the Deicide of a pernicious theological delusion. In other words, he
passed at Oxford by one leap from a state of indifferentism with regard
to Christianity, into an attitude of vehement antagonism. With a view to
securing answers to his missives, he printed a short abstract of Hume's
and other arguments against the existence of a Deity, presented in a
series of propositions, and signed with a mathematically important
"Q.E.D." This document he forwarded to his proposed antagonists,
expressing his inability to answer its arguments, and politely
requesting them to help him. When it so happened that any incautious
correspondents acceded to this appeal, Shelley fell with merciless
severity upon their feeble and commonplace reasoning. The little
pamphlet of two pages was entitled "The Necessity of Atheism"; and its
proposed publication, beyond the limits of private circulation already
described, is proved by an advertisement (February 9, 1811) in the
"Oxford University and City Herald". It was not, however, actually
offered for sale.

A copy of this syllabus reached a Fellow of another college, who made
the Master of the University acquainted with the fact. On the morning of
March 25, 1811, Shelley was sent for to the Senior Common Room, and
asked whether he acknowledged himself to be the author of the obnoxious
pamphlet. On his refusal to answer this question, he was served with a
formal sentence of expulsion duly drawn up and sealed. The college
authorities have been blamed for unfair dealing in this matter. It is
urged that they ought to have proceeded by the legal method of calling
witnesses; and that the sentence was not only out of all proportion to
the offence, but that it ought not to have been executed till persuasion
had been tried. With regard to the former indictment, I do not think
that a young man still in statu pupillari, who refused to purge himself
of what he must have known to be a serious charge, had any reason to