Percy Bysshe Shelley as a Philosopher and Reformer by Charles Sotheran
page 15 of 83 (18%)
page 15 of 83 (18%)
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that of which the world is in full possession to-day, and which the
mystical Occultists, Rosicrucians, and Cabalists have now, and have ever had, conjoined to a mysterious command over the active hidden material and spiritual powers in the infinite domain of nature. The idea of the _Supreme Power_ or _God_, as emanating from Shelley, is one of the most sublime to be found in the pages of metaphysical learning at the command of ordinary mortals. By many it may be considered only a vague pantheism; yet, rightly regarded in a reconciliative spirit, it is of such an universal character as to harmonize with not only Deism, Theism and Polytheism, but even Atheistical Materialism. Listen to the following, which I select out of numerous examples, as a finger-post for others who seek the living springs of undefiled truth, as in Shelley: "Whosoever is free from the contamination of luxury and license may go forth to the fields and to the woods, inhaling joyous renovation from the breath of Spring, and catching from the odors and sounds of autumn some diviner mood of sweetest sadness, which improves the softened heart. Whosoever is no deceiver and destroyer of his fellow-men--no liar, no flatterer, no murderer--may walk among his species, deriving, from the communion with all which they contain of beautiful or majestic, some intercourse with the Universal God. Whosoever has maintained with his own heart the strictest correspondence of confidence, who dares to examine and to estimate every imagination which suggests itself to his mind--whosoever is that which he designs to _become_, and only aspires to that which the divinity of his own nature shall consider and approve--he has already seen God." |
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