Until better arguments can be
produced than sophisms which disgrace the cause, this desire itself must
remain the strongest and the only presumption that eternity is the
inheritance of every thinking being.'
The reader will perceive that in these three passages the dominant
ideas, very briefly stated, are as follows:--(1) Mind is the aggregate
of all individual minds; (2) man has no reason for expecting that his
mind or soul will be immortal; (3) no reason, except such as inheres in
the very desire which he feels for immortality. These opinions,
deliberately expressed by Shelley at different dates as a theorist in
prose, should be taken into account if we endeavour to estimate what he
means when, as a poet, he speaks, whether in _Hellas_ or in _Adonais_,
of an individual, his mind and his immortality. When Shelley calls upon
us to regard Keats (Adonais) as mortal in body but immortal in soul or
mind, his real intent is probably limited to this: that Keats has been
liberated, by the death of the body, from the dominion and delusions of
the senses; and that he, while in the flesh, developed certain fruits of
mind which survive his body, and will continue to survive it
indefinitely, and will form a permanent inheritance of thought and of
beauty to succeeding generations.
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