Yea, as thou saidst of the learned heathen, _Οὐδὲ γὰρ ἀλλήλοις σύμφωνα φυσιολογοῦσιν_. Yet these disputes of theirs they call “Science”! But if any man says to the learned: “Best of men, you are erudite, and laborious and witty; but, till you are more of the same mind, your opinions cannot be styled knowledge. Nay, they are at present of no avail whereon to found any doctrine concerning the Gods”—that man is railed at for his “mean” and “weak” arguments. Was it thus, Father, that the heathen railed against thee? But I must still believe, with thee, that these evil tales of the Gods were invented “when man’s life was yet brutish and wandering” (as is the life of many tribes that even now tell like tales), and were maintained in honour by the later Greeks “because none dared alter the ancient beliefs of his ancestors.” Farewell, Father; and all good be with thee, wishes thy well-wisher and thy disciple. XVII. _To Percy Bysshe Shelley_. SIR,—In your lifetime on earth you were not more than commonly curious as to what was said by “the herd of mankind,” if I may quote your own phrase. It was that of one who loved his fellow-men, but did not in his less enthusiastic moments overestimate their virtues and their discretion. Removed so far away from our hubbub, and that world where, as you say, we “pursue our serious folly as of old,” you are, one may guess, but moderately concerned about the fate of your writings and your reputation. As to the first, you have somewhere said, in one of your letters, that the final judgment on your merits as a poet is in the hands of posterity, and that you fear the verdict will be “Guilty,” and the sentence “Death.” Such apprehensions cannot have been fixed or frequent in the mind of one whose genius burned always with a clearer and steadier flame to the last. The jury of which you spoke has met: a mixed jury and a merciful. The verdict is “Well done,” and the sentence Immortality of Fame. There have been, there are, dissenters; yet probably they will be less and less heard as the years go on.