"The Necessity of Atheism" is an essay on atheism by the English poetPercy Bysshe Shelley, printed in 1811 by Charles and William Phillips in Worthing while Shelley was a student at University College, Oxford. An enigmatically signed copy of the short tract was sent to all the heads of Oxford colleges at the University. At that time the content was so shocking to the authorities that he was rusticated for contumacy in his refusing to deny authorship, together with his friend and fellow student, Thomas Jefferson Hogg, who may have been co-author. A revised and expanded version of the text was included as one of the notes to Shelley's poem Queen Mab in 1813, and some reprints with the title The Necessity of Atheism are based on this rather than the 1811 pamphlet.
Synopsis
The tract starts with the following rationale of the author's goals: Shelley made a number of claims in Necessity, including that one's beliefs are involuntary, and, therefore, that atheists do not choose to be so and should not be persecuted. Towards the end of the pamphlet he writes: "the mind cannot believe in the existence of a God." Shelley signed the pamphlet, Thro' deficiency of proof, AN ATHEIST, which gives an idea of the empiricist nature of Shelley's beliefs. According to Berman, Shelley also believed himself to have "refuted all the possible types of arguments for God's existence," but Shelley himself encouraged readers to offer proofs if they possess them. Opinion is divided upon the characterisation of Shelley's beliefs, at the time of the writing of Necessity. At the very beginning of his note on the line "There is no God" in Canto VII of Queen Mab, published just two years later and based on Necessity, Shelley qualifies his definition of atheism: Shelley also quotes the Dutch pantheistBaruch Spinoza later in the Note, but there is no explicit statement of pantheistic views. Shelley scholar Carlos Baker states that "the title of his college pamphlet should have been The Necessity of Agnosticism rather than The Necessity of Atheism," while historian David Berman argues that Shelley was an atheist, both because he characterised himself as such, and because "he denies the existence of God in both published works and private letters" during the same period.
Authorship
Although The Necessity of Atheism is often attributed solely to Shelley, historian of atheism David Berman says that Shelley "was probably assisted by his friend T.J. Hogg".
Format
The original pamphlet was described by Percy Vaughan as "a single foolscap sheet folded in octavo, consisting of half-title, title page..., Advertisement, and text occupying pages 7-13. At the foot of page 13 is the imprint, "Phillips, Printers, Worthing," and the reverse of the page is blank. A blank leaf completes the sheet."
Publication history
The pamphlet was first published on 13 or 14 February 1811. Very few copies of the original 16-page 1811 pamphlet survive, as most were destroyed after publication. Only six are known to exist in libraries today :
The first reprint of the 1811 pamphlet appeared in a collection of Shelley's work and used the copy now in the Bodleian Library:
1880. The Necessity of Atheism, in The Prose Works. Volume I. Edited by Harry Buxton Forman. London: Reeves and Turner. pp. 299–309. The first reprint. Annotated. The editor states that he obtained his copy from Sir Percy and Lady Shelley.
The second reprint used the copy now in the British Library:
1906. The Necessity of Atheism. Edited by Thomas J Wise and Percy Vaughan. "Issued for the Rationalist Press Association Limited by arrangement with the Shelley Society." London: Watts & Co. pp. 13. A typographical imitation, with an introduction by Wise and Vaughan. The first separately published reprint.
Subsequent reprints include:
1950. The Necessity of Atheism, in Shelley, Trelawny, and Henley: a study of three Titans. Edited by Samuel J. Looker. "A facsimile of the original edition printed at Worthing." 13pp.
1952. The Necessity of Atheism, and Declaration of Rights. Charlottesville, Virginia: The Patrick Henry Literary Society. 8pp. Limited edition of 500 copies.
1965. The Necessity of Atheism, by an Atheist, in Shelley & Zastrozzi: self-revelation of a neurotic, by Dr. Eustace Chesser. London: Gregg/Archive.
1968. The Necessity of Atheism, together with excerpts of revolutionary verse. Edited by David Tribe. National Secular Society/Oxford University Humanist Group. 9pp.
1972. The Necessity of Atheism, in Selected Essays on Atheism. New York: Arno Press/New York Times.
1976. The Necessity of Atheism. Introductory note by Mahadevaprasad Saha. First Indian Edition. Calcutta.
1992. The Necessity of Atheism. Oxford: Bodleian Library. 13pp. Reprinted from the Bodleian Library's copy, presented in a wallet.
1993. The Necessity of Atheism, in The Necessity of Atheism And Other Essays. Freethought Library. Buffalo, New York: Prometheus Books.
1998. The Necessity of Atheism. Edited and annotated by Nicolas Walter. Freethinker's Classics #2. London: G.W. Foote & Co. Ltd. Includes a reprint of the introduction to the 1906 Watts & Co. edition. Based on the British Library copy.
