The Emphasis on Love

Abstract

Shelley’s belief in the human mind’s responsibility to know and to build upon the things of nature is, as we have seen, unmistakably evident. That this responsibility is not merely a facet of the human condition, without basis or specific origin, has already several times been suggested. And in Shelley’s view the ground of the mind’s necessity to interact with natural things is love. Intellectual pursuits separated from love, he holds, are isolating as well as destructive endeavours — just as love separated from intellect is vapid sentimentality or else mere passion. To fulfil its ultimate purpose, then, thought must manifest itself in love, as also, conversely, to be a potent force in life, love must be the embodiment and culminating form of thought.KeywordsHuman MindHuman ThoughtDeath SceneSubstantive EntityHuman LoveThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.