The Necessity of Atheism
 The tract starts with the following rationale of the author's goals: Shelley made a number of claims in Necessity, including that one's beliefs are involuntary, and, therefore, that atheists do not choose to be so and should not be persecuted. Towards the end of the pamphlet he writes: "the mind cannot believe in the existence of a God." Shelley signed the pamphlet, Thro' deficiency of proof, AN ATHEIST, but Shelley himself encouraged readers to offer proofs if they only possess them. Opinion is divided upon the characterization of Shelley's beliefs, as presented in Necessity. Shelley scholar Carlos Baker states that "the title of his college pamphlet should have been The Necessity of Agnosticism rather than The Necessity of Atheism," while historian David Berman argues that Shelley was an atheist, both because he characterized himself as such, and because "he denies the existence of God in both published works and private letters" during the same period. A revised and expanded version was printed in 1813.