The Shining Gateway: With an Essay on The Nature of Virtue by Percy Bysshe Shelley

By James Allen and Percy Bysshe Shelley

Self-help books aim to help the reader with problems, offering them clear and effective guidance on how obstacles can be passed and solutions found, especially with regard to common issues and day-to-day life. Such books take their name from the 1859 best-selling “Self-Help” by Samuel Smiles, and are often also referred to as "self-improvement" books. “The Shining Gateway” is a 1915 self-help book by British writer James Allen that explores desire, passion, and sorrow, outlining how these things can be overcome to foster a happier and more peaceful life. James Allen (1864–1912) was a British writer most famous for his inspirational poetry and being an early leader of the self-help movement. “As a Man Thinketh” (1903), his best known work, has been a significant source of inspiration for many self-help authors. Contents include: “The Shining Gateway of Meditation”, “Temptation”, “Regeneration”, “Actions and Motives”, “Morality and Religion”, “Memory, Repetition and Habit”, “Words and Wisdom”, “Truth and Manifest”, “Spiritual Humility”, etc. Many vintage books such as this are becoming increasingly scarce and expensive. We are republishing this volume now in an affordable, modern, high-quality edition complete with an Essay on the nature of virtue by Percy Bysshe Shelley.

• Language: English
• Publisher: White Press
• Release date: Oct 11, 2019
• ISBN: 9781528788212

James Allen

Born in 1864 in England, James Allen took his first job at fifteen to support his family. Allen worked as a factory knitter and later a private secretary before writing his first book, From Poverty to Power, in 1901. In 1903 he completed his best-known work: As a Man Thinketh. Allen wrote nineteen books, including his spiritual journal, The Light of Reason, before he died at age forty-seven in 1912. While not widely known during his lifetime, Allen later came to be seen as a pioneer of contemporary inspirational literature.

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The Shining Gateway

With an Essay on

The Nature of Virtue

By Percy Bysshe Shelley

By

JAMES ALLEN

First published in 1915

This edition published by Read Books Ltd.

Copyright © 2019 Read Books Ltd.

This book is copyright and may not be

reproduced or copied in any way without

the express permission of the publisher in writing

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available

from the British Library

Behold the shining gateway

He who attaineth unto Purity

The faultless Parthenon of Truth doth use

Awake ! Disperse the dreams of self and sin ?

Behold the Shining Gateway! Enter in!

Contents

ON THE NATURE OF VIRTUE

An Extract from A Defence Of Poetry And Other Essays By Percy Bysshe Shelley

EDITOR’S FOREWORD

THE SHINING GATEWAY OF MEDITATION

TEMPTATION

REGENERATION

ACTIONS AND MOTIVES

MORALITY AND RELIGION

MEMORY, REPETITION, AND HABIT

WORDS AND WISDOM

TRUTH MADE MANIFEST

SPIRITUAL HUMILITY

SPIRITUAL STRENGTH

ON THE NATURE OF VIRTUE

An Extract from

A Defence Of Poetry And Other Essays

By Percy Bysshe Shelley

We exist in the midst of a multitude of beings like ourselves, upon whose happiness most of our actions exert some obvious and decisive influence.

The regulation of this influence is the object of moral science. We know that we are susceptible of receiving painful or pleasurable impressions of greater or less intensity and duration. That is called good which produces pleasure; that is called evil which produces pain. These are general names, applicable to every class of causes, from which an overbalance of pain or pleasure may result. But when a human being is the active instrument of generating or diffusing happiness, the principle through which it is most effectually instrumental to that purpose, is called virtue. And benevolence, or the desire to be the author of good, united with justice, or an apprehension of the manner in which that good is to be done, constitutes virtue.

But wherefore should a man be benevolent and just? The immediate emotions of his nature, especially in its most inartificial state, prompt him to inflict pain, and to arrogate dominion. He desires to heap superfluities to his own store, although others perish with famine. He is propelled to guard against the smallest invasion of his own liberty, though he reduces others to a condition of the most pitiless servitude. He is revengeful, proud and selfish. Wherefore should he curb these propensities?

It is inquired, for what reason a human being should engage in procuring the happiness, or refrain from producing the pain of another? When a reason is required to prove the necessity of adopting any system of conduct, what is it that the objector demands? He requires proof of that system of conduct being such as will most effectually promote the happiness of mankind. To demonstrate this, is to render a moral reason. Such is the object of virtue.

A common sophism, which, like many others, depends on the abuse of a metaphorical expression to a literal purpose, has produced much of the confusion which has involved the theory of morals. It is said that no person is bound to be just or kind, if, on his neglect, he should fail to incur some penalty. Duty is obligation. There can be no obligation without an obliger. Virtue is a law, to which it is the will of the lawgiver that we should conform; which will we should in no manner be bound to obey, unless some dreadful punishment were attached to disobedience. This is the philosophy of slavery and superstition.

In fact, no person can be BOUND or OBLIGED, without some power preceding to bind and oblige. If I observe a man bound hand and foot, I know that some one bound him. But if I observe him returning self-satisfied from the performance of some action, by which he has been the willing author of extensive benefit, I do not infer that