University College, Oxford, in April of that year, and he commenced
residence there in October. His one very intimate friend in Oxford was
Thomas Jefferson Hogg, a student from the county of Durham. Hogg was
not, like Shelley, an enthusiast eager to learn new truths, and to apply
them; but he was a youth appreciative of classical and other literature,
and little or not at all less disposed than Percy to disregard all
prescription in religious dogma. By demeanour and act they both courted
academic censure, and they got it in its extremest form. Shelley wrote,
probably with some co-operation from Hogg, and he published anonymously
in Oxford, a little pamphlet called _The Necessity of Atheism_; he
projected sending it round broadcast as an invitation or challenge to
discussion. This small pamphlet--it is scarcely more than a
flysheet--hardly amounts to saying that Atheism is irrefragably true,
and Theism therefore false; but it propounds that the existence of a God
cannot be proved by reason, nor yet by testimony; that a direct
revelation made to an individual would alone be adequate ground for
convincing that individual; and that the persons to whom such a
revelation is not accorded are in consequence warranted in remaining
unconvinced. The College authorities got wind of the pamphlet, and found
reason for regarding Shelley as its author, and on March 25, 1811, they
summoned him to appear. He was required to say whether he had written it
or not. To this demand he refused an answer, and was then expelled by a
written sentence, ready drawn up. With Hogg the like process was
repeated. Their offence, as entered on the College records, was that of
'contumaciously refusing to answer questions,' and 'repeatedly declining
to disavow' the authorship of the work. In strictness therefore they
were expelled, not for being proclaimed atheists, but for defying
academic authority, which required to be satisfied as to that question.
Shortly before this disaster an engagement between Shelley and his first
cousin on the mother's side, Miss Harriet Grove, had come to an end,