The magic car moved on. Earth’s distant orb appeared The smallest light that twinkles in the heavens: Whilst round the chariot’s way Innumerable systems rolled, And countless spheres diffused An ever-varying glory. It was a sight of wonder: some Were horned like the crescent moon; Some shed a mild and silver beam Like Hesperus o’er the western sea; Some dash’d athwart with trains of flame, Like worlds to death and ruin driven; Some shone like stars, and, as the chariot passed, Bedimmed all other light. Spirit of Nature! here, In this interminable wilderness Of worlds, at whose immensity Even soaring fancy staggers,— Here is thy fitting temple. Yet not the lightest leaf That quivers to the passing breeze Is less instinct with thee: Yet not the meanest worm That lurks in graves and fattens on the dead Less shares thy eternal breath. Spirit of Nature! thou, Imperishable as this glorious scene,— Here is thy fitting temple.’ And he copied not only the opinions of Lucretius, but also his tone. Nothing is more remarkable than that two poets of the first rank should have felt a bounding joy in the possession of opinions which, if true, ought, one would think, to move an excitable nature to the keenest and deepest melancholy. That this life is all; that there is no God, but only atoms and a moulding breath; are singular doctrines to be accepted with joy: they only could have been so accepted by wild minds bursting with imperious energy, knowing of no law, ‘wreaking thoughts upon expression’ of which they knew neither the meaning nor the result. From this stage Shelley’s mind passed to another; but not immediately to one of greater belief. On the contrary, it was the doctrine of Hume which was called in to expel the doctrine of Epicurus. His previous teachers had taught him that there was nothing except matter: the Scotch sceptic met him at that point with the question—Is matter certain? Hume, as is well known, adopted the negative part from the theory of materialism and the theory of immaterialism, but rejected the positive side of both. He held, or professed to hold, that there was no substantial thing, either matter or mind; but only ‘sensations and impressions’ flying about the universe, inhering in nothing and going nowhere. These, he said, were the only subjects of consciousness; all you felt was your feeling, and all your thought was your thought; the rest was only hypothesis. The notion that there was any ‘_you_’ at all was a theory generally current among mankind, but not, unless proved, to be accepted by the philosopher. This doctrine, though little agreeable to the world in general, has an excellence in the eyes of youthful disputants; it is a doctrine which no one will admit, and which no one can disprove. Shelley accordingly