"No light to lighten and no rod To chasten men? Is there no God?" So girt with anguish, iron-zoned, Went my soul weeping as she trod Between the men enthroned And men that groaned. O fool, that for brute cries of wrong Heard not the grey glad mother's song Ring response from the hills and waves, But heard harsh noises all day long Of spirits that were slaves And dwelt in graves. . . . . . . . With all her tongues of life and death, With all her bloom and blood and breath, From all years dead and all things done, In the ear of man the mother saith, "There is no God, O son, If thou be none." This is the declaration of a belief in the divinity of man, a doctrine well known to students of Comte. It is not altogether in disaccord with Oriental philosophy; you must not suppose Swinburne to be speaking of individual divinity, but of a universal divinity expressing itself in human thought and feeling. His view of life is that the essential thing is to live as excellently as possible, but we must not suppose that excellence is used in the moral sense. Swinburne's idea of excellence is the idea of completeness. His notions of right and wrong are not the religious or the social notions of right and wrong. In this respect he sometimes seems to think very much like the German philosopher Nietzsche. Nevertheless he does tell us that the real spirit of the universe is a spirit of love, a doctrine at which Huxley would certainly have laughed. But it is beautiful doctrine in its way, even if not true, and admirably suits the purposes of poetry.