, not his ethics. In none of
these three theories is the rule of the universe ascribed to a character,
but in each to animated abstractions. They are a pantheistic or
mythological view of things.(648) Nor was the effect of this philosophy
merely theoretical, for the distorted view of the physical and moral
cosmos led him to believe that both should be regulated by the same
conditions; that men should have the unconstrained liberty which he
thought he saw in material things. Like Rousseau, ascribing moral evil to
the artificial laws of society, Shelley proposed to substitute a new order
of things, in which man should be emancipated from kings and priests. This
philosophy also increased his hatred against the moral order of the world,
and especially against Christianity; and led him to regard it as the
offshoot of superstition and the impediment to progress. Yet even here,
while echoing the irreverent doctrines of the French revolution, he bore
an unconscious witness to the majesty of the Christian virtues, in that he
could find no nobler type with which to invest his ideal race of men.

We have dwelt long on Shelley, as a most instructive example for observing
the various influences, personal and social, intellectual and moral,
philosophical and political, combining to form unbelief. His thoughts are
the last echo of the unbelief of the last century. The great movement of
Germany has completely changed the scepticism of the present. The
instances that we have found of unbelief in England were indications of a
tendency rather than a movement. They were however of sufficient
importance to call forth the voices of the church in reply or in protest.

It has been remarked, that in the former half of the eighteenth century
the attack was chiefly directed against the internal doctrines and
narratives of revelation, on the assumption that they clashed with the
judgment of common sense, or of the moral faculty. And therefore the
writers on the evidences, adapting their defence to the attack, employed
themselves chiefly in establishing the internal evidences, the moral need
of a revelation generally, and the suitability of the Christian in
particular, before producing the divine testimony which authenticates it.
But about the middle of this century the historic spirit arose, and the
point of attack shifted to an assault on the historic value of the
literature which contains the revelation. The question thenceforth became
a literar