(3. Note to the chorus, 'Worlds on worlds are rolling ever,' &c.) 'The
first stanza contrasts the immortality of the living and thinking beings
which inhabit the planets and (to use a common and inadequate phrase)
clothe themselves in matter, with the transcience of the noblest
manifestations of the external world. The concluding verses indicate a
progressive state of more or less exalted existence, according to the
degree of perfection which every distinct intelligence may have
attained. Let it not be supposed that I mean to dogmatise upon a subject
concerning which all men are equally ignorant, or that I think the
Gordian knot of the origin of evil can be disentangled by that or any
similar assertions.... That there is a true solution of the riddle, and
that in our present state that solution is unattainable by us, are
propositions which may be regarded as equally certain: meanwhile, as it
is the province of the poet to attach himself to those ideas which exalt
and ennoble humanity, let him be permitted to have conjectured the
condition of that futurity towards which we are all impelled by an
inextinguishable thirst for immortality. Until better arguments can be
produced than sophisms which disgrace the cause, this desire itself must
remain the strongest and the only presumption that eternity is the
inheritance of every thinking being.'

The reader will perceive that in these three passages the dominant
ideas, very briefly stated, are as follows:--(1) Mind is the aggregate
of all individual minds; (2) man has no reason for expecting that his
mind or soul will be immortal; (3) no reason, except such as inheres in
the very desire which he feels for immortality. These opinions,
deliberately expressed by Shelley at different dates as a theorist in
prose, should be taken into account if we endeavour to estimate what he
means when, as a poet, he speaks, whether in _Hellas_ or in _Adonais_,
of an individual, his mind and his immortality. When Shelley calls upon