκευεσ. Ουδενι γαρ εοικε το ανθροπου σομα τον επι σαρκοφαγια γεγονοτον, ου γρυποτεσ χειλουσ, ουκ οζυτεσ ονυχοσ, ου τραξυτεσ οδοντοσ προσεστιν, ου κοιλιασ ευτονια και πνευματοσ θερμοτεσ, τρεψαι και κατεργασασθαι δυνατε το βαρυ και κρεοδεσ αλλ αυτοθεν ε φυσισ τε λειοτετι τον οδοντον και τε σμικροτετι του στοματοσ και τε μαλακοτετι τεσ γλοσσεσ και τε προσ πεψιν αμβλυτετι του πνευματοσ, εξομνυται τεν σαρκοφαγιαν. Ει δε λεγεισ πεφυκεναι σεαυτον επι τοιαυτεν εδοδεν, ο βουλει φαγειν προτον αυτοσ αποκτεινον, αλλ αυτοσ δια σεαυτον, με χεσαμενοσ κοπιδι μεδε τυμπανο τινι μεδε πελεκει αλλα, οσ λυκοι και αρκτοι και λεοντεσ αυτοι οσα εσθιουσι φονευουσιν, ανελε δεγματι βουν ε στοματι συν, ε απνα ε λαγοον διαρρεξον και φαγε προσπεσον ετι ζοντοσ, οσ εκεινα . . . Εμεισ δ’ ουτοσ εν το μιαιφονο τρυφομεν, οστ οχον το κρεασ προσαγορευομεν, ειτ οχον προσ αυτο το κρεασ δεομεθα, αναμιγνυντεσ ελαιον οινον μελι γαρον οξοσ εδυσμασι Συριακοισ Αραβικοισ, οστερ οντοσ νεκρον ενταφιαζοντεσ. Και γαρ ουτοσ αυτον διαλυθεντον και μελαχθεντον και τροπον τινα προσαπεντον εργον εστι τεν πεχιν κρατεσαι, και διακρατεφεισεσ δε δεινασ βαρυτετασ εμποιει και νοσοδεισ απεχιασ . . . Ουτο το προτον αγπριον τι ζοον εβροθε και κακουργον, ειτ ορνισ τισ ε ιχθυσ ειλκυστο και γευσαμενον ουτο και προμελετεσαν εν εκεινοισ το θονικον επι βουν εργατεν ελθε και το κοσμιον προβατον και τον οικουρον αλεκτρυονα και κατα μικρον ουτο τεν απλεστιαν στομοσαντεσ επι σφαγασ ανθροπον και πολεμουσ και φονουσ προελθον. —Πλουτ. περι τεσ Σαρκοφαγιασ.

Alla drakontas agrious kaleite kai pardaleis kai leontas, autoi de miaiphoneite eis omoteta katalipontes ekeinois ouden ekeinois men gar o phonos trophe, umin de opson estin . . . “Oti gar ouk estin anthropo kata phusin to sarkophagein, proton men apo ton somaton deloutai tes kataskeues. Oudeni gar eoike to anthropou soma ton epi sarkophagia gegonoton, ou grupotes cheilous, ouk ozutes onuchos, ou traxutes odontos prosestin, ou koilias eutonia kai pneumatos thermotes, trepsai kai katergasasthai dunate to baru kai kreodes all autothen e phusis te leioteti ton odonton kai te smikroteti tou stomatos kai te malakoteti tes glosses kai te pros pepsin ambluteti tou pneumatos, exomnutai ten sarkophagian. Ei de legeis pephukenai seauton epi toiauten edoden, o boulei phagein proton autos apokteinon, all autos dia seauton, me chesamenos kopidi mede tumpano tini mede pelekei alla, os lukoi kai arktoi kai leontes autoi osa esthiousi phoneuousin, anele degmati boun e stomati sun, e apna e lagoon diarrexon kai phage prospeson eti zontos, os ekeina . . . Emeis d’ outos en to miaiphono truphomen, ost ochon to kreas prosagoreuomen, eit ochon pros auto to kreas deometha, anamignuntes elaion oinon meli garon oxos edusmasi Suriakois Arabikois, oster ontos nekron entaphiazontes. Kai gar outos auton dialuthenton kai melachthenton kai tropon tina prosapenton ergon esti ten pechin kratesai, kai diakratepheises de deinas barutetas empoiei kai nosodeis apechias . . . Outo to proton agprion ti zoon ebrothe kai kakourgon, eit ornis tis e ichthus eilkusto kai geusamenon outo kai promeletesan en ekeinois to thonikon epi boun ergaten elthe kai to kosmion probaton kai ton oikouron alektruona kai kata mikron outo ten aplestian stomosantes epi sphagas anthropon kai polemous kai phonous proelthon. — Plout. peri tes Sarkophagias.


Last updated Monday, December 22, 2014 at 10:54