This page has been validated.
TO QUEEN MAB.
61

of existence that surround us may not sanction the idea of a Deity in human form, or with human passions; but they do point to a power as their origin, separate and distinct from themselves—a power in which they do not participate, and of which they are the creatures, and agents:—and whether this power be called the First Cause, or God, or Necessity, matters not to the fact. In his own words, the hand that grasps the term of animate and inanimate existence—that formed the circle of life and death, is "Nature's God!"—no matter what name affectation, caprice, or accident, may have chosen to use as its designation. It is not the seed that is the divinity. The power that called the seed into existence, that implanted its principle of fructification—that bade it through endless ages, reproduce its like—this is the power of the Divinity. Otherwise, Mr. Shelley must applaud the savages who worship stocks and stones;—or if he contend that themselves partaking of the divine power, worship can be due to no other part of it, how will he reconcile the idea of blending the lusts, the ignorance, the caprice, the brutality of man, with that of any portion of the "Spirit of Nature!" Every thing appears to tell us we are not partakers of divi-