"Is skilful to invent most serious names
To hide its ignorance."
In the total impossibility of deciding correctly, why affect to decide at all? Where is the necessity for a decision? We can reject whatever is unworthy of the Eternal Mind, without denying the existence of a spirit and intelligence which we cannot comprehend. We may refuse our credence to the vulgar errors of attributing the human form or the human passions to the Deity, without denying the existence of a God! And even this denial is only made in words. Mr. Shelley feels there is a power beyond the comprehension of all other men; and to seem wiser than his fellows, he denies their discovery of what cannot be discovered; and talks mysteriously to disguise his own failure, and his close resemblance to themselves. In this dilemma, I think it much the wiser, and the better mode, to take the advice of Pope:—
"Hope humbly then, on trembling pinions soar,
Wait the great teacher death, and God adore."
Mr. S. may adore Necessity, if he will have necessity to be his Deity. The spirit and author of Nature is the real object of adoration: and it matters little by what epiphet he is designated. The errors and absurdities of human creeds can only be charged upon human folly.
