absurdity; and it becomes infinitely more unwarrantable from the consideration that the known laws of matter and motion, suffice to unravel, even in the present imperfect state of moral and physical science, the majority of those difficulties which the hypothesis of a Deity was invented to explain. Doubtless no disposition of inert matter, or matter deprived of qualities, could ever have composed an animal, a tree, or even a stone. But matter deprived of qualities, is an abstraction, concerning which it is impossible to form an idea. Matter, such as we behold it is not inert. It is infinitely active and subtile. Light, electricity and magnetism are fluids not surpassed by thought itself in tenuity and activity like thought they are sometimes the cause and sometimes the effect of motion; and, distinct as they are from every other class of substances, with which we are acquainted, seem to possess equal claims with thought to the unmeaning distinction of immateriality. The laws of motion and the properties of matter suffice to account for every phenomenon, or combination of phenomena exhibited in the Universe. That certain animals exist in certain climates, results from the consentaneity of their frames to the circumstances of their situation: let these circumstances be altered to a sufficient degree, and the elements of their composition, must exist in some new combination no less resulting than the former from those inevitable laws by which the Universe is governed. It is the necessary consequence of the organization of man, that his stomach should digest his food it inevitably results also from his gluttonous and unnatural appetite for the flesh of animals that his frame be diseased and his vigour impaired; but in neither of these cases is adaptation of means to end to be perceived. Unnatural diet, and the habits consequent upon its use are the means, and every complication of frightful disease is the end, but to assert that these means were adapted to this end by the Creator of the world, or that human caprice can avail to traverse the precautions of Omnipotence, is absurd. These are the consequences of the properties of organized matter; and it is a strange perversion of the understanding to argue that a certain sheep was created to be butchered and devoured by a certain individual of the human species, when the conformation' of the latter, as is manifest to the most superficial student of comparative anatomy classes him with those animals who feed on fruits and vegetables.2 1 In the original, confirmation. * See Cuvier Leçons d' Anat. Comp. tom. iii. p. 169. 373. 448. 465. 480.-Rees's* Cyclopædia, Art. Man. Ουκ αιδείσθε τες ήμερες καρποὺς ἁματι και φονῳ μιγνυοντες; αλλα δρακοντας άγριες καλει 5, και παρδάλεις και λεοντας, αυτοί δε μιαιφονείτε εις ωμότητα καταλιπόντες εκείνοις εδεν. Εκείνοις μεν ὁ φονος τροφη, ὑμῖν δε οψον εστιν. ότι γαρ ουκ εστιν ανθρώπῳ κατα φύσιν το σαρκοφαγείν, πρωτον μεν απο των σωμάτων δηλωται της κατασκευής. Ουδενι γαρ εοικε το ανθρωπο σωμα των από σαρκοφάγια γεγονότων. 8 γρυποτης χείλες, ουκ οξύτης ονυχος, 8 τραχύτης οδοντων προσεστιν, & κοιλίας εντονια και πνεύματος θερμοτης τρέψαι και κατεργάσασθαι το βαρυ και κρεώδες. Αλλ' αυτόθεν ἡ φυσις τη λειοτητι των οδόντων, και τη σμικρότητι το σωματος, και τη μαλακότητι της γλώσσης, καὶ τῇ προς πέψιν αμβλυτητί το πνεύματος, εξόμνυται την σαρκοφαγίαν. Ει δε λέγεις πεφυκέναι σεαυτον επι τοιαυτην εδωδην, ὁ βέλει φαγείν, πρωτον αυτός αποκτείνον, αλλ' αυτός δια σεαυτό, μη χρησαμενο κοπίδι, μηδε τυμπανῳ τινι, μηδε πελεκει· αλλα ὡς λυκοι και αρκτοι και λεοντες αυτοί ώς εσθίεσι φονεύεσιν, ανελέ δηγματι βεν, η σωματι συν, η αρνα η λαγωον διαῤῥηξον, και φαγε προσπεσών ετι ζωντος, ὡς εκείνα Πλουτ. κερι Σαρκοφαγ. Λογ. β. [SHELLEY'S NOTE.] * In the original, Ree's, but Rees's Mab and A Vindication of Natural in the same note as given in Queen Diet. The means by which the existence of an animal is sustained, requires a designer in no greater degree than the existence itself of the animal. If it exists, there must be means to support its existence. In a world where omne mutatur nihil interit, no organized being can exist without a continual separation of that substance which is incessantly exhausted, nor can this separation take place otherwise, than by the invariable laws which result from the relations of matter. We are incapacitated only by our ignorance from referring every phenomenon, however unusual, minute or complex, to the laws of motion and the properties of matter; and it is an egregious offence against the first principles of reason, to suppose an immaterial creator of the world, in quo omnia moventur sed sine mutua passione; which is equally a superfluous hypothesis in the mechanical philosophy of Newton, and an useless excrescence on the inductive logic of Bacon. What then is this harmony, this order which you maintain to have required for its establishment, what it needs not for its maintenance, the agency of a supernatural intelligence? Inasmuch as the order visible in the Universe requires one cause, so does the disorder whose operation is not less clearly apparent, demand another. Order and disorder are no more than modifications of our own perceptions of the relations which subsist between ourselves and external objects, and if we are justified in inferring the operation of a benevolent power from the advantages attendant on the former, the evils of the latter bear equal testimony to the activity of a malignant principle, no less pertinacious in inducing evil out of good, than the other is unremitting in procuring good from evil. If we permit our imagination to traverse the obscure regions of possibility, we may doubtless imagine, according to the complexion of our minds, that disorder may have a relative tendency to unmingled good, or order be relatively replete with exquisite and subtile evil. To neither of these conclusions, which are equally presumptuous and unfounded, will it become the philosopher to assent. Order and disorder are expressions denoting our perceptions of what is injurious or beneficial to ourselves, or to the beings in whose welfare we are compelled to sympathize by the similarity of their conformation to our own.1 Many there are, howrebukes of justice and regard the deliberate A beautiful antelope panting under the fangs of a tiger, a defenceless ox, groaning beneath the butcher's axe, is a spectacle which instantly awakens compassion in a virtuous and unvitiated breast. ever, sufficiently hardened to the the precepts of humanity, as to butchery of thousands of their species, as a theme of exultation and a source of honour, and to consider any failure in these remorseless enterprises as a defect in the system of things. The criteria of order and disorder are as various as those beings from whose opinions and feelings they result. Populous cities are destroyed by earthquakes, and desolated by pestilence. Ambition is every where devoting its millions to incalculable calamity. Superstition, in a thousand shapes, is employed in brutalizing and degrading the human species, and fitting it to endure without 1 See Godwin's Political Justice, Vol. 1. p. 449. [SHELLEY'S NOTE.' a murmur the oppression of its innumerable tyrants. All this is abstractedly neither good nor evil because good and evil are words employed to designate that peculiar state of our own perceptions, resulting from the encounter of any object calculated to produce pleasure or pain. Exclude the idea of relation, and the words good and evil are deprived of import. Earthquakes are injurious to the cities which they destroy, beneficial to those whose commerce was injured by their prosperity, and indifferent to others which are too remote to be affected by their influence. Famine is good to the corn-merchant, evil to the poor, and indifferent to those whose fortunes can at all times com mand a superfluity. Ambition is evil to the restless bosom it inhabits, to the innumerable victims who are dragged by its ruthless thirst for infamy, to expire in every variety of anguish, to the inhabitants of the country it depopulates, and to the human race whose improvement it retards; it is indifferent with regard to the system of the Universe, and is good only to the vultures and the jackalls that track the conqueror's career, and to the worms who feast in security on the desolation of his progress. It is manifest that we cannot reason with respect to the universal system from that which only exists in relation to our own perceptions. You allege some considerations in favor of a Deity from the universality of a belief in his existence. The superstitions of the savage, and the religion of civilized Europe appear to you to conspire to prove a |