boy's precocious effort, and in later verses Shelley put the case for
his view of evil in a more persuasive form. He is now less concerned to
declare that it is unnatural, than to insist that it flows from defects
in men which are not inherent or irremovable. The view is stated with
pessimistic malice by a Fury in _Prometheus Unbound_ after a vision of
slaughter.

FURY.

Blood thou can'st see, and fire; and can'st hear groans.
Worse things unheard, unseen, remain behind.

PROMETHEUS.

Worse?

FURY.

In each human heart terror survives
The ravin it has gorged: the loftiest fear,
All that they would disdain to think were true:
Hypocrisy and custom make their minds
The fanes of many a worship, now outworn.
They dare not devise good for man's estate,
And yet they know not that they do not dare.
The good want power, but to weep barren tears.
The powerful goodness want--worse need for them.
The wise want love; and those who love want wisdom.
And all best things are thus confused to ill.
Many are strong and rich, and would be just,
But live among their suffering fellow-men
As if none felt; they know not what they do.

Shelley so separated the good and evil in the world, that he was
presently vexed as acutely as any theist with the problem of accounting
for evil. Paine felt no difficulty in his sharp, positive mind. He
traced all the wrongs of society to the egoism of priests and kings;
and, since he did not assume the fundamental goodness of human nature,
it troubled none of his theories to accept the crude primitive fact of
self-interest. What Shelley would really have said in answer to a
question about the origin of evil, if we had found him in a prosaic
mood, it is hard to guess, and the speculation does not interest us.
Shelley's prose opinions were of no importance. What we do trace in his
poetry is a tendency, half conscious, uttering itself only in figures
and parables, to read the riddle of the universe as a struggle between
two hostile principles. In the world of prose he called himself an
atheist. He rejoiced in the name, and used it primarily as a challenge
to intolerance. "It is a good word of abuse to stop discussion," he said
once to his friend Trelawny, "a painted devil to frighten the foolish, a
threat to intimidate the wise and good. I used it to express my
abhorrence of superstition. I took up the word as a knight takes up a
gauntlet in defi