Essay on Man

The Project Guten­berg Etext of Es­say on Man by Alexan­der Pope #1 in our se­ries by Alexan­der Pope

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Es­say on Man

by Alexan­der Pope

De­cem­ber, 2000 [Etext #2428]

The Project Guten­berg Etext of Es­say on Man by Alexan­der Pope ******This file should be named esymn10.txt or esymn10.zip******

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<HTML><PRE>The Project Guten­berg Etext of Es­say on Man, by Alexan­der Pope #X in our se­ries

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Es­say on Man

by Alexan­der Pope

Au­gust, 1997 [Etext #1000]

The Project Guten­berg Etext of Es­say on Man, by Alexan­der Pope ******This file should be named 1rbnh10.txt or 1rbnh10.zip******

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An Es­say on Man.

Moral es­says and satires

by Alexan­der Pope.

IN­TRO­DUC­TION.

Pope’s life as a writ­er falls in­to three pe­ri­ods, an­swer­ing fair­ly enough to the three reigns in which he worked. Un­der Queen Anne he was an orig­inal po­et, but made lit­tle mon­ey by his vers­es; un­der George I. he was chiefly a trans­la­tor, and made much mon­ey by sat­is­fy­ing the French-​clas­si­cal taste with ver­sions of the “Il­iad” and “Odyssey.” Un­der George I. he al­so edit­ed Shake­speare, but with lit­tle prof­it to him­self; for Shake­speare was but a Philis­tine in the eyes of the French-​clas­si­cal crit­ics. But as the eigh­teenth cen­tu­ry grew slow­ly to its work, signs of a deep­en­ing in­ter­est in the re­al is­sues of life dis­tract­ed men’s at­ten­tion from the cul­ture of the snuff-​box and the fan. As Pope’s ge­nius ripened, the best part of the world in which he worked was press­ing for­ward, as a mariner who will no longer hug the coast but crowds all sail to cross the storms of a wide un­known sea. Pope’s po­et­ry thus deep­ened with the course of time, and the third pe­ri­od of his life, which fell with­in the reign of George II., was that in which he pro­duced the “Es­say on Man,” the “Moral Es­says,” and the “Satires.” These deal whol­ly with as­pects of hu­man life and the great ques­tions they raise, ac­cord­ing through­out with the doc­trine of the po­et, and of the rea­son­ing world about him in his lat­ter day, that “the prop­er study of mankind is Man.”

Wrongs in high places, and the pri­vate in­famy of many who en­forced the doc­trines of the Church, had pro­duced in earnest men a vig­or­ous an­tag­onism. Tyran­ny and un­rea­son of low-​mind­ed ad­vo­cates had brought re­li­gion it­self in­to ques­tion; and profli­ga­cy of courtiers, each wor­ship­ping the gold­en calf seen in his mir­ror, had spread an­oth­er form of scep­ti­cism. The in­tel­lec­tu­al scep­ti­cism, based up­on an hon­est search for truth, could end on­ly in mak­ing truth the sur­er by its ques­tion­ings. The oth­er form of scep­ti­cism, which might be traced in Eng­land from the low-​mind­ed frivoli­ties of the court of Charles the Sec­ond, was wide­ly spread among the weak, whose minds flinched from all earnest thought. They swelled the num­ber of the army of bold ques­tion­ers up­on the ways of God to Man, but they were an idle rout of camp-​fol­low­ers, not com­bat­ants; they sim­ply ate, and drank, and died.

In 1697, Pierre Bayle pub­lished at Rot­ter­dam, his “His­tor­ical and Crit­ical Dic­tio­nary,” in which the lives of men were as­so­ci­at­ed with a com­ment that sug­gest­ed, from the ills of life, the ab­sence of di­vine care in the shap­ing of the world. Doubt was born of the cor­rup­tion of so­ci­ety; Na­ture and Man were said to be against faith in the rule of a God, wise, just, and mer­ci­ful. In 1710, af­ter Bayle’s death, Leib­nitz, a Ger­man philoso­pher then res­ident in Paris, wrote in French a book, with a ti­tle formed from Greek words mean­ing Jus­tice of God, Theodicee, in which he met Bayle’s ar­gu­ment by rea­son­ing that what we can­not un­der­stand con­fus­es us, be­cause we see on­ly the parts of a great whole. Bayle, he said, is now in Heav­en, and from his place by the throne of God, he sees the har­mo­ny of the great Uni­verse, and doubts no more. We see on­ly a lit­tle part in which are many de­tails that have pur­pos­es be­yond our ken. The ar­gu­ment of Leib­nitz’s Theodicee was wide­ly used; and al­though Pope said that he had nev­er read the Theodicee, his “Es­say on Man” has a like ar­gu­ment. When any book has a wide in­flu­ence up­on opin­ion, its gen­er­al ideas pass in­to the minds of many peo­ple who have nev­er read it. Many now talk about evo­lu­tion and nat­ural se­lec­tion, who have nev­er read a line of Dar­win.

In the reign of George the Sec­ond, ques­tion­ings did spread that went to the roots of all re­li­gious faith, and many earnest minds were busy­ing them­selves with prob­lems of the state of Man, and of the ev­idence of God in the life of man, and in the course of Na­ture. Out of this came, near­ly at the same time, two works whol­ly dif­fer­ent in method and in tone — so dif­fer­ent, that at first sight it may seem ab­surd to speak of them to­geth­er. They were Pope’s “Es­say on Man,” and But­ler’s “Anal­ogy of Re­li­gion, Nat­ural and Re­vealed, to the Con­sti­tu­tion and Course of Na­ture.”

But­ler’s “Anal­ogy” was pub­lished in 1736; of the “Es­say on Man,” the first two Epis­tles ap­peared in 1732, the Third Epis­tle in 1733, the Fourth in 1734, and the clos­ing Uni­ver­sal Hymn in 1738. It may seem even more ab­surd to name Pope’s “Es­say on Man” in the same breath with Mil­ton’s “Par­adise Lost;” but to the best of his knowl­edge and pow­er, in his small­er way, ac­cord­ing to his na­ture and the ques­tions of his time, Pope was, like Mil­ton, en­deav­our­ing “to jus­ti­fy the ways of God to Man.” He even bor­rowed Mil­ton’s line for his own po­em, on­ly weak­en­ing the verb, and said that he sought to “vin­di­cate the ways of God to Man.” In Mil­ton’s day the ques­tion­ing all cen­tred in the doc­trine of the “Fall of Man,” and ques­tions of God’s Jus­tice were as­so­ci­at­ed with de­bate on fate, fore-​knowl­edge, and free will. In Pope’s day the ques­tion was not the­olog­ical, but went to the root of all faith in ex­is­tence of a God, by declar­ing that the state of Man and of the world about him met such faith with an ab­so­lute de­nial. Pope’s ar­gu­ment, good or bad, had noth­ing to do with ques­tions of the­ol­ogy. Like But­ler’s, it sought for grounds of faith in the con­di­tions on which doubt was rest­ed. Mil­ton sought to set forth the sto­ry of the Fall in such way as to show that God was love. Pope dealt with the ques­tion of God in Na­ture, and the world of Man.

Pope’s ar­gu­ment was at­tacked with vi­olence my M. de Crousaz, Pro­fes­sor of Phi­los­ophy and Math­emat­ics in the Uni­ver­si­ty of Lau­sanne, and de­fend­ed by War­bur­ton, then chap­lain to the Prince of Wales, in six let­ters pub­lished in 1739, and a sev­enth in 1740, for which Pope (who died in 1744) was deeply grate­ful. His of­fence in the eyes of de Crousaz was that he had left out of ac­count all doc­trines of or­tho­dox the­ol­ogy. But if he had been or­tho­dox of the or­tho­dox, his ar­gu­ment ob­vi­ous­ly could have been di­rect­ed on­ly to the form of doubt it sought to over­come. And when his clos­ing hymn was con­demned as the free­thinker’s hymn, its cen­sur­ers sure­ly for­got that their ar­gu­ments against it would equal­ly ap­ply to the Lord’s Prayer, of which it is, in some de­gree, a para­phrase.

The first de­sign of the Es­say on Man ar­ranged it in­to four books, each con­sist­ing of a dis­tinct group of Epis­tles. The First Book, in four Epis­tles, was to treat of man in the ab­stract, and of his re­la­tion to the Uni­verse. That is the whole work as we have it now. The Sec­ond Book was to treat of Man In­tel­lec­tu­al; the Third Book, of Man So­cial, in­clud­ing ties to Church and State; the Fourth Book, of Man Moral, was to il­lus­trate ab­stract truth by sketch­es of char­ac­ter. This part of the de­sign is rep­re­sent­ed by the Moral Es­says, of which four were writ­ten, to which was added, as a fifth, the Epis­tle to Ad­di­son which had been writ­ten much ear­li­er, in 1715, and first pub­lished in 1720. The four Moral es­says are two pairs. One pair is up­on the Char­ac­ters of Men and on the Char­ac­ters of Wom­en, which would have formed the open­ing of the sub­ject of the Fourth Book of the Es­say: the oth­er pair shows char­ac­ter ex­pressed through a right or a wrong use of Rich­es: in fact, Mon­ey and Morals. The four Epis­tles were pub­lished sep­arate­ly. The fourth (to the Earl of Burling­ton) was first pub­lished in 1731, its ti­tle then be­ing “Of Taste;” the third (to Lord Bathurst) fol­lowed in 1732, the year of the pub­li­ca­tion of the first two Epis­tles on the “Es­say on Man.” In 1733, the year of pub­li­ca­tion of the Third Epis­tle of the “Es­say on Man,” Pope pub­lished his Moral Es­say of the “Char­ac­ters of Men.” in 1734 fol­lowed the Fourth Epis­tle of the “Es­say on Man;” and in 1735 the “Char­ac­ters of Wom­en,” ad­dressed to Martha Blount, the wom­an whom Pope loved, though he was with­held by a frail body from mar­riage. Thus the two works were, in fact, pro­duced to­geth­er, parts of one de­sign.

Pope’s Satires, which still deal with char­ac­ters of men, fol­lowed im­me­di­ate­ly, some ap­pear­ing in a fo­lio in Jan­uary, 1735. That part of the epis­tle to Ar­buth­not form­ing the Pro­logue, which gives a char­ac­ter of Ad­di­son, as At­ti­cus, had been sketched more than twelve years be­fore, and ear­li­er sketch­es of some small­er crit­ics were in­tro­duced; but the be­gin­ning and the end, the parts in which Pope spoke of him­self and of his fa­ther and moth­er, and his friend Dr. Ar­buth­not, were writ­ten in 1733 and 1734. Then fol­lows an im­ita­tion of the first Epis­tle of the Sec­ond Book of the Satires of Ho­race, con­cern­ing which Pope told a friend, “When I had a fever one win­ter in town that con­fined me to my room for five or six days, Lord Bol­ing­broke, who came to see me, hap­pened to take up a Ho­race that lay on the ta­ble, and, turn­ing it over, dropped on the first satire in the Sec­ond Book, which be­gins, ‘Sunt, quibus in sati­ra.’ He ob­served how well that would suit my case if I were to im­itate it in En­glish. Af­ter he was gone, I read it over, trans­lat­ed it in a morn­ing or two, and sent it to press in a week or a fort­night af­ter” (Febru­ary, 1733). “And this was the oc­ca­sion of my im­itat­ing some oth­ers of the Satires and Epis­tles.” The two di­alogues fi­nal­ly used as the Epi­logue to the Satires were first pub­lished in the year 1738, with the name of the year, “Sev­en­teen Hun­dred and Thir­ty-​eight.” Samuel John­son’s “Lon­don,” his first bid for recog­ni­tion, ap­peared in the same week, and ex­cit­ed in Pope not ad­mi­ra­tion on­ly, but some ac­tive en­deav­our to be use­ful to its au­thor.

The read­er of Pope, as of ev­ery au­thor, is ad­vised to be­gin by let­ting him say what he has to say, in his own man­ner to an open mind that seeks on­ly to re­ceive the im­pres­sions which the writ­er wish­es to con­vey. First let the mind and spir­it of the writ­er come in­to free, full con­tact with the mind and spir­it of the read­er, whose at­ti­tude at the first read­ing should be sim­ply re­cep­tive. Such read­ing is the con­di­tion prece­dent to all true judg­ment of a writ­er’s work. All crit­icism that is not so ground­ed spreads as fog over a po­et’s page. Read, read­er, for your­self, with­out once paus­ing to re­mem­ber what you have been told to think. H.M.

POPE’S PO­EMS.

AN ES­SAY ON MAN. TO H. ST. JOHN LORD BOL­ING­BROKE.

THE DE­SIGN.

Hav­ing pro­posed to write some pieces of Hu­man Life and Man­ners, such as (to use my Lord Ba­con’s ex­pres­sion) come home to Men’s Busi­ness and Bo­soms, I thought it more sat­is­fac­to­ry to be­gin with con­sid­er­ing Man in the ab­stract, his Na­ture and his State; since, to prove any moral du­ty, to en­force any moral pre­cept, or to ex­am­ine the per­fec­tion or im­per­fec­tion of any crea­ture what­so­ev­er, it is nec­es­sary first to know what con­di­tion and re­la­tion it is placed in, and what is the prop­er end and pur­pose of its be­ing.

The sci­ence of Hu­man Na­ture is, like all oth­er sci­ences, re­duced to a few clear points: there are not many cer­tain truths in this world. It is there­fore in the anato­my of the Mind as in that of the Body; more good will ac­crue to mankind by at­tend­ing to the large, open, and per­cep­ti­ble parts, than by study­ing too much such fin­er nerves and ves­sels, the con­for­ma­tions and us­es of which will for ev­er es­cape our ob­ser­va­tion. The dis­putes are all up­on these last, and, I will ven­ture to say, they have less sharp­ened the wits than the hearts of men against each oth­er, and have di­min­ished the prac­tice more than ad­vanced the the­ory of Moral­ity. If I could flat­ter my­self that this Es­say has any mer­it, it is in steer­ing be­twixt the ex­tremes of doc­trines seem­ing­ly op­po­site, in pass­ing over terms ut­ter­ly un­in­tel­li­gi­ble, and in form­ing a tem­per­ate yet not in­con­sis­tent, and a short yet not im­per­fect sys­tem of Ethics.

This I might have done in prose, but I chose verse, and even rhyme, for two rea­sons. The one will ap­pear ob­vi­ous; that prin­ci­ples, max­ims, or pre­cepts so writ­ten, both strike the read­er more strong­ly at first, and are more eas­ily re­tained by him af­ter­wards: the oth­er may seem odd, but is true, I found I could ex­press them more short­ly this way than in prose it­self; and noth­ing is more cer­tain, than that much of the force as well as grace of ar­gu­ments or in­struc­tions de­pends on their con­cise­ness. I was un­able to treat this part of my sub­ject more in de­tail, with­out be­com­ing dry and te­dious; or more po­et­ical­ly, with­out sac­ri­fic­ing per­spicu­ity to or­na­ment, with­out wan­der­ing from the pre­ci­sion, or break­ing the chain of rea­son­ing: if any man can unite all these with­out diminu­tion of any of them I freely con­fess he will com­pass a thing above my ca­pac­ity.

What is now pub­lished is on­ly to be con­sid­ered as a gen­er­al Map of Man, mark­ing out no more than the greater parts, their ex­tent, their lim­its, and their con­nec­tion, and leav­ing the par­tic­ular to be more ful­ly de­lin­eat­ed in the charts which are to fol­low. Con­se­quent­ly, these Epis­tles in their progress (if I have health and leisure to make any progress) will be less dry, and more sus­cep­ti­ble of po­et­ical or­na­ment. I am here on­ly open­ing the foun­tains, and clear­ing the pas­sage. To de­duce the rivers, to fol­low them in their course, and to ob­serve their ef­fects, may be a task more agree­able. P.

AR­GU­MENT OF EPIS­TLE I.

OF THE NA­TURE AND STATE OF MAN, WITH RE­SPECT TO THE UNI­VERSE.

Of Man in the ab­stract.

I. That we can judge on­ly with re­gard to our own sys­tem, be­ing ig­no­rant of the re­la­tions of sys­tems and things, v.17, etc.

II. That Man is not to be deemed im­per­fect, but a be­ing suit­ed to his place and rank in the Cre­ation, agree­able to the gen­er­al Or­der of Things, and con­formable to Ends and Re­la­tions to him un­known, v.35, etc.

III. That it is part­ly up­on his ig­no­rance of fu­ture events, and part­ly up­on the hope of fu­ture state, that all his hap­pi­ness in the present de­pends, v.77, etc.

IV. The pride of aim­ing at more knowl­edge, and pre­tend­ing to more Per­fec­tion, the cause of Man’s er­ror and mis­ery. The impi­ety of putting him­self in the place of God, and judg­ing of the fit­ness or un­fit­ness, per­fec­tion or im­per­fec­tion, jus­tice or in­jus­tice of His dis­pen­sa­tions, v.109, etc.

V. The ab­sur­di­ty of con­ceit­ing him­self the fi­nal cause of the Cre­ation, or ex­pect­ing that per­fec­tion in the moral world, which is not in the nat­ural, v.131, etc.

VI. The un­rea­son­able­ness of his com­plaints against Prov­idence, while on the one hand he de­mands the Per­fec­tions of the An­gels, and on the oth­er the bod­ily qual­ifi­ca­tions of the Brutes; though to pos­sess any of the sen­si­tive fac­ul­ties in a high­er de­gree would ren­der him mis­er­able, v.173, etc.

VII. That through­out the whole vis­ible world, an uni­ver­sal or­der and gra­da­tion in the sen­su­al and men­tal fac­ul­ties is ob­served, which cause is a sub­or­di­na­tion of crea­ture to crea­ture, and of all crea­tures to Man. The gra­da­tions of sense, in­stinct, thought, re­flec­tion, rea­son; that Rea­son alone coun­ter­vails all the oth­er fac­ul­ties, v.207.

VI­II. How much fur­ther this or­der and sub­or­di­na­tion of liv­ing crea­tures may ex­tend, above and be­low us; were any part of which bro­ken, not that part on­ly, but the whole con­nect­ed cre­ation, must be de­stroyed, v.233.

IX. The ex­trav­agance, mad­ness, and pride of such a de­sire, v.250.

X. The con­se­quence of all, the ab­so­lute sub­mis­sion due to Prov­idence, both as to our present and fu­ture state, v.281, etc., to the end.

EPIS­TLE I.

Awake, my St. John! leave all mean­er things To low am­bi­tion, and the pride of kings. Let us (since life can lit­tle more sup­ply Than just to look about us and to die) Ex­pa­ti­ate free o’er all this scene of man; A mighty maze! but not with­out a plan; A wild, where weeds and flow­ers promis­cu­ous shoot; Or gar­den tempt­ing with for­bid­den fruit. To­geth­er let us beat this am­ple field, Try what the open, what the covert yield; The la­tent tracts, the gid­dy heights, ex­plore Of all who blind­ly creep, or sight­less soar; Eye Na­ture’s walks, shoot Fol­ly as it flies, And catch the man­ners liv­ing as they rise; Laugh where we must, be can­did where we can; But vin­di­cate the ways of God to man.

I. Say first, of God above, or man be­low What can we rea­son, but from what we know? Of man, what see we but his sta­tion here, From which to rea­son, or to which re­fer? Through worlds un­num­bered though the God be known, ‘Tis ours to trace Him on­ly in our own. He, who through vast im­men­si­ty can pierce, See worlds on worlds com­pose one uni­verse, Ob­serve how sys­tem in­to sys­tem runs, What oth­er plan­ets cir­cle oth­er suns, What var­ied be­ing peo­ples ev­ery star, May tell why Heav­en has made us as we are. But of this frame, the bear­ings, and the ties, The strong con­nec­tions, nice de­pen­den­cies, Gra­da­tions just, has thy per­vad­ing soul Looked through? or can a part con­tain the whole? Is the great chain, that draws all to agree, And drawn sup­ports, up­held by God, or thee?

II. Pre­sump­tu­ous man! the rea­son wouldst thou find, Why formed so weak, so lit­tle, and so blind? First, if thou canst, the hard­er rea­son guess, Why formed no weak­er, blin­der, and no less; Ask of thy moth­er earth, why oaks are made Taller or stronger than the weeds they shade? Or ask of yon­der ar­gent fields above, Why Jove’s satel­lites are less than Jove? Of sys­tems pos­si­ble, if ’tis con­fest That wis­dom in­fi­nite must form the best, Where all must full or not co­her­ent be, And all that ris­es, rise in due de­gree; Then in the scale of rea­son­ing life, ’tis plain, There must be, some­where, such a rank as man: And all the ques­tion (wran­gle e’er so long) Is on­ly this, if God has placed him wrong? Re­spect­ing man, what­ev­er wrong we call, May, must be right, as rel­ative to all. In hu­man works, though laboured on with pain, A thou­sand move­ments scarce one pur­pose gain; In God’s one sin­gle can its end pro­duce; Yet serves to sec­ond too some oth­er use. So man, who here seems prin­ci­pal alone, Per­haps acts sec­ond to some sphere un­known, Touch­es some wheel, or verges to some goal; ‘Tis but a part we see, and not a whole. When the proud steed shall know why man re­strains His fiery course, or drives him o’er the plains: When the dull ox, why now he breaks the clod, Is now a vic­tim, and now Egypt’s god: Then shall man’s pride and dul­ness com­pre­hend His ac­tions’, pas­sions’, be­ing’s, use and end; Why do­ing, suf­fer­ing, checked, im­pelled; and why This hour a slave, the next a de­ity. Then say not man’s im­per­fect, Heav­en in fault; Say rather man’s as per­fect as he ought: His knowl­edge mea­sured to his state and place; His time a mo­ment, and a point his space. If to be per­fect in a cer­tain sphere, What mat­ter, soon or late, or here or there? The blest to-​day is as com­plete­ly so, As who be­gan a thou­sand years ago.

III. Heav­en from all crea­tures hides the book of Fate, All but the page pre­scribed, their present state: From brutes what men, from men what spir­its know: Or who could suf­fer be­ing here be­low? The lamb thy ri­ot dooms to bleed to-​day, Had he thy rea­son, would he skip and play? Pleased to the last, he crops the flow­ery food, And licks the hand just raised to shed his blood. Oh, blind­ness to the fu­ture! kind­ly giv­en, That each may fill the cir­cle, marked by Heav­en: Who sees with equal eye, as God of all, A hero per­ish, or a spar­row fall, Atoms or sys­tems in­to ru­in hurled, And now a bub­ble burst, and now a world. Hope humbly, then; with trem­bling pin­ions soar; Wait the great teach­er Death; and God adore. What fu­ture bliss, He gives not thee to know, But gives that hope to be thy bless­ing now. Hope springs eter­nal in the hu­man breast: Man nev­er is, but al­ways to be blest: The soul, un­easy and con­fined from home, Rests and ex­pa­ti­ates in a life to come. Lo, the poor In­di­an! whose un­tu­tored mind Sees God in clouds, or hears Him in the wind; His soul, proud sci­ence nev­er taught to stray Far as the so­lar walk, or milky way; Yet sim­ple Na­ture to his hope has giv­en, Be­hind the cloud-​topped hill, an hum­bler heav­en; Some safer world in depth of woods em­braced, Some hap­pi­er is­land in the wa­tery waste, Where slaves once more their na­tive land be­hold, No fiends tor­ment, no Chris­tians thirst for gold. To be, con­tents his nat­ural de­sire, He asks no an­gel’s wing, no ser­aph’s fire; But thinks, ad­mit­ted to that equal sky, His faith­ful dog shall bear him com­pa­ny.

IV. Go, wis­er thou! and, in thy scale of sense, Weigh thy opin­ion against prov­idence; Call im­per­fec­tion what thou fan­ci­est such, Say, here He gives too lit­tle, there too much; De­stroy all crea­tures for thy sport or gust, Yet cry, if man’s un­hap­py, God’s un­just; If man alone en­gross not Heav­en’s high care, Alone made per­fect here, im­mor­tal there: Snatch from His hand the bal­ance and the rod, Re-​judge His jus­tice, be the God of God. In pride, in rea­son­ing pride, our er­ror lies; All quit their sphere, and rush in­to the skies. Pride still is aim­ing at the blest abodes, Men would be an­gels, an­gels would be gods. As­pir­ing to be gods, if an­gels fell, As­pir­ing to be an­gels, men rebel: And who but wish­es to in­vert the laws Of or­der, sins against the Eter­nal Cause.

V. Ask for what end the heav­en­ly bod­ies shine, Earth for whose use? Pride an­swers, “‘Tis for mine: For me kind Na­ture wakes her ge­nial pow­er, Suck­les each herb, and spreads out ev­ery flow­er; An­nu­al for me, the grape, the rose re­new The juice nectare­ous, and the balmy dew; For me, the mine a thou­sand trea­sures brings; For me, health gush­es from a thou­sand springs; Seas roll to waft me, suns to light me rise; My foot­stool earth, my canopy the skies.” But errs not Na­ture from this gra­cious end, From burn­ing suns when livid deaths de­scend, When earth­quakes swal­low, or when tem­pests sweep Towns to one grave, whole na­tions to the deep? “No, (’tis replied) the first Almighty Cause Acts not by par­tial, but by gen­er­al laws; The ex­cep­tions few; some change since all be­gan; And what cre­at­ed per­fect?” — Why then man? If the great end be hu­man hap­pi­ness, Then Na­ture de­vi­ates; and can man do less? As much that end a con­stant course re­quires Of show­ers and sun­shine, as of man’s de­sires; As much eter­nal springs and cloud­less skies, As men for ev­er tem­per­ate, calm, and wise. If plagues or earth­quakes break not Heav­en’s de­sign, Why then a Bor­gia, or a Cati­line? Who knows but He, whose hand the light­ning forms, Who heaves old ocean, and who wings the storms; Pours fierce am­bi­tion in a Cae­sar’s mind, Or turns young Am­mon loose to scourge mankind? From pride, from pride, our very rea­son­ing springs; Ac­count for moral, as for nat­ural things: Why charge we heav­en in those, in these ac­quit? In both, to rea­son right is to sub­mit. Bet­ter for us, per­haps, it might ap­pear, Were there all har­mo­ny, all virtue here; That nev­er air or ocean felt the wind; That nev­er pas­sion dis­com­posed the mind. But all sub­sists by el­emen­tal strife; And pas­sions are the el­ements of life. The gen­er­al or­der, since the whole be­gan, Is kept in na­ture, and is kept in man.

VI. What would this man? Now up­ward will he soar, And lit­tle less than an­gel, would be more; Now look­ing down­wards, just as grieved ap­pears To want the strength of bulls, the fur of bears Made for his use all crea­tures if he call, Say what their use, had he the pow­ers of all? Na­ture to these, with­out pro­fu­sion, kind, The prop­er or­gans, prop­er pow­ers as­signed; Each seem­ing want com­pen­sat­ed of course, Here with de­grees of swift­ness, there of force; All in ex­act pro­por­tion to the state; Noth­ing to add, and noth­ing to abate. Each beast, each in­sect, hap­py in its own: Is Heav­en un­kind to man, and man alone? Shall he alone, whom ra­tio­nal we call, Be pleased with noth­ing, if not blessed with all? The bliss of man (could pride that bless­ing find) Is not to act or think be­yond mankind; No pow­ers of body or of soul to share, But what his na­ture and his state can bear. Why has not man a mi­cro­scop­ic eye? For this plain rea­son, man is not a fly. Say what the use, were fin­er op­tics giv­en, To in­spect a mite, not com­pre­hend the heav­en? Or touch, if trem­bling­ly alive all o’er, To smart and ag­onize at ev­ery pore? Or quick ef­flu­via dart­ing through the brain, Die of a rose in aro­mat­ic pain? If Na­ture thun­dered in his open­ing ears, And stunned him with the mu­sic of the spheres, How would he wish that Heav­en had left him still The whis­per­ing zephyr, and the purl­ing rill? Who finds not Prov­idence all good and wise, Alike in what it gives, and what de­nies?

VII. Far as Cre­ation’s am­ple range ex­tends, The scale of sen­su­al, men­tal pow­ers as­cends: Mark how it mounts, to man’s im­pe­ri­al race, From the green myr­iads in the peo­pled grass: What modes of sight be­twixt each wide ex­treme, The mole’s dim cur­tain, and the lynx’s beam: Of smell, the head­long li­oness be­tween, And hound saga­cious on the taint­ed green: Of hear­ing, from the life that fills the flood, To that which war­bles through the ver­nal wood: The spi­der’s touch, how exquisite­ly fine! Feels at each thread, and lives along the line: In the nice bee, what sense so sub­tly true From poi­sonous herbs ex­tracts the heal­ing dew? How in­stinct varies in the grov­el­ling swine, Com­pared, half-​rea­son­ing ele­phant, with thine! ‘Twixt that, and rea­son, what a nice bar­ri­er, For ev­er sep­arate, yet for ev­er near! Re­mem­brance and re­flec­tion how al­layed; What thin par­ti­tions sense from thought di­vide: And mid­dle na­tures, how they long to join, Yet nev­er passed the in­su­per­able line! With­out this just gra­da­tion, could they be Sub­ject­ed, these to those, or all to thee? The pow­ers of all sub­dued by thee alone, Is not thy rea­son all these pow­ers in one?

VI­II. See, through this air, this ocean, and this earth, All mat­ter quick, and burst­ing in­to birth. Above, how high, pro­gres­sive life may go! Around, how wide! how deep ex­tend be­low? Vast chain of be­ing! which from God be­gan, Na­tures ethe­re­al, hu­man, an­gel, man, Beast, bird, fish, in­sect, what no eye can see, No glass can reach; from In­fi­nite to thee, From thee to noth­ing. On su­pe­ri­or pow­ers Were we to press, in­fe­ri­or might on ours: Or in the full cre­ation leave a void, Where, one step bro­ken, the great scale’s de­stroyed: From Na­ture’s chain what­ev­er link you strike, Tenth or ten thou­sandth, breaks the chain alike. And, if each sys­tem in gra­da­tion roll Alike es­sen­tial to the amaz­ing whole, The least con­fu­sion but in one, not all That sys­tem on­ly, but the whole must fall. Let earth un­bal­anced from her or­bit fly, Plan­ets and suns run law­less through the sky; Let rul­ing an­gels from their spheres be hurled, Be­ing on be­ing wrecked, and world on world; Heav­en’s whole foun­da­tions to their cen­tre nod, And na­ture trem­ble to the throne of God. All this dread or­der break — for whom? for thee? Vile worm! — Oh, mad­ness! pride! impi­ety!

IX. What if the foot, or­dained the dust to tread, Or hand, to toil, as­pired to be the head? What if the head, the eye, or ear re­pined To serve mere en­gines to the rul­ing mind? Just as ab­surd for any part to claim To be an­oth­er, in this gen­er­al frame: Just as ab­surd, to mourn the tasks or pains, The great di­rect­ing Mind of All or­dains. All are but parts of one stu­pen­dous whole, Whose body Na­ture is, and God the soul; That, changed through all, and yet in all the same; Great in the earth, as in the ethe­re­al frame; Warms in the sun, re­fresh­es in the breeze, Glows in the stars, and blos­soms in the trees, Lives through all life, ex­tends through all ex­tent, Spreads un­di­vid­ed, op­er­ates un­spent; Breathes in our soul, in­forms our mor­tal part, As full, as per­fect, in a hair as heart: As full, as per­fect, in vile man that mourns, As the rapt ser­aph that adores and burns: To him no high, no low, no great, no small; He fills, he bounds, con­nects, and equals all.

X. Cease, then, nor or­der im­per­fec­tion name: Our prop­er bliss de­pends on what we blame. Know thy own point: this kind, this due de­gree Of blind­ness, weak­ness, Heav­en be­stows on thee. Sub­mit. In this, or any oth­er sphere, Se­cure to be as blest as thou canst bear: Safe in the hand of one dis­pos­ing Pow­er, Or in the na­tal, or the mor­tal hour. All na­ture is but art, un­known to thee; All chance, di­rec­tion, which thou canst not see; All dis­cord, har­mo­ny not un­der­stood; All par­tial evil, uni­ver­sal good: And, spite of pride in erring rea­son’s spite, One truth is clear, what­ev­er is, is right.

AR­GU­MENT OF EPIS­TLE II.

OF THE NA­TURE AND STATE OF MAN WITH RE­SPECT TO HIM­SELF, AS AN IN­DI­VID­UAL.

I. The busi­ness of Man not to pry in­to God, but to study him­self. His Mid­dle Na­ture; his Pow­ers and Frail­ties, v.1 to 19. The Lim­its of his Ca­pac­ity, v.19, etc.

II. The two Prin­ci­ples of Man, Self-​love and Rea­son, both nec­es­sary, v.53, etc. Self-​love the stronger, and why, v.67, etc. Their end the same, v.81, etc.

III. The Pas­sions, and their use, v.93 to 130. The pre­dom­inant Pas­sion, and its force, v.132 to 160. Its Ne­ces­si­ty, in di­rect­ing Men to dif­fer­ent pur­pos­es, v.165, etc. Its prov­iden­tial Use, in fix­ing our Prin­ci­ple, and as­cer­tain­ing our Virtue, v.177.

IV. Virtue and Vice joined in our mixed Na­ture; the lim­its near, yet the things sep­arate and ev­ident: What is the Of­fice of Rea­son, v.202 to 216.

V. How odi­ous Vice in it­self, and how we de­ceive our­selves in­to it, v.217.

VI. That, how­ev­er, the Ends of Prov­idence and gen­er­al Good are an­swered in our Pas­sions and Im­per­fec­tions, v.238, etc. How use­ful­ly these are dis­tribut­ed to all Or­ders of Men, v.241. How use­ful they are to So­ci­ety, v.251. And to the In­di­vid­uals, v.263. In ev­ery state, and ev­ery age of life, v.273, etc.

EPIS­TLE II.

I. Know, then, thy­self, pre­sume not God to scan; The prop­er study of mankind is man. Placed on this isth­mus of a mid­dle state, A be­ing dark­ly wise, and rude­ly great: With too much knowl­edge for the scep­tic side, With too much weak­ness for the sto­ic’s pride, He hangs be­tween; in doubt to act, or rest; In doubt to deem him­self a god, or beast; In doubt his mind or body to pre­fer; Born but to die, and rea­son­ing but to err; Alike in ig­no­rance, his rea­son such, Whether he thinks too lit­tle, or too much: Chaos of thought and pas­sion, all con­fused; Still by him­self abused, or dis­abused; Cre­at­ed half to rise, and half to fall; Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all; Sole judge of truth, in end­less er­ror hurled: The glo­ry, jest, and rid­dle of the world! Go, won­drous crea­ture! mount where sci­ence guides, Go, mea­sure earth, weigh air, and state the tides; In­struct the plan­ets in what orbs to run, Cor­rect old time, and reg­ulate the sun; Go, soar with Pla­to to th’ empyre­al sphere, To the first good, first per­fect, and first fair; Or tread the mazy round his fol­low­ers trod, And quit­ting sense call im­itat­ing God; As East­ern priests in gid­dy cir­cles run, And turn their heads to im­itate the sun. Go, teach Eter­nal Wis­dom how to rule — Then drop in­to thy­self, and be a fool! Su­pe­ri­or be­ings, when of late they saw A mor­tal man un­fold all Na­ture’s law, Ad­mired such wis­dom in an earth­ly shape And showed a New­ton as we show an ape. Could he, whose rules the rapid comet bind, De­scribe or fix one move­ment of his mind? Who saw its fires here rise, and there de­scend, Ex­plain his own be­gin­ning, or his end? Alas, what won­der! man’s su­pe­ri­or part Unchecked may rise, and climb from art to art; But when his own great work is but be­gun, What rea­son weaves, by pas­sion is un­done. Trace Sci­ence, then, with Mod­esty thy guide; First strip off all her equipage of pride; Deduct what is but van­ity or dress, Or learn­ing’s lux­ury, or idle­ness; Or tricks to show the stretch of hu­man brain, Mere cu­ri­ous plea­sure, or in­ge­nious pain; Ex­punge the whole, or lop th’ ex­cres­cent parts Of all our vices have cre­at­ed arts; Then see how lit­tle the re­main­ing sum, Which served the past, and must the times to come!

II. Two prin­ci­ples in hu­man na­ture reign; Self-​love to urge, and rea­son, to re­strain; Nor this a good, nor that a bad we call, Each works its end, to move or gov­ern all And to their prop­er op­er­ation still, As­cribe all good; to their im­prop­er, ill. Self-​love, the spring of mo­tion, acts the soul; Rea­son’s com­par­ing bal­ance rules the whole. Man, but for that, no ac­tion could at­tend, And but for this, were ac­tive to no end: Fixed like a plant on his pe­cu­liar spot, To draw nu­tri­tion, prop­agate, and rot; Or, me­te­or-​like, flame law­less through the void, De­stroy­ing oth­ers, by him­self de­stroyed. Most strength the mov­ing prin­ci­ple re­quires; Ac­tive its task, it prompts, im­pels, in­spires. Se­date and qui­et the com­par­ing lies, Formed but to check, de­lib­er­ate, and ad­vise. Self-​love still stronger, as its ob­jects nigh; Rea­son’s at dis­tance, and in prospect lie: That sees im­me­di­ate good by present sense; Rea­son, the fu­ture and the con­se­quence. Thick­er than ar­gu­ments, temp­ta­tions throng. At best more watch­ful this, but that more strong. The ac­tion of the stronger to sus­pend, Rea­son still use, to rea­son still at­tend. At­ten­tion, habit and ex­pe­ri­ence gains; Each strength­ens rea­son, and self-​love re­strains. Let sub­tle school­men teach these friends to fight, More stu­dious to di­vide than to unite; And grace and virtue, sense and rea­son split, With all the rash dex­ter­ity of wit. Wits, just like fools, at war about a name, Have full as oft no mean­ing, or the same. Self-​love and rea­son to one end as­pire, Pain their aver­sion, plea­sure their de­sire; But greedy that, its ob­ject would de­vour, This taste the hon­ey, and not wound the flow­er: Plea­sure, or wrong or right­ly un­der­stood, Our great­est evil, or our great­est good.

III. Modes of self-​love the pas­sions we may call; ‘Tis re­al good, or seem­ing, moves them all: But since not ev­ery good we can di­vide, And rea­son bids us for our own pro­vide; Pas­sions, though self­ish, if their means be fair, List un­der Rea­son, and de­serve her care; Those, that im­part­ed, court a no­bler aim, Ex­alt their kind, and take some virtue’s name. In lazy ap­athy let sto­ics boast Their virtue fixed; ’tis fixed as in a frost; Con­tract­ed all, re­tir­ing to the breast; But strength of mind is ex­er­cise, not rest: The ris­ing tem­pest puts in act the soul, Parts it may rav­age, but pre­serves the whole. On life’s vast ocean di­verse­ly we sail, Rea­son the card, but pas­sion is the gale; Nor God alone in the still calm we find, He mounts the storm, and walks up­on the wind. Pas­sions, like el­ements, though born to fight, Yet, mixed and soft­ened, in his work unite: These, ’tis enough to tem­per and em­ploy; But what com­pos­es man, can man de­stroy? Suf­fice that Rea­son keep to Na­ture’s road, Sub­ject, com­pound them, fol­low her and God. Love, hope, and joy, fair plea­sure’s smil­ing train, Hate, fear, and grief, the fam­ily of pain, These mixed with art, and to due bounds con­fined, Make and main­tain the bal­ance of the mind; The lights and shades, whose well-​ac­cord­ed strife Gives all the strength and colour of our life. Plea­sures are ev­er in our hands or eyes; And when in act they cease, in prospect rise: Present to grasp, and fu­ture still to find, The whole em­ploy of body and of mind. All spread their charms, but charm not all alike; On dif­fer­ent sens­es dif­fer­ent ob­jects strike; Hence dif­fer­ent pas­sions more or less in­flame, As strong or weak, the or­gans of the frame; And hence once mas­ter pas­sion in the breast, Like Aaron’s ser­pent, swal­lows up the rest. As man, per­haps, the mo­ment of his breath Re­ceives the lurk­ing prin­ci­ple of death; The young dis­ease that must sub­due at length, Grows with his growth, and strength­ens with his strength: So, cast and min­gled with his very frame, The mind’s dis­ease, its rul­ing pas­sion came; Each vi­tal hu­mour which should feed the whole, Soon flows to this, in body and in soul: What­ev­er warms the heart, or fills the head, As the mind opens, and its func­tions spread, Imag­ina­tion plies her dan­ger­ous art, And pours it all up­on the pec­ca­nt part. Na­ture its moth­er, habit is its nurse; Wit, spir­it, fac­ul­ties, but make it worse; Rea­son it­self but gives it edge and pow­er; As Heav­en’s blest beam turns vine­gar more sour. We, wretched sub­jects, though to law­ful sway, In this weak queen some favourite still obey: Ah! if she lend not arms, as well as rules, What can she more than tell us we are fools? Teach us to mourn our na­ture, not to mend, A sharp ac­cus­er, but a help­less friend! Or from a judge turn plead­er, to per­suade The choice we make, or jus­ti­fy it made; Proud of an easy con­quest all along, She but re­moves weak pas­sions for the strong; So, when small hu­mours gath­er to a gout, The doc­tor fan­cies he has driv­en them out. Yes, Na­ture’s road must ev­er be pre­ferred; Rea­son is here no guide, but still a guard: ‘Tis hers to rec­ti­fy, not over­throw, And treat this pas­sion more as friend than foe: A might­ier pow­er the strong di­rec­tion sends, And sev­er­al men im­pels to sev­er­al ends: Like vary­ing winds, by oth­er pas­sions tossed, This drives them con­stant to a cer­tain coast. Let pow­er or knowl­edge, gold or glo­ry, please, Or (oft more strong than all) the love of ease; Through life ’tis fol­lowed, even at life’s ex­pense; The mer­chant’s toil, the sage’s in­do­lence, The monk’s hu­mil­ity, the hero’s pride, All, all alike, find rea­son on their side. The eter­nal art, educ­ing good from ill, Grafts on this pas­sion our best prin­ci­ple: ‘Tis thus the mer­cury of man is fixed, Strong grows the virtue with his na­ture mixed; The dross ce­ments what else were too re­fined, And in one in­ter­est body acts with mind. As fruits, un­grate­ful to the planter’s care, On sav­age stocks in­sert­ed, learn to bear; The surest virtues thus from pas­sions shoot, Wild na­ture’s vigour work­ing at the root. What crops of wit and hon­esty ap­pear From spleen, from ob­sti­na­cy, hate, or fear! See anger, zeal and for­ti­tude sup­ply; Even avarice, pru­dence; sloth, phi­los­ophy; Lust, through some cer­tain strain­ers well re­fined, Is gen­tle love, and charms all wom­ankind; En­vy, to which th’ ig­no­ble mind’s a slave, Is em­ula­tion in the learned or brave; Nor virtue, male or fe­male, can we name, But what will grow on pride, or grow on shame. Thus Na­ture gives us (let it check our pride) The virtue near­est to our vice al­lied: Rea­son the bias turns to good from ill And Nero reigns a Ti­tus, if he will. The fiery soul ab­horred in Cati­line, In De­cius charms, in Cur­tius is di­vine: The same am­bi­tion can de­stroy or save, And makes a pa­tri­ot as it makes a knave. This light and dark­ness in our chaos joined, What shall di­vide? The God with­in the mind. Ex­tremes in na­ture equal ends pro­duce, In man they join to some mys­te­ri­ous use; Though each by turns the oth­er’s bound in­vade, As, in some well-​wrought pic­ture, light and shade, And oft so mix, the dif­fer­ence is too nice Where ends the virtue or be­gins the vice. Fools! who from hence in­to the no­tion fall, That vice or virtue there is none at all. If white and black blend, soft­en, and unite A thou­sand ways, is there no black or white? Ask your own heart, and noth­ing is so plain; ‘Tis to mis­take them, costs the time and pain. Vice is a mon­ster of so fright­ful mien, As, to be hat­ed, needs but to be seen; Yet seen too oft, fa­mil­iar with her face, We first en­dure, then pity, then em­brace. But where th’ ex­treme of vice, was ne’er agreed: Ask where’s the north? at York, ’tis on the Tweed; In Scot­land, at the Or­cades; and there, At Green­land, Zem­bla, or the Lord knows where. No crea­ture owns it in the first de­gree, But thinks his neigh­bour far­ther gone than he; Even those who dwell be­neath its very zone, Or nev­er feel the rage, or nev­er own; What hap­pi­er na­tions shrink at with af­fright, The hard in­hab­itant con­tends is right. Vir­tu­ous and vi­cious ev­ery man must be, Few in th’ ex­treme, but all in the de­gree, The rogue and fool by fits is fair and wise; And even the best, by fits, what they de­spise. ‘Tis but by parts we fol­low good or ill; For, vice or virtue, self di­rects it still; Each in­di­vid­ual seeks a sev­er­al goal; But Heav­en’s great view is one, and that the whole. That counter-​works each fol­ly and caprice; That dis­ap­points th’ ef­fect of ev­ery vice; That, hap­py frail­ties to all ranks ap­plied, Shame to the vir­gin, to the ma­tron pride, Fear to the states­man, rash­ness to the chief, To kings pre­sump­tion, and to crowds be­lief: That, virtue’s ends from van­ity can raise, Which seeks no in­ter­est, no re­ward but praise; And build on wants, and on de­fects of mind, The joy, the peace, the glo­ry of mankind. Heav­en form­ing each on oth­er to de­pend, A mas­ter, or a ser­vant, or a friend, Bids each on oth­er for as­sis­tance call, Till one man’s weak­ness grows the strength of all. Wants, frail­ties, pas­sions, clos­er still al­ly The com­mon in­ter­est, or en­dear the tie. To these we owe true friend­ship, love sin­cere, Each home-​felt joy that life in­her­its here; Yet from the same we learn, in its de­cline, Those joys, those loves, those in­ter­ests to re­sign; Taught half by rea­son, half by mere de­cay, To wel­come death, and calm­ly pass away. Whate’er the pas­sion, knowl­edge, fame, or pelf, Not one will change his neigh­bour with him­self. The learned is hap­py na­ture to ex­plore, The fool is hap­py that he knows no more; The rich is hap­py in the plen­ty giv­en, The poor con­tents him with the care of Heav­en. See the blind beg­gar dance, the crip­ple sing, The sot a hero, lu­natic a king; The starv­ing chemist in his gold­en views Supreme­ly blest, the po­et in his muse. See some strange com­fort ev­ery state at­tend, And pride be­stowed on all, a com­mon friend; See some fit pas­sion ev­ery age sup­ply, Hope trav­els through, nor quits us when we die. Be­hold the child, by Na­ture’s kind­ly law, Pleased with a rat­tle, tick­led with a straw: Some live­li­er play­thing gives his youth de­light, A lit­tle loud­er, but as emp­ty quite: Scarves, garters, gold, amuse his riper stage, And beads and prayer-​books are the toys of age: Pleased with this bauble still, as that be­fore; Till tired he sleeps, and life’s poor play is o’er. Mean­while opin­ion gilds with vary­ing rays Those paint­ed clouds that beau­ti­fy our days; Each want of hap­pi­ness by hope sup­plied, And each vacu­ity of sense by pride: These build as fast as knowl­edge can de­stroy; In fol­ly’s cup still laughs the bub­ble, joy; One prospect lost, an­oth­er still we gain; And not a van­ity is giv­en in vain; Even mean self-​love be­comes, by force di­vine, The scale to mea­sure oth­ers’ wants by thine. See! and con­fess, one com­fort still must rise, ‘Tis this, though man’s a fool, yet God is wise.

AR­GU­MENT OF EPIS­TLE III.

OF THE NA­TURE AND STATE OF MAN WITH RE­SPECT TO SO­CI­ETY.

I. The whole Uni­verse one sys­tem of So­ci­ety, v.7, etc. Noth­ing made whol­ly for it­self, nor yet whol­ly for an­oth­er, v.27. The hap­pi­ness of An­imals mu­tu­al, v.49.

II. Rea­son or In­stinct op­er­ate alike to the good of each In­di­vid­ual, v.79. Rea­son or In­stinct op­er­ate al­so to So­ci­ety, in all An­imals, v.109.

III. How far So­ci­ety car­ried by In­stinct, v.115. How much far­ther by Rea­son, v.128.

IV. Of that which is called the State of Na­ture, v.144. Rea­son in­struct­ed by In­stinct in the in­ven­tion of Arts, v.166, and in the Forms of So­ci­ety, v.176.

V. Ori­gin of Po­lit­ical So­ci­eties, v.196. Ori­gin of Monar­chy, v.207. Pa­tri­ar­chal Gov­ern­ment, v.212.

VI. Ori­gin of true Re­li­gion and Gov­ern­ment, from the same prin­ci­ple, of Love, v.231, etc. Ori­gin of Su­per­sti­tion and Tyran­ny, from the same prin­ci­ple, of Fear, v.237, etc. The In­flu­ence of Self-​love op­er­at­ing to the so­cial and pub­lic Good, v.266. Restora­tion of true Re­li­gion and Gov­ern­ment on their first prin­ci­ple, v.285. Mixed Gov­ern­ment, v.288. Var­ious forms of each, and the true end of all, v.300, etc.

EPIS­TLE III.

Here, then, we rest: “The Uni­ver­sal Cause Acts to one end, but acts by var­ious laws.” In all the mad­ness of su­per­flu­ous health, The trim of pride, the im­pu­dence of wealth, Let this great truth be present night and day; But most be present, if we preach or pray. Look round our world; be­hold the chain of love Com­bin­ing all be­low and all above. See plas­tic Na­ture work­ing to this end, The sin­gle atoms each to oth­er tend, At­tract, at­tract­ed to, the next in place Formed and im­pelled its neigh­bour to em­brace. See mat­ter next, with var­ious life en­dued, Press to one cen­tre still, the gen­er­al good. See dy­ing veg­eta­bles life sus­tain, See life dis­solv­ing veg­etate again: All forms that per­ish oth­er forms sup­ply (By turns we catch the vi­tal breath, and die), Like bub­bles on the sea of mat­ter borne, They rise, they break, and to that sea re­turn. Noth­ing is for­eign: parts re­late to whole; One all-​ex­tend­ing, all-​pre­serv­ing soul Con­nects each be­ing, great­est with the least; Made beast in aid of man, and man of beast; All served, all serv­ing: noth­ing stands alone; The chain holds on, and where it ends, un­known. Has God, thou fool! worked sole­ly for thy Thy good, Thy joy, thy pas­time, thy at­tire, thy food? Who for thy ta­ble feeds the wan­ton fawn, For him as kind­ly spread the flow­ery lawn: Is it for thee the lark as­cends and sings? Joy tunes his voice, joy el­evates his wings. Is it for thee the lin­net pours his throat? Loves of his own and rap­tures swell the note. The bound­ing steed you pompous­ly be­stride, Shares with his lord the plea­sure and the pride. Is thine alone the seed that strews the plain? The birds of heav­en shall vin­di­cate their grain. Thine the full har­vest of the gold­en year? Part pays, and just­ly, the de­serv­ing steer: The hog, that ploughs not nor obeys thy call, Lives on the labours of this lord of all. Know, Na­ture’s chil­dren all di­vide her care; The fur that warms a monarch, warmed a bear. While man ex­claims, “See all things for my use!” “See man for mine!” replies a pam­pered goose: And just as short of rea­son he must fall, Who thinks all made for one, not one for all. Grant that the pow­er­ful still the weak con­trol; Be man the wit and tyrant of the whole: Na­ture that tyrant checks; he on­ly knows, And helps, an­oth­er crea­ture’s wants and woes. Say, will the fal­con, stoop­ing from above, Smit with her vary­ing plumage, spare the dove? Ad­mires the jay the in­sect’s gild­ed wings? Or hears the hawk when Philomela sings? Man cares for all: to birds he gives his woods, To beasts his pas­tures, and to fish his floods; For some his in­ter­est prompts him to pro­vide, For more his plea­sure, yet for more his pride: All feed on one vain pa­tron, and en­joy The ex­ten­sive bless­ing of his lux­ury. That very life his learned hunger craves, He saves from famine, from the sav­age saves; Nay, feasts the an­imal he dooms his feast, And, till he ends the be­ing, makes it blest; Which sees no more the stroke, or feels the pain, Than favoured man by touch ethe­re­al slain. The crea­ture had his feast of life be­fore; Thou too must per­ish when thy feast is o’er! To each un­think­ing be­ing, Heav­en, a friend, Gives not the use­less knowl­edge of its end: To man im­parts it; but with such a view As, while he dreads it, makes him hope it too; The hour con­cealed, and so re­mote the fear, Death still draws near­er, nev­er seem­ing near. Great stand­ing mir­acle! that Heav­en as­signed Its on­ly think­ing thing this turn of mind.

II. Whether with rea­son, or with in­stinct blest, Know, all en­joy that pow­er which suits them best; To bliss alike by that di­rec­tion tend, And find the means pro­por­tioned to their end. Say, where full in­stinct is the unerring guide, What pope or coun­cil can they need be­side? Rea­son, how­ev­er able, cool at best, Cares not for ser­vice, or but serves when pressed, Stays till we call, and then not of­ten near; But hon­est in­stinct comes a vol­un­teer, Sure nev­er to o’er-​shoot, but just to hit; While still too wide or short is hu­man wit; Sure by quick na­ture hap­pi­ness to gain, Which heav­ier rea­son labours at in vain, This too serves al­ways, rea­son nev­er long; One must go right, the oth­er may go wrong. See then the act­ing and com­par­ing pow­ers One in their na­ture, which are two in ours; And rea­son raise o’er in­stinct as you can, In this ’tis God di­rects, in that ’tis man. Who taught the na­tions of the field and wood To shun their poi­son, and to choose their food? Pre­scient, the tides or tem­pests to with­stand, Build on the wave, or arch be­neath the sand? Who made the spi­der par­al­lels de­sign, Sure as Demoivre, with­out rule or line? Who did the stork, Colum­bus-​like, ex­plore Heav­ens not his own, and worlds un­known be­fore? Who calls the coun­cil, states the cer­tain day, Who forms the pha­lanx, and who points the way?

III. God in the na­ture of each be­ing founds Its prop­er bliss, and sets its prop­er bounds: But as He framed a whole, the whole to bless, On mu­tu­al wants built mu­tu­al hap­pi­ness: So from the first, eter­nal or­der ran, And crea­ture linked to crea­ture, man to man. Whate’er of life all-​quick­en­ing ether keeps, Or breathes through air, or shoots be­neath the deeps, Or pours pro­fuse on earth, one na­ture feeds The vi­tal flame, and swells the ge­nial seeds. Not man alone, but all that roam the wood, Or wing the sky, or roll along the flood, Each loves it­self, but not it­self alone, Each sex de­sires alike, till two are one. Nor ends the plea­sure with the fierce em­brace; They love them­selves, a third time, in their race. Thus beast and bird their com­mon charge at­tend, The moth­ers nurse it, and the sires de­fend; The young dis­missed to wan­der earth or air, There stops the in­stinct, and there ends the care; The link dis­solves, each seeks a fresh em­brace, An­oth­er love suc­ceeds, an­oth­er race. A longer care man’s help­less kind de­mands; That longer care con­tracts more last­ing bands: Re­flec­tion, rea­son, still the ties im­prove, At once ex­tend the in­ter­est and the love; With choice we fix, with sym­pa­thy we burn; Each virtue in each pas­sion takes its turn; And still new needs, new helps, new habits rise. That graft benev­olence on char­ities. Still as one brood, and as an­oth­er rose, These nat­ural love main­tained, ha­bit­ual those. The last, scarce ripened in­to per­fect man, Saw help­less him from whom their life be­gan: Mem­ory and fore­cast just re­turns en­gage, That point­ed back to youth, this on to age; While plea­sure, grat­itude, and hope com­bined, Still spread the in­ter­est, and pre­served the kind.

IV. Nor think, in Na­ture’s state they blind­ly trod; The state of na­ture was the reign of God: Self-​love and so­cial at her birth be­gan, Union the bond of all things, and of man. Pride then was not; nor arts, that pride to aid; Man walked with beast, joint ten­ant of the shade; The same his ta­ble, and the same his bed; No mur­der clothed him, and no mur­der fed. In the same tem­ple, the re­sound­ing wood, All vo­cal be­ings hymned their equal God: The shrine with gore un­stained, with gold un­dressed, Un­bribed, un­bloody, stood the blame­less priest: Heav­en’s at­tribute was uni­ver­sal care, And man’s pre­rog­ative to rule, but spare. Ah! how un­like the man of times to come! Of half that live the butch­er and the tomb; Who, foe to na­ture, hears the gen­er­al groan, Mur­ders their species, and be­trays his own. But just dis­ease to lux­ury suc­ceeds, And ev­ery death its own avenger breeds; The fury-​pas­sions from that blood be­gan, And turned on man a fiercer sav­age, man. See him from Na­ture ris­ing slow to art! To copy in­stinct then was rea­son’s part; Thus then to man the voice of Na­ture spake– “Go, from the crea­tures thy in­struc­tions take: Learn from the birds what food the thick­ets yield; Learn from the beasts the physic of the field; Thy arts of build­ing from the bee re­ceive; Learn of the mole to plough, the worm to weave; Learn of the lit­tle nau­tilus to sail, Spread the thin oar, and catch the driv­ing gale. Here too all forms of so­cial union find, And hence let rea­son, late, in­struct mankind: Here sub­ter­ranean works and cities see; There towns aeri­al on the wav­ing tree. Learn each small peo­ple’s ge­nius, poli­cies, The ant’s re­pub­lic, and the realm of bees; How those in com­mon all their wealth be­stow, And an­ar­chy with­out con­fu­sion know; And these for ev­er, though a monarch reign, Their sep­arate cells and prop­er­ties main­tain. Mark what un­var­ied laws pre­serve each state, Laws wise as na­ture, and as fixed as fate. In vain thy rea­son fin­er webs shall draw, En­tan­gle jus­tice in her net of law, And right, too rigid, hard­en in­to wrong; Still for the strong too weak, the weak too strong. Yet go! and thus o’er all the crea­tures sway, Thus let the wis­er make the rest obey; And, for those arts mere in­stinct could af­ford, Be crowned as monar­chs, or as gods adored.”

V. Great Na­ture spoke; ob­ser­vant men obeyed; Cities were built, so­ci­eties were made: Here rose one lit­tle state: an­oth­er near Grew by like means, and joined, through love or fear. Did here the trees with rud­di­er bur­dens bend, And there the streams in pur­er rills de­scend? What war could rav­ish, com­merce could be­stow, And he re­turned a friend, who came a foe. Con­verse and love mankind might strong­ly draw, When love was lib­er­ty, and Na­ture law. Thus States were formed; the name of king un­known, ‘Till com­mon in­ter­est placed the sway in one. ‘Twas virtue on­ly (or in arts or arms, Dif­fus­ing bless­ings, or avert­ing harms) The same which in a sire the sons obeyed, A prince the fa­ther of a peo­ple made.

VI. Till then, by Na­ture crowned, each pa­tri­arch sate, King, priest, and par­ent of his grow­ing state; On him, their sec­ond prov­idence, they hung, Their law his eye, their or­acle his tongue. He from the won­der­ing fur­row called the food, Taught to com­mand the fire, con­trol the flood, Draw forth the mon­sters of the abyss pro­found, Or fetch the aeri­al ea­gle to the ground. Till droop­ing, sick­en­ing, dy­ing they be­gan Whom they revered as God to mourn as man: Then, look­ing up, from sire to sire, ex­plored One great first Fa­ther, and that first adored. Or plain tra­di­tion that this all be­gun, Con­veyed un­bro­ken faith from sire to son; The work­er from the work dis­tinct was known, And sim­ple rea­son nev­er sought but one: Ere wit oblique had broke that steady light, Man, like his Mak­er, saw that all was right; To virtue, in the paths of plea­sure, trod, And owned a Fa­ther when he owned a God. Love all the faith, and all the al­le­giance then; For Na­ture knew no right di­vine in men, No ill could fear in God; and un­der­stood A sovereign be­ing but a sovereign good. True faith, true pol­icy, unit­ed ran, This was but love of God, and this of man. Who first taught souls en­slaved, and realms un­done, The enor­mous faith of many made for one; That proud ex­cep­tion to all Na­ture’s laws, To in­vert the world, and counter-​work its cause? Force first made con­quest, and that con­quest, law; Till su­per­sti­tion taught the tyrant awe, Then shared the tyran­ny, then lent it aid, And gods of con­querors, slaves of sub­jects made: She, ‘midst the light­ning’s blaze, and thun­der’s sound, When rocked the moun­tains, and when groaned the ground, She taught the weak to bend, the proud to pray, To pow­er un­seen, and might­ier far than they: She, from the rend­ing earth and burst­ing skies, Saw gods de­scend, and fiends in­fer­nal rise: Here fixed the dread­ful, there the blest abodes; Fear made her dev­ils, and weak hope her gods; Gods par­tial, change­ful, pas­sion­ate, un­just, Whose at­tributes were rage, re­venge, or lust; Such as the souls of cow­ards might con­ceive, And, formed like tyrants, tyrants would be­lieve. Zeal then, not char­ity, be­came the guide; And hell was built on spite, and heav­en on pride, Then sa­cred seemed the ethe­re­al vault no more; Al­tars grew mar­ble then, and reeked with gore; Then first the fla­men tast­ed liv­ing food; Next his grim idol smeared with hu­man blood; With heav­en’s own thun­ders shook the world be­low, And played the god an en­gine on his foe. So drives self-​love, through just and through un­just, To one man’s pow­er, am­bi­tion, lu­cre, lust: The same self-​love, in all, be­comes the cause Of what re­strains him, gov­ern­ment and laws. For, what one likes if oth­ers like as well, What serves one will when many wills rebel? How shall he keep, what, sleep­ing or awake, A weak­er may sur­prise, a stronger take? His safe­ty must his lib­er­ty re­strain: All join to guard what each de­sires to gain. Forced in­to virtue thus by self-​de­fence, Even kings learned jus­tice and benev­olence: Self-​love for­sook the path it first pur­sued, And found the pri­vate in the pub­lic good. ‘Twas then, the stu­dious head or gen­er­ous mind, Fol­low­er of God, or friend of hu­man-​kind, Po­et or pa­tri­ot, rose but to re­store The faith and moral Na­ture gave be­fore; Re-​lumed her an­cient light, not kin­dled new; If not God’s im­age, yet His shad­ow drew: Taught pow­er’s due use to peo­ple and to kings, Taught nor to slack, nor strain its ten­der strings, The less, or greater, set so just­ly true, That touch­ing one must strike the oth­er too; Till jar­ring in­ter­ests, of them­selves cre­ate The ac­cord­ing mu­sic of a well-​mixed state. Such is the world’s great har­mo­ny, that springs From or­der, union, full con­sent of things: Where small and great, where weak and mighty, made To serve, not suf­fer, strength­en, not in­vade; More pow­er­ful each as need­ful to the rest, And, in pro­por­tion as it bless­es, blest; Draw to one point, and to one cen­tre bring Beast, man, or an­gel, ser­vant, lord, or king. For forms of gov­ern­ment let fools con­test; Whate’er is best ad­min­is­tered is best: For modes of faith let grace­less zealots fight; His can’t be wrong whose life is in the right: In faith and hope the world will dis­agree, But all mankind’s con­cern is char­ity: All must be false that thwart this one great end; And all of God, that bless mankind or mend. Man, like the gen­er­ous vine, sup­port­ed lives; The strength he gains is from the em­brace he gives. On their own ax­is as the plan­ets run, Yet make at once their cir­cle round the sun; So two con­sis­tent mo­tions act the soul; And one re­gards it­self, and one the whole. Thus God and Na­ture linked the gen­er­al frame, And bade self-​love and so­cial be the same.

AR­GU­MENT OF EPIS­TLE IV.

OF THE NA­TURE AND STATE OF MAN WITH RE­SPECT TO HAP­PI­NESS.

I. False No­tions of Hap­pi­ness, Philo­soph­ical and Pop­ular, an­swered from v.19 to 77.

II. It is the End of all Men, and at­tain­able by all, v.30. God in­tends Hap­pi­ness to be equal; and to be so, it must be so­cial, since all par­tic­ular Hap­pi­ness de­pends on gen­er­al, and since He gov­erns by gen­er­al, not par­tic­ular Laws, v.37. As it is nec­es­sary for Or­der, and the peace and wel­fare of So­ci­ety, that ex­ter­nal goods should be un­equal, Hap­pi­ness is not made to con­sist in these, v.51. But, notwith­stand­ing that in­equal­ity, the bal­ance of Hap­pi­ness among Mankind is kept even by Prov­idence, by the two Pas­sions of Hope and Fear, v.70.

III. What the Hap­pi­ness of In­di­vid­uals is, as far as is con­sis­tent with the con­sti­tu­tion of this world; and that the good Man has here the ad­van­tage, V.77. The er­ror of im­put­ing to Virtue what are on­ly the calami­ties of Na­ture or of For­tune, v.94.

IV. The fol­ly of ex­pect­ing that God should al­ter His gen­er­al Laws in favour of par­tic­ulars, v.121.

V. That we are not judges who are good; but that, who­ev­er they are, they must be hap­pi­est, v.133, etc.

VI. That ex­ter­nal goods are not the prop­er re­wards, but of­ten in­con­sis­tent with, or de­struc­tive of Virtue, v.165. That even these can make no Man hap­py with­out Virtue: In­stanced in Rich­es, v.183. Hon­ours, v.191. No­bil­ity, v.203. Great­ness, v.215. Fame, v.235. Su­pe­ri­or Tal­ents, v.257, etc. With pic­tures of hu­man In­fe­lic­ity in Men pos­sessed of them all, v.267, etc.

VII. That Virtue on­ly con­sti­tutes a Hap­pi­ness, whose ob­ject is uni­ver­sal, and whose prospect eter­nal, v.307, etc. That the per­fec­tion of Virtue and Hap­pi­ness con­sists in a con­for­mi­ty to the Or­der of Prov­idence here, and a Res­ig­na­tion to it here and here­after, v.326, etc.

EPIS­TLE IV.

Oh, hap­pi­ness, our be­ing’s end and aim! Good, plea­sure, ease, con­tent! whate’er thy name: That some­thing still which prompts the eter­nal sigh, For which we bear to live, or dare to die, Which still so near us, yet be­yond us lies, O’er­looked, seen dou­ble, by the fool, and wise. Plant of ce­les­tial seed! if dropped be­low, Say, in what mor­tal soil thou deign’st to grow? Fair open­ing to some Court’s pro­pi­tious shine, Or deep with di­amonds in the flam­ing mine? Twined with the wreaths Par­nas­sian lau­rels yield, Or reaped in iron har­vests of the field? Where grows?–where grows it not? If vain our toil, We ought to blame the cul­ture, not the soil: Fixed to no spot is hap­pi­ness sin­cere, ‘Tis nowhere to be found, or ev­ery­where; ‘Tis nev­er to be bought, but al­ways free, And fled from monar­chs, St. John! dwells with thee. Ask of the learned the way? The learned are blind; This bids to serve, and that to shun mankind; Some place the bliss in ac­tion, some in ease, Those call it plea­sure, and con­tent­ment these; Some, sunk to beasts, find plea­sure end in pain; Some, swelled to gods, con­fess even virtue vain; Or in­do­lent, to each ex­treme they fall, To trust in ev­ery­thing, or doubt of all. Who thus de­fine it, say they more or less Than this, that hap­pi­ness is hap­pi­ness? Take Na­ture’s path, and mad opin­ions leave; All states can reach it, and all heads con­ceive; Ob­vi­ous her goods, in no ex­treme they dwell; There needs but think­ing right, and mean­ing well; And mourn our var­ious por­tions as we please, Equal is com­mon sense, and com­mon ease. Re­mem­ber, man, “the Uni­ver­sal Cause Acts not by par­tial, but by gen­er­al laws;” And makes what hap­pi­ness we just­ly call Sub­sist not in the good of one, but all. There’s not a bless­ing in­di­vid­uals find, But some way leans and hear­kens to the kind: No ban­dit fierce, no tyrant mad with pride, No cav­erned her­mit, rests self-​sat­is­fied: Who most to shun or hate mankind pre­tend, Seek an ad­mir­er, or would fix a friend: Ab­stract what oth­ers feel, what oth­ers think, All plea­sures sick­en, and all glo­ries sink: Each has his share; and who would more ob­tain, Shall find, the plea­sure pays not half the pain. Or­der is Heav­en’s first law; and this con­fest, Some are, and must be, greater than the rest, More rich, more wise; but who in­fers from hence That such are hap­pi­er, shocks all com­mon sense. Heav­en to mankind im­par­tial we con­fess, If all are equal in their hap­pi­ness: But mu­tu­al wants this hap­pi­ness in­crease; All Na­ture’s dif­fer­ence keeps all Na­ture’s peace. Con­di­tion, cir­cum­stance is not the thing; Bliss is the same in sub­ject or in king, In who ob­tain de­fence, or who de­fend, In him who is, or him who finds a friend: Heav­en breathes through ev­ery mem­ber of the whole One com­mon bless­ing, as one com­mon soul. But for­tune’s gifts if each alike pos­sessed, And each were equal, must not all con­test? If then to all men hap­pi­ness was meant, God in ex­ter­nals could not place con­tent. For­tune her gifts may var­ious­ly dis­pose, And these be hap­py called, un­hap­py those; But Heav­en’s just bal­ance equal will ap­pear, While those are placed in hope, and these in fear: Nor present good or ill, the joy or curse, But fu­ture views of bet­ter or of worse, Oh, sons of earth! at­tempt ye still to rise, By moun­tains piled on moun­tains, to the skies, Heav­en still with laugh­ter the vain toil sur­veys, And buries mad­men in the heaps they raise. Know, all the good that in­di­vid­uals find, Or God and Na­ture meant to mere mankind, Rea­son’s whole plea­sure, all the joys of sense, Lie in three words, health, peace, and com­pe­tence. But health con­sists with tem­per­ance alone; And peace, oh, virtue! peace is all thy own. The good or bad the gifts of for­tune gain; But these less taste them, as they worse ob­tain. Say, in pur­suit of prof­it or de­light, Who risk the most, that take wrong means, or right; Of vice or virtue, whether blessed or cursed, Which meets con­tempt, or which com­pas­sion first? Count all the ad­van­tage pros­per­ous vice at­tains, ‘Tis but what virtue flies from and dis­dains: And grant the bad what hap­pi­ness they would, One they must want, which is, to pass for good. Oh, blind to truth, and God’s whole scheme be­low, Who fan­cy bliss to vice, to virtue woe! Who sees and fol­lows that great scheme the best, Best knows the bless­ing, and will most be blest. But fools the good alone un­hap­py call, For ills or ac­ci­dents that chance to all. See Falk­land dies, the vir­tu­ous and the just! See god-​like Turenne pros­trate on the dust! See Sid­ney bleeds amid the mar­tial strife! Was this their virtue, or con­tempt of life? Say, was it virtue, more though Heav­en ne’er gave, Lament­ed Dig­by! sunk thee to the grave? Tell me, if virtue made the son ex­pire, Why, full of days and hon­our, lives the sire? Why drew Mar­seilles’ good bish­op pur­er breath, When Na­ture sick­ened, and each gale was death? Or why so long (in life if long can be) Lent Heav­en a par­ent to the poor and me? What makes all phys­ical or moral ill? There de­vi­ates Na­ture, and here wan­ders will. God sends not ill; if right­ly un­der­stood, Or par­tial ill is uni­ver­sal good, Or change ad­mits, or Na­ture lets it fall; Short, and but rare, till man im­proved it all. We just as wise­ly might of Heav­en com­plain That righ­teous Abel was de­stroyed by Cain, As that the vir­tu­ous son is ill at ease When his lewd fa­ther gave the dire dis­ease. Think we, like some weak prince, the Eter­nal Cause Prone for His favourites to re­verse His laws? Shall burn­ing Et­na, if a sage re­quires, For­get to thun­der, and re­call her fires? On air or sea new mo­tions be im­prest, Oh, blame­less Bethel! to re­lieve thy breast? When the loose moun­tain trem­bles from on high, Shall grav­ita­tion cease, if you go by? Or some old tem­ple, nod­ding to its fall, For Chartres’ head re­serve the hang­ing wall? But still this world (so fit­ted for the knave) Con­tents us not. A bet­ter shall we have? A king­dom of the just then let it be: But first con­sid­er how those just agree. The good must mer­it God’s pe­cu­liar care: But who, but God, can tell us who they are? One thinks on Calvin Heav­en’s own spir­it fell; An­oth­er deems him in­stru­ment of hell; If Calvin feel Heav­en’s bless­ing, or its rod. This cries there is, and that, there is no God. What shocks one part will ed­ify the rest, Nor with one sys­tem can they all be blest. The very best will var­ious­ly in­cline, And what re­wards your virtue, pun­ish mine. What­ev­er is, is right. This world, ’tis true, Was made for Cae­sar–but for Ti­tus too: And which more blest? who chained his coun­try, say, Or he whose virtue sighed to lose a day? “But some­times virtue starves, while vice is fed.” What then? Is the re­ward of virtue bread? That, vice may mer­it, ’tis the price of toil; The knave de­serves it, when he tills the soil, The knave de­serves it, when he tempts the main, Where fol­ly fights for kings, or dives for gain. The good man may be weak, be in­do­lent; Nor is his claim to plen­ty, but con­tent. But grant him rich­es, your de­mand is o’er? “No–shall the good want health, the good want pow­er?” Add health, and pow­er, and ev­ery earth­ly thing, “Why bound­ed pow­er? why pri­vate? why no king?” Nay, why ex­ter­nal for in­ter­nal giv­en? Why is not man a god, and earth a heav­en? Who ask and rea­son thus, will scarce con­ceive God gives enough, while He has more to give: Im­mense the pow­er, im­mense were the de­mand; Say, at what part of na­ture will they stand? What noth­ing earth­ly gives, or can de­stroy, The soul’s calm sun­shine, and the heart­felt joy, Is virtue’s prize: A bet­ter would you fix? Then give hu­mil­ity a coach and six, Jus­tice a con­queror’s sword, or truth a gown, Or pub­lic spir­it its great cure, a crown. Weak, fool­ish man! will heav­en re­ward us there With the same trash mad mor­tals wish for here? The boy and man an in­di­vid­ual makes, Yet sigh­est thou now for ap­ples and for cakes? Go, like the In­di­an, in an­oth­er life Ex­pect thy dog, thy bot­tle, and thy wife: As well as dream such tri­fles are as­signed, As toys and em­pires, for a God-​like mind. Re­wards, that ei­ther would to virtue bring No joy, or be de­struc­tive of the thing: How oft by these at six­ty are un­done The virtues of a saint at twen­ty-​one! To whom can rich­es give re­pute or trust, Con­tent, or plea­sure, but the good and just? Judges and sen­ates have been bought for gold, Es­teem and love were nev­er to be sold. Oh, fool! to think God hates the wor­thy mind, The lover and the love of hu­man kind, Whose life is health­ful, and whose con­science clear, Be­cause he wants a thou­sand pounds a year. Hon­our and shame from no con­di­tion rise; Act well your part, there all the hon­our lies. For­tune in men has some small dif­fer­ence made, One flaunts in rags, one flut­ters in bro­cade; The cob­bler aproned, and the par­son gowned, The fri­ar hood­ed, and the monarch crowned, “What dif­fer more (you cry) than crown and cowl?” I’ll tell you, friend! a wise man and a fool. You’ll find, if once the monarch acts the monk, Or, cob­bler-​like, the par­son will be drunk, Worth makes the man, and want of it, the fel­low; The rest is all but leather or prunel­la. Stuck o’er with ti­tles and hung round with strings, That thou mayest be by kings, or wh***s of kings. Boast the pure blood of an il­lus­tri­ous race, In qui­et flow from Lu­crece to Lu­crece; But by your fa­thers’ worth if yours you rate, Count me those on­ly who were good and great. Go! if your an­cient, but ig­no­ble blood Has crept through scoundrels ev­er since the flood, Go! and pre­tend your fam­ily is young; Nor own, your fa­thers have been fools so long. What can en­no­ble sots, or slaves, or cow­ards? Alas! not all the blood of all the Howards. Look next on great­ness; say where great­ness lies? “Where, but among the heroes and the wise?” Heroes are much the same, the points agreed, From Mace­do­nia’s mad­man to the Swede; The whole strange pur­pose of their lives, to find Or make, an en­emy of all mankind? Not one looks back­ward, on­ward still he goes, Yet ne’er looks for­ward far­ther than his nose. No less alike the politic and wise; All sly slow things, with cir­cum­spec­tive eyes; Men in their loose un­guard­ed hours they take, Not that them­selves are wise, but oth­ers weak. But grant that those can con­quer, these can cheat; ‘Tis phrase ab­surd to call a vil­lain great: Who wicked­ly is wise, or mad­ly brave, Is but the more a fool, the more a knave. Who no­ble ends by no­ble means ob­tains, Or fail­ing, smiles in ex­ile or in chains, Like good Au­re­lius let him reign, or bleed Like Socrates, that man is great in­deed. What’s fame? a fan­cied life in oth­ers’ breath, A thing be­yond us, even be­fore our death. Just what you hear, you have, and what’s un­known The same (my Lord) if Tul­ly’s, or your own. All that we feel of it be­gins and ends In the small cir­cle of our foes or friends; To all be­side as much an emp­ty shade An Eu­gene liv­ing, as a Cae­sar dead; Alike or when, or where, they shone, or shine, Or on the Ru­bi­con, or on the Rhine. A wit’s a feath­er, and a chief a rod; An hon­est man’s the no­blest work of God. Fame but from death a vil­lain’s name can save, As jus­tice tears his body from the grave; When what the obliv­ion bet­ter were re­signed, Is hung on high, to poi­son half mankind. All fame is for­eign, but of true desert; Plays round the head, but comes not to the heart: One self-​ap­prov­ing hour whole years out­weighs Of stupid star­ers, and of loud huz­zas; And more true joy Mar­cel­lus ex­iled feels, Than Cae­sar with a sen­ate at his heels. In parts su­pe­ri­or what ad­van­tage lies? Tell (for you can) what is it to be wise? ‘Tis but to know how lit­tle can be known; To see all oth­ers’ faults, and feel our own; Con­demned in busi­ness or in arts to drudge, With­out a sec­ond or with­out a judge; Truths would you teach or save a sink­ing land, All fear, none aid you, and few un­der­stand. Painful pre-​em­inence! your­self to view Above life’s weak­ness, and its com­forts too. Bring, then, these bless­ings to a strict ac­count; Make fair de­duc­tions; see to what they mount; How much of oth­er each is sure to cost; How each for oth­er oft is whol­ly lost; How in­con­sis­tent greater goods with these; How some­times life is risked, and al­ways ease; Think, and if still the things thy en­vy call, Say, would’st thou be the man to whom they fall? To sigh for ribands if thou art so sil­ly, Mark how they grace Lord Um­bra, or Sir Bil­ly: Is yel­low dirt the pas­sion of thy life? Look but on Gri­pus, or on Gri­pus’ wife; If parts al­lure thee, think how Ba­con shined, The wis­est, bright­est, mean­est of mankind: Or rav­ished with the whistling of a name, See Cromwell; damned to ev­er­last­ing fame! If all, unit­ed, thy am­bi­tion call, From an­cient sto­ry learn to scorn them all. There, in the rich, the hon­oured, famed, and great, See the false scale of hap­pi­ness com­plete! In hearts of kings, or arms of queens who lay, How hap­py! those to ru­in, these be­tray. Mark by what wretched steps their glo­ry grows, From dirt and sea­weed as proud Venice rose; In each how guilt and great­ness equal ran, And all that raised the hero, sunk the man: Now Eu­rope’s lau­rels on their brows be­hold, But stained with blood, or ill ex­changed for gold; Then see them broke with toils or sunk with ease, Or in­fa­mous for plun­dered provinces. Oh, wealth ill-​fat­ed! which no act of fame E’er taught to shine, or sanc­ti­fied from shame; What greater bliss at­tends their close of life? Some greedy min­ion, or im­pe­ri­ous wife. The tro­phied arch­es, storeyed halls in­vade And haunt their slum­bers in the pompous shade. Alas! not daz­zled with their noon­tide ray, Com­pute the morn and evening to the day; The whole amount of that enor­mous fame, A tale, that blends their glo­ry with their shame; Know, then, this truth (enough for man to know) “Virtue alone is hap­pi­ness be­low.” The on­ly point where hu­man bliss stands still, And tastes the good with­out the fall to ill; Where on­ly mer­it con­stant pay re­ceives, Is blest in what it takes, and what it gives; The joy un­equalled, if its end it gain, And if it lose, at­tend­ed with no pain; With­out sati­ety, though e’er so blessed, And but more rel­ished as the more dis­tressed: The broad­est mirth un­feel­ing fol­ly wears, Less pleas­ing far than virtue’s very tears: Good, from each ob­ject, from each place ac­quired For ev­er ex­er­cised, yet nev­er tired; Nev­er elat­ed, while one man’s op­pressed; Nev­er de­ject­ed while an­oth­er’s blessed; And where no wants, no wish­es can re­main, Since but to wish more virtue, is to gain. See the sole bliss Heav­en could on all be­stow! Which who but feels can taste, but thinks can know: Yet poor with for­tune, and with learn­ing blind, The bad must miss; the good, un­taught, will find; Slave to no sect, who takes no pri­vate road, But looks through Na­ture up to Na­ture’s God; Pur­sues that chain which links the im­mense de­sign, Joins heav­en and earth, and mor­tal and di­vine; Sees, that no be­ing any bliss can know, But touch­es some above, and some be­low; Learns, from this union of the ris­ing whole, The first, last pur­pose of the hu­man soul; And knows, where faith, law, morals, all be­gan, All end, in love of God, and love of man. For Him alone, hope leads from goal to goal, And opens still, and opens on his soul! Till length­ened on to faith, and un­con­fined, It pours the bliss that fills up all the mind He sees, why Na­ture plants in man alone Hope of known bliss, and faith in bliss un­known: (Na­ture, whose dic­tates to no oth­er kind Are giv­en in vain, but what they seek they find) Wise is her present; she con­nects in this His great­est virtue with his great­est bliss; At once his own bright prospect to be blest, And strongest mo­tive to as­sist the rest. Self-​love thus pushed to so­cial, to di­vine, Gives thee to make thy neigh­bour’s bless­ing thine. Is this too lit­tle for the bound­less heart? Ex­tend it, let thy en­emies have part: Grasp the whole worlds of rea­son, life, and sense, In one close sys­tem of benev­olence: Hap­pi­er as kinder, in whate’er de­gree, And height of bliss but height of char­ity. God loves from whole to parts: but hu­man soul Must rise from in­di­vid­ual to the whole. Self-​love but serves the vir­tu­ous mind to wake, As the small peb­ble stirs the peace­ful lake! The cen­tre moved, a cir­cle straight suc­ceeds, An­oth­er still, and still an­oth­er spreads; Friend, par­ent, neigh­bour, first it will em­brace; His coun­try next; and next all hu­man race; Wide and more wide, the o’er­flow­ings of the mind Take ev­ery crea­ture in, of ev­ery kind; Earth smiles around, with bound­less boun­ty blest, And Heav­en be­holds its im­age in his breast. Come, then, my friend! my ge­nius! come along; Oh, mas­ter of the po­et, and the song! And while the muse now stoops, or now as­cends, To man’s low pas­sions, or their glo­ri­ous ends, Teach me, like thee, in var­ious na­ture wise, To fall with dig­ni­ty, with tem­per rise; Formed by thy con­verse, hap­pi­ly to steer From grave to gay, from live­ly to se­vere; Cor­rect with spir­it, elo­quent with ease, In­tent to rea­son, or po­lite to please. Oh! while along the stream of time thy name Ex­pand­ed flies, and gath­ers all its fame, Say, shall my lit­tle bark at­ten­dant sail, Pur­sue the tri­umph, and par­take the gale? When states­men, heroes, kings, in dust re­pose, Whose sons shall blush their fa­thers were thy foes, Shall then this verse to fu­ture age pre­tend Thou wert my guide, philoso­pher, and friend? That urged by thee, I turned the tune­ful art From sounds to things, from fan­cy to the heart; From wit’s false mir­ror held up Na­ture’s light; Showed erring pride, what­ev­er is, is right; That rea­son, pas­sion, an­swer one great aim; That true self-​love and so­cial are the same; That virtue on­ly makes our bliss be­low; And all our knowl­edge is, our­selves to know.

THE UNI­VER­SAL PRAYER.

DEO OPT. MAX.

Fa­ther of all! in ev­ery age, In ev­ery clime adored, By saint, by sav­age, and by sage, Je­ho­vah, Jove, or Lord!

Thou Great First Cause, least un­der­stood, Who all my sense con­fined To know but this, that Thou art good, And that my­self am blind;

Yet gave me, in this dark es­tate, To see the good from ill; And bind­ing Na­ture fast in fate, Left free the hu­man will.

What con­science dic­tates to be done, Or warns me not to do, This, teach me more than Hell to shun, That, more than Heav­en pur­sue.

What bless­ings Thy free boun­ty gives, Let me not cast away; For God is paid when man re­ceives, To en­joy is to obey.

Yet not to earth’s con­tract­ed span Thy good­ness let me bound, Or think Thee Lord alone of man, When thou­sand worlds are round:

Let not this weak, un­know­ing hand Pre­sume Thy bolts to throw, And deal damna­tion round the land, On each I judge Thy foe.

If I am right, Thy grace im­part, Still in the right to stay; If I am wrong, oh, teach my heart To find that bet­ter way.

Save me alike from fool­ish pride, Or im­pi­ous dis­con­tent, At aught Thy wis­dom has de­nied, Or aught Thy good­ness lent.

Teach me to feel an­oth­er’s woe, To hide the fault I see; That mer­cy I to oth­ers show, That mer­cy show to me.

Mean though I am, not whol­ly so, Since quick­ened by Thy breath; Oh, lead me where­soe’er I go, Through this day’s life or death.

This day, be bread and peace my lot: All else be­neath the sun, Thou know’st if best be­stowed or not; And let Thy will be done.

To Thee, whose tem­ple is all space, Whose al­tar earth, sea, skies, One cho­rus let all be­ing raise, All Na­ture’s in­cense rise!

MORAL ES­SAYS,

IN FOUR EPIS­TLES TO SEV­ER­AL PER­SONS.

Est bre­vi­tate opus, ut cur­rat sen­ten­tia, neu se Im­pe­di­at ver­bis las­sas on­er­an­tibus au­res: Et ser­mone opus est mo­do tristi, saepe jo­coso, De­fend­ente vicem mo­do Rhetoris atque Po­et­ae, In­ter­dum ur­bani, par­centis viribus, atque Ex­ten­uan­tis eas con­sul­to.–HOR. (Sat. I. X. 9-14.)