Page:The Prose Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley (Volume 1).djvu/388

340 I look with an eye of hope and pleasure on the present state of things, gloomy and incapable of improvement as they may appear to others. It delights me to see that men begin to think and to act for the good of others. Extensively as folly and selfishness has predominated in this age, it gives me hope and pleasure, at least, to see that many know what is right. Ignorance and vice commonly go together: he that would do good must be wise—a man cannot be truly wise who is not truly virtuous. Prudence and wisdom are very different things. The prudent man is he, who carefully consults for his own good: the wise man is he, who carefully consults for the good of others.

I look upon Catholic Emancipation, and the restoration of the liberties and happiness of Ireland, so far as they are compatible with the English Constitution, as great and important events. I hope to see them soon. But if all ended here, it would give me little pleasure—I should still see thousands miserable and wicked, things would still be wrong. I regard then, the accomplishment of these things as the road to a greater reform—that reform after which virtue and wisdom shall have conquered pain and vice. When no government will be wanted, but that of your neighbour's opinion.—I look to these things with hope and pleasure, because I consider that they will certainly happen, and because men will not then be wicked and miserable. But I do not consider that they will or can immediately happen; their arrival will be gradual, and it all depends upon yourselves how soon or how late these great changes will happen. If all of you, to-morrow were virtuous and wise, Government which to-day is a safe-guard, would then become a