; Prometheus stands for the human imagination, or the genius of the
world; and it is his union with Asia, the divine Idea, the Spirit of
Beauty and of Love, from which a new universe is born. It is this union,
which consummates the aspirations of humanity, that Shelley celebrates
in the marvellous love-song of Prometheus. As befitted a disciple of
Godwin, he believed in the divine potentiality of man, convinced that
all good is to be found within man's own being, and that his progress
depends on his own will.

It is our will
That thus enchains us to permitted ill--
We might be otherwise--we might be all
We dream of happy, high, majestical.
Where is the love, beauty, and truth we seek
But in our mind?

_Julian and Maddalo._

In the allegorical introduction to the _Revolt of Islam_, which is an
interesting example of Shelley's mystical mythology, we have an insight
into the poet's view of the good power in the world. It is not an
almighty creator standing outside mankind, but a power which suffers and
rebels and evolves, and is, in fact, incarnate in humanity, so that it
is unrecognised by men, and indeed confounded with evil:--

And the Great Spirit of Good did creep among
The nations of mankind, and every tongue
Cursed and blasphemed him as he passed, for none
Knew good from evil.

There is no doubt that to Shelley the form assumed by the divine in man
was love. Mrs Shelley, in her note to _Rosalind and Helen_, says that,
"in his eyes it was the essence of our being, and all woe and pain arose
from the war made against it by selfishness or insensibility, or
mistake"; and Shelley himself says, "the great secret of morals is love;
or a going out of our own nature, and an identification of ourselves
with the beautiful which exists in thought, action or person, not our
own."

Shelley was always searching for love; and, although he knew well,
through his study of Plato, the difference between earthly and spiritual
love, that the one is but the lowest step on the ladder which leads to
the other, yet in actual practice he confounded the two. He knew that he
did so; and only a month before his death, he summed up in a sentence
the tragedy of his life. He writes to Mr Gisborne about the
_Epipsychidion_, saying that he cannot look at it now, for--

"the person whom it celebrates was a cloud instead of a Juno," and
continues, "If you are curious,