Note Q — Chapter IV
Reading edition
"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— Nature's 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." Essay on Man.