The Prose Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, Vol. 1 [of 2]Shelley, Percy Bysshe
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The Prose Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, Vol. 1 [of 2]
Shelley, Percy Bysshe
English prose literature
But design is sufficiently apparent. The wonderful adaptation of
substances which act to those which are acted upon; of the eye to
light, and of light to the eye; of the ear to sound, and of sound to
the ear; of every object of sensation to the sense which it impresses
prove that neither blind chance, nor undistinguishing necessity has
brought them into being. The adaptation of certain animals to certain
climates, the relation borne to each other by animals and vegetables,
and by different tribes of animals; the relation, lastly, between
man and the circumstances of his external situation are so many
demonstrations of Deity.
All is order, design, and harmony, so far as we can descry the tendency
of things, and every new enlargement of our views, every new display of
the material world, affords a new illustration of the power, the wisdom
and the benevolence of God.
The existence of God has never been the topic of popular dispute. There
is a tendency to devotion, a thirst for reliance on supernatural aid
inherent in the human mind. Scarcely any people, however barbarous,
have been discovered, who do not acknowledge with reverence and awe the
supernatural causes of the natural effects which they experience. They
worship, it is true, the vilest and most inanimate substances, but they
firmly confide in the holiness and power of these symbols, and thus own
their connexion with what they can neither see nor perceive.
If there is motion in the Universe, there is a God.[35] The power of
beginning motion is no less an attribute of mind than sensation or
thought. Wherever motion exists it is evident that mind has operated.
The phenomena of the Universe indicate the agency of powers which
cannot belong to inert matter.
Every thing which begins to exist must have a cause: every combination,
conspiring to an end, implies intelligence.
Eusebes.
Design must be proved before a designer can be inferred. The matter
in controversy is the existence of design in the Universe, and it is
not permitted to assume the contested premises and thence infer the
matter in dispute. Insidiously to employ the words contrivance, design,
and adaptation before these circumstances are made apparent in the
Universe, thence justly inferring a contriver, is a popular sophism
against which it behoves us to be watchful.
To assert that motion is an attribute of mind, that matter is inert,
that every combination is the result of intelligence is also an
assumption of the matter in dispute.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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