Percy Bysshe Shelley as a Philosopher and ReformerSotheran, Charles
Philosophy
Percy Bysshe Shelley as a Philosopher and Reformer
Sotheran, Charles
Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 1792-1822 -- Philosophy; Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 1792-1822 -- Political and social views
Tollendal; in Austria, O'Taafe and Maguire.
When Shelley arrived in Dublin in 1812, he soon found himself joined
to the body of the Repeal party, which was endeavoring to obtain back
the parliament which had been stolen from them by British gold, less
than a quarter of a century before, and to have the Catholic
Emancipation Bill made law. He published two remarkable, political
pamphlets, in those days the only mode by which a statesman could
appeal to the people, in which it may be noticed how well he could
write in a popular style, to effectually serve a purpose. They also
prove his enthusiasm for the liberty of discussion, and how, although
he was always willing to treat on politics alone, he was preoccupied
with metaphysical questions which continually crop out.
In the first, which he called _An Address to the Irish People_, and
wrote during the first week of his residence in Ireland, he commences
by eulogizing the Irish, explains to them that all religions are good
which make men good, and shows that, being neither Protestant nor
Catholic, he can offer the olive branch to each. He then points out
the weak spots in each other's conduct in the past, the necessity of
toleration, and the crime of persecution--how different this was to
what Christ taught!
He endeavors to prove that arms should not be used--that the French
Revolution, although undertaken with the best intentions, ended badly
because force was employed. He recommends sobriety, regularity and
thought; for the Irish not to appeal to bloodshed, but to agitate
determinedly for Catholic emancipation and repeal, which should be
ensured through the use of moral persuasion. And concluding with an
appeal to Catholic and Protestant to bear with each other, using
mildness and benevolence, and to mutually organize a society which
"Shall serve as a bond to its members for the purpose of
virtue, happiness, liberty and wisdom by the means of
intellectual opposition to grievances,"
he winds up by saying:
"Adieu, my friends! May every sun that shines on your green
island see the annihilation of an abuse, and the birth of an
embryon of melioration! Your own hearts--may they become the
shrines of purity and freedom, and never may smoke to the
Mammon of Unrighteousness ascend from the polluted altar of
their devotion."
In a postscript to this pamphlet, he urges
"A plan of amendment and regeneration in the moral and
political state of society, on a comprehensive and
systematic philanthropy which shall be sure though slow in
its projects; and as it is without the rapidity and danger
of revolution, so will it be devoid of the time-servingness
of temporizing reform;"
and quotes Lafayette:
"A name endeared by its peerless bearer to every lover of
the human race, 'For a nation to love liberty, it is
sufficient that she knows it to be free; it is sufficient
that she wills it.'"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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