AN ESSAY ON MAN, IN FOUR EPISTLES (continued 3)
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De Quincey thought that the "formal exposure of Pope's hollow-heartedness" would be most profitably accomplished by laying open thoroughly the ethical argument of the Essay on Man. He declined the task as too long and polemical for an article in a journal, but he stated his views in general terms. He said that the poem "sinned chiefly by want of central principle, and by want therefore of all coherency amongst the separate thoughts." He objects that the sense will vary with the nature of the connecting links we supply, and he ascribes the opposite interpretations of Crousaz and Warburton to the ambiguity which leaves readers the choice of "a loyal or treasonable meaning."[932] He imputes the fault to the impossibility of completing the argument without spoiling the poetry, and to the superficial nature of Pope's studies, "if study we can call a style of reading so desultory as his." This vagrant habit of mind he attributes to "luxurious indolence." "The poet," he says, "fastidiously retreated from all that threatened labour. He fluttered among the flower-beds of literature or philosophy far more in the character of a libertine butterfly for casual enjoyment, than of a hard-working bee pursuing a premeditated purpose."[933] Indolence cannot justly be charged upon Pope. He plodded at his art with the steadiness of a man who follows a regular calling.[934] His ignorance of philosophy, his want of due preparation for his Essay, arose from defects of understanding, and not from a moral infirmity of will. He was self-educated, and had never penetrated in his youth by regular and sustained approaches to the heart of any difficult science. He skimmed literature to pick up sentiments which could be versified, and to learn attractive forms of composition. His mind took the set of his early habits, and he appears in manhood to have had no conception of philosophical thought, no glimmer of the combination of philosophical details into an integral design. His works abound in isolated ideas which are marked by sound sense, and side by side with them are many idle or extravagant notions, and glaring contradictions. The pieces were not struck off at a heat. They were built up slowly, composed patiently, and corrected repeatedly. He never spared pains, and the want of reflection his works discover was the fault of an intellect unconscious of its weaknesses. To him the disjointed bits of philosophy presented no gaps. He says in his "Design" that the system "was short yet not imperfect." He believed that the conciseness added to "the force as well as grace of his arguments," and that he had nowhere "sacrificed perspicuity to ornament, wandered from precision, or broken the chain of the reasoning." His love of fame would have prevented his sending forth knowingly a weak and fragmentary poem. His moral apathy did not therefore consist in the self-indulgent negligence which refuses to put itself to a strain. The moral offence was in another direction,—in the ambiguities which were intended to pass off the Essay for anti-christian with infidels, and for christian with believers, and which resulted in Pope's adoption of the first interpretation under Bolingbroke, and of the second under Warburton. The dereliction of principle was worse than De Quincey supposed. He has equally underrated the blots in the philosophy when he imagined that Pope erred only by omissions. The "chasms" in his ethics are trifling compared to the radical vice of his doctrines, and the repeated conflict of jarring systems. The "audacious dogmatism and insolent quibbles"[935] of Warburton would not have been needed in expanding an abbreviated argument. He had to distort the obvious meaning of Pope in order to produce a semblance of consistency, and he has still oftener left the language of the text without comment because it was beyond the power of shameless misinterpretation to effect an ostensible harmony.
The judgments on the Essay on Man have been very various. "It appears to me," says Voltaire, "the most beautiful, the most useful, the most sublime didactic poem that has ever been written in any language." He said on another occasion that Pope "carried the torch into the abyss of being, and that the art of poetry, sometimes frivolous, and sometimes divine, was in him useful to the human race."[936] Voltaire had a twofold reason for his admiration. As a hater of christianity he hailed in the Essay the championship of natural religion against revealed, and as an author he delighted in the rhymed philosophy which was the staple of his own prosaic verse. Marmontel joined in the praise of the poet, but formed a juster estimate of the moralist. "Pope has shown," he said, "how high poetry could soar on the wings of philosophy. But he had adopted a system which presented terrible difficulties, and in reply to the complaints of man on the misery of his condition he usually offers images for proofs, and abuse for reasons."[937] The censure is just. Pope loves to silence objections by vilifying mankind, and calling his adversaries impious, proud, and fools. Dugald Stewart agreed with Voltaire. "The Essay on Man," he says, "is the noblest specimen of philosophical poetry which our language affords; and, with the exception of a very few passages, contains a valuable summary of all that human reason has been able hitherto to advance in justification of the moral government of God."[938] The "few faulty passages" were subsequently specified by Stewart, and such is the power of sound to withdraw the mind from the sense that this able metaphysician overlooked the fundamental errors of the poem, albeit they contradicted his own ethical views. Hazlitt differs as much from Stewart as Marmontel did from Voltaire. "The Essay on Man," he tells us, "is not Pope's best work. All that he says, 'the very words and to the self-same tune,' would prove just as well that whatever is is wrong, as that whatever is is right."[939] The remark is but a slight exaggeration of the truth. The logic of assertion, and often of vituperative assertion, in which Pope abounded, is available for every system, and his admission that God is the instigator of evil was a fit foundation for a pessimist philosophy. De Quincey's opinion is the most unfavourable of all. "If the question," he says, "were asked, What ought to have been the best among Pope's poems? most people would answer, the Essay on Man. If the question were asked, What is the worst? all people of judgment would say, the Essay on Man. Whilst yet in its rudiments this poem claimed the first place by the promise of its subject; when finished, by the utter failure of its execution, it fell into the last."[940] "Execution" is used by De Quincey in its widest sense, and includes the philosophy of the Essay. This we have endeavoured to estimate, and have now to speak of the poetry.
"In my mind," says Lord Byron, writing of Pope, "the highest of all poetry is ethical poetry, as the highest of all earthly objects must be moral truth," and he adds that "ethical or didactic poetry requires more mind, more wisdom, more power" than all the "descriptions" of natural scenery that were ever penned, "and all the epics that ever were founded upon fields of battle."[941] To the assertion that ethical poets transcended all other poets in genius, Hazlitt answered, that the "mind, wisdom, and power" is displayed in the "philosophic invention," and as this "rests with the first author of a moral truth," or moral theory, a copyist is not great because he gives a metrical form to an ethical common-place. "The decalogue," he says, "as a practical prose composition, or as a body of moral laws and precepts, is of sufficient weight and authority, but we should not regard the putting of this into heroic verse as an effort of the highest poetry."[942] To the assertion that ethical poetry must take precedence of all other poetry, "because moral truth and moral conduct are of such vast and paramount concernment in human life," Hazlitt answered, that "it did not follow that they were the better for being put into rhyme." "This reasoning," he continues, "reminds us of the critic who said that the only poetry he knew of, good for anything, was the four lines beginning 'Thirty days hath September,' for that these were really of some use in finding out the number of days in the different months of the year. The rules of arithmetic are important in many respects, but we do not know that they are the fittest subjects of poetry."[943] The reply of Hazlitt is conclusive. Lord Byron had confounded the importance of facts with their fitness for poetry, the repetition of a truth with the genius which discovers it. He was "in a great passion," says De Quincey, "and wrote up Pope by way of writing down others," the others being Wordsworth, Southey, and Coleridge.[944] He had taken a false measure of his men. They were too strong in their own poetical convictions to be mortified by the absurdities of an intemperate rival.
The error of Byron was akin to the misconception of the office of didactic poems, which De Quincey exposed in his criticism on Pope's Essay on Man. "As a term of convenience," he says, "didactic may serve to discriminate one class of poetry, but didactic it cannot be in philosophic rigour without ceasing to be poetry." If the object of Armstrong had been to teach Medicine, of Dyer to produce a manual for shepherds and cloth manufacturers, of Philips to write a treatise for gardeners and makers of cider, he maintains that it would have been idiotcy to begin by putting on the fetters of metre. He remarks that a worse restriction is the necessity of omitting a vast variety of details, and capital sections of the subject, and that in the constant need to forego either poetry or instruction the poet never hesitates to abandon the instruction. The true object, he conceives, of a didactic poem is to bring out the "circumstances of beautiful form, feeling, incident, or any other interest" which lurk in didactic topics. The sentiment which the tutor neglects the poet evolves, and he introduces utilitarian knowledge for the sole purpose of eliciting an element distinct from its bare, prosaic utility.[945] This is the rational theory. In Pope's generation, and for some years afterwards, a different idea was widely prevalent. "The end of the didactic poem," says Marmontel, "is to instruct. It were to be wished that the principles of the most important arts should all be reduced to verse. It is thus that at the birth of letters all useful truths were consigned to memory. To bring back the didactic poem to its primitive utility ought to be the object of emulation to the poets of an age of light."[946] The system which Marmontel recommended for an age of light was only fitted for an age of darkness. The utility of a didactic work depends on its lucidity, its precision, and its fullness. The use is defeated if the instruction is fragmentary, incoherent, circuitous, and cumbrous. When men emerge from ignorance, and when knowledge begins to grow systematic and exact, the employment of verse for expounding arts, sciences, philosophy, and history becomes puerile and impotent. The moment they are brought under the dominion of the enlightened understanding the freedom of prose is essential to unfold them with clearness, completeness, and accuracy. The suggestion of Marmontel for restoring didactic poetry to its primitive use was the way to reduce it to imbecility. The events of English history are of greater moment than the cutting off Miss Fermor's curl, and an English history in verse would be "higher poetry" according to Byron, more "useful poetry" according to Marmontel, than the Rape of the Lock. In reality it would not be high or useful, poetry or history, but simply a folly. The didactic poets who had a truer comprehension of the nature of poetry, and who endeavoured to render the rules of an art or science subservient to poetic effect, have seldom succeeded. The inherent, prosaic element preponderated, and the Arts of Poetry, Criticism, Translating Verse, etc. are for the most part dreary compositions which afford as little delight as instruction.
Bolingbroke had right conceptions of the characteristics of didactic poetry, and he imparted his views to Pope. "Should the poet," he says, "make syllogisms in verse, or pursue a long process of reasoning in the didactic style, he would be sure to tire his reader on the whole, like Lucretius, though he reasoned better than the Roman, and put into some parts of his work the same poetical fire. He must contract, he may shadow, he has a right to omit whatever will not be cast in the poetic mould, and when he cannot instruct he may hope to please. In short, it seems to me, that the business of the philosopher is to dilate, to press, to prove, to convince, and that of the poet to hint, to touch his subject with short and spirited strokes, to warm the affections, and to speak to the heart."[947] Bolingbroke's theory of poetry was superior to his practical taste. He said that all Pope's writings were pre-eminent for "the happy association of great coolness of judgment with great heat of imagination." "Pope's Essay on Criticism," he says again, "was the work of his childhood almost; but is such a monument of good sense and poetry as no other, that I know, has raised in his riper years."[948] The man who could discover transcendent poetry in the Essay on Criticism, and great heat of imagination in all Pope's writings, could have had but a faint, diluted perception of the imaginative and poetic. His belief that the ethical philosophy of the Essay on Man could be brought under his law of didactic poetry was a fresh instance of his want of insight into the demands both of poetry and philosophy. A system of philosophy cannot be conveyed in elegant extracts. "Every part," says de Quincey, "depends upon every other part: in such a nexus of truths, to insulate is to annihilate. Severed from each other the parts lose their support, their coherence, their very meaning; you have no liberty to reject or choose." It was not enough for Pope to detail his system. He had to vindicate, and establish it. "In his theme," continues De Quincey, "everything is polemic; you move only through dispute, you prosper only by argument and never-ending controversy. There is not positively one capital proposition or doctrine about man, about his origin, his nature, his relations to God, or his prospects, but must be fought for with energy, watched at every turn with vigilance, and followed into endless mazes, not under the choice of the writer, but under the inexorable dictation of the argument. Here lay the impracticable dilemma for Pope's Essay on Man. To satisfy the demands of the subject was to defeat the objects of poetry. To evade the demands in the way that Pope has done, is to offer us a ruin for a palace." [949]
The poetry could not escape without injury. The philosophic pretensions Pope advanced at the outset compelled him to embark in prosaic arguments; the philosophy and the poetry were mutually destructive. Left to himself he would have kept to his "ethics in the Horatian way," to the sketches of character, and reflections upon human conduct, which constitute his Moral Essays. His "guide" dictated to him a more ambitious philosophy,—not the "divine philosophy which is musical as Apollo's lute,"[950] which touches tender feelings, and appeals to the intuitive moral emotions, but a hybrid philosophy too scholastic to move the heart, and too meagre and perplexed to satisfy the understanding.
The false scheme of embodying scientific philosophy in verse determined in advance the failure of the Essay on its poetic side. There might be passages of good poetry, but not a good poem. "The episodes in the Essay on Man," says Hazlitt, "the description of the poor Indian, and the lamb doomed to death, are all the unsophisticated reader ever remembers of that much talked of production."[951] The remark which Hazlitt employed to condemn the Essay, was used by Bowles in its favour. The ethics, in his eyes, were only the groundwork for poetical embroidery. "We hardly," he said, "think of the philosophy, whether it is good or bad," and he represented the reader hurried away by the finished and touching pictures of the Indian and the lamb, which are exceptions to the didactic tenor of the poem, and speak to the sympathies of mankind. Hazlitt's application of the criticism was correct, and the eulogy, or apology, put forward by Bowles, was really censure. The happy episodes are but a fragment of the four epistles. The rest is designed for philosophical reasoning, and if we hardly think of the philosophy, there is little left except sound. The philosophy is not dimmed by the blaze of poetry. There is no splendour of imagery, no brilliancy of idea to overshadow the argument, and the sole reason the philosophy fails to take hold of the mind is because it is vague and disconnected, because the whole, as De Quincey says, "is the realisation of anarchy."[952] The want of philosophic unity might have been largely compensated by the personal unity of strong conviction; the earnest faith and feelings of the man might have stood in the place of the scientific completeness of the subject. In nothing was Pope more deficient. For personal convictions he substituted any discordant notion which he fancied would look well in verse, and the Essay is no more bound together by the pervading spirit of individual sentiment than by logical connection. The languid inattention which the poem invites is seen in the statement of Bowles that there is "a nice precision in every word." No one could attempt to get at Pope's meaning without being frequently tormented by the difficulty, and sometimes the impossibility, of interpreting his lax, indeterminate language. "Hardly thinking of the philosophy," Bowles did not observe that there was often a lamentable want of precision in Pope's conceptions, and when these are misty and confused, the expression of them cannot be rigorous and definite. Loose and ambiguous phraseology was not the only fault of style. The use of inversions, and of unlicensed, elliptical modes of speech, was a cardinal blemish in Pope's poetry. The failing reached its height in the Essay on Man. Many of the contortions are barbarous, and were enough of themselves to dispel the delusion that Pope was distinguished by correctness of composition. His grammatical faults, when not deliberate to force a rhyme, are comparatively venial. Such oversights are found in all authors, and proceed from inadvertence; they are little more than clerical errors. The deformities of vicious construction are of a different order. They arose from defect of literary power, from the incapacity to reconcile the requirements of verse with the rules of English. The maimed and distorted language obscures the sense, destroys or debases the poetry, and lessens the general impression of his genius. The Essay was altogether a mistake. A slip from a neighbour's tree was planted in an uncongenial soil, and the cultivation bestowed upon it produced little more than feeble rootlets, and sickly shoots.
M. Taine asserts that from the Restoration to the French Revolution, from Waller to Johnson, from Hobbes and Temple to Robertson and Hume, all our literature, both prose and verse, bears the impress of classic art. The mode, he says, culminated in the reign of Queen Anne, and Pope, he considers, was the extreme example of it. The characteristics which M. Taine ascribes to the classic era are, in the matter, common-place truths, and, in the manner, a style finished and artificial,—noble language, oratorical pomp, and studied correctness. Poetry ceased to be inventive; the very composition is uniform, and the obvious or borrowed thoughts are all cast in one mould. Verse is nothing more than cold, rational prose, a species of superior conversation measured off into lengths, and fringed with rhyme; the form predominates over the matter; the ostentatious exterior is the mask to impoverished, colourless ideas.[953] The habit of M. Taine is to generalise a partial truth into extravagance. Many of the most eminent authors who flourished between the English Restoration and the French Revolution wrote in a style far removed from that which M. Taine calls classical,—in an inelegant, uncondensed style as Locke, in a crude, clumsy style as Bishop Butler, in a vigorous, colloquial style as Bentley, in a homely, straightforward style as Swift, in an unpretentious, narrative style as De Foe, in a loose, familiar style as Burnet. The verse differs like the prose, though in a less degree, and is not "of a uniform make as if fabricated by a machine."[954] The witty and grotesque Hudibras of Butler, the tales, and many short poems of Prior, the humourous, satiric verses of Swift, the Songs and Fables of Gay, the Seasons of Thomson, the heroics of Pope, are all in dissimilar styles. Neither is the substance of the prose and verse, from the Restoration to the French Revolution, an invariable common-sense mediocrity. There is a great display of genius in political philosophy and political economy, in moral, metaphysical, and natural science, in manifold species of satire and fiction, and, omitting Milton, who was formed under earlier influences, in various kinds of poetry, short of the highest. M. Taine was partly conscious of the facts, as may be seen in his individual criticisms, which are a refutation of his general theory. There is this much truth in his view, that there was a growing tendency to cultivate style, and in some writers the art degenerated into the artificial. Among the numerous varieties of the defect one is a monotonous structure of verse and sentence, another the attempt to disguise the commonness of the thoughts by the elaboration of the workmanship. These are frequent faults in the poetry of Pope, and the mannerism remains when the execution is a failure. His style is admirable in parts, but he falls far below Dryden in the general elasticity of his composition, in the wealth of his language, and in the subtle intricacies of metrical harmony. His thoughts are often gems rendered lustrous by the skill of the cutter, but intermingling with them are counterfeit stones which impose by their glitter on the superficial observer, and when examined are found worthless.
TO THE READER. [955]
As the epistolary way of writing hath prevailed much of late, we have ventured to publish this piece composed some time since, and whose[956] author chose this manner, notwithstanding his subject was high and of dignity, because of its being mixed with argument, which of its nature approacheth to prose. This, which we first give the reader, treats of the nature and state of man with respect to the universal system. The rest will treat of him with respect to his own system, as an individual, and as a member of society, under one or other of which heads all ethics are included.
As he imitates no man, so he would be thought to vie with no man in these epistles, particularly with the noted author of two lately published;[957] but this he may most surely say, that the matter of them is such as is of importance to all in general, and of offence to none in particular.[958]
THE DESIGN. [959]
Having proposed to write some pieces on 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[960] 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 connexion, but 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.
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 relation of systems and things, ver. 17, &c. 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, ver. 35, &c. III. That it is partly upon his ignorance of future events, and partly upon the hope of a future state, that all his happiness in the present depends, ver. 77, &c. 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, ver. 113, &c. 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, ver. 131, &c. 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, ver. 173, &c. VII. That throughout the whole visible world, an universal order and gradation in the sensual and mental faculties is observed, which causes 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, ver. 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, ver. 233. IX. The extravagance, madness, and pride of such a desire, ver. 259. X. The consequence of all, the absolute submission due to Providence, both as to our present and future state, ver. 281, &c., to the end.
AN
ESSAY ON MAN.
IN FOUR EPISTLES.
EPISTLE I.
Awake, my St. John![961] leave all meaner things To low ambition, and the pride of kings.[962] Let us, since life can[963] little more supply Than just to look about us and to die,[964] Expatiate free o'er all this scene of man;[965] 5 A mighty maze![966] but not without a plan;[967] A wild, where weeds and flow'rs promiscuous shoot;[968] Or garden tempting with forbidden fruit.[969] Together let us beat this ample field, Try what the open, what the covert yield;[970] 10 The latent tracts, the giddy heights, explore,[971] Of all who blindly creep, or sightless soar;[972] Eye nature's walks, shoot folly as it flies,[973] And catch the manners living as they rise;[974] Laugh where we must, be candid [975] where we can; 15 But vindicate the ways of God to man. [976] Man can reason only from things known, and judge only with regard to his own system. 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?[977] 20 Through worlds unnumbered though the God be known,[978] 'Tis ours to trace him only in our own. He, who through vast immensity can pierce, See worlds on worlds compose one universe,[979] Observe how system into system runs, 25 What other planets circle[980] other suns, What varied being peoples ev'ry star,[981] May tell why heav'n has made us as we are.[982] But of this frame, the bearings and the ties, The strong connections, nice dependencies, 30 Gradations[983] just, has thy pervading soul Looked through,[984] or can a part contain the whole?[985] Is the great chain that draws all to agree,[986] And drawn supports,[987] upheld by God or thee? Man is not therefore a judge of his own perfection or imperfection, but is certainly such a being as is suited to his place and rank in creation. II. Presumptuous man! the reason wouldst thou find, 35 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?[988] Ask of thy mother earth, why oaks are made Taller or stronger than the weeds they shade! 40 Or ask of yonder argent fields[989] above Why Jove's satellites[990] are less than Jove![991] Of systems possible, if 'tis confessed That wisdom infinite[992] must form the best,[993] Where all must full or not coherent be,[994] 45 And all that rises rise in due degree, Then, in the scale of reas'ning life, 'tis plain, There must be, somewhere, such a rank as man:[995] And all the question (wrangle e'er so long) Is only this, if God has placed him wrong.[996] 50 Respecting man, whatever wrong we call, May, must be right, as relative to all.[997] In human works, though laboured on with pain, A thousand movements scarce one purpose gain; In God's, one single can its end produce; 55 Yet serves to second too some other use.[998] So man, who here seems principal alone, Perhaps acts second to some sphere unknown, Touches some wheel, or verges to some goal;[999] 'Tis but a part we see,[1000] and not a whole.[1001] 60 When the proud steed shall know why man restrains His fiery course, or[1002] 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;[1003] Then shall man's pride and dulness comprehend 65 His actions', passions', being's, use and end; Why doing, suff'ring, checked, impelled; and why This hour a slave, the next a deity.[1004] Then say not man's imperfect, heav'n in fault; Say rather man's as perfect as he ought:[1005] 70 His knowledge measured to his state and place,[1006] His time a moment, and a point his space.[1007] If to be perfect in a certain sphere, What matter, soon or late, or here or there?[1008] The bless'd to-day is as completely so, 75 As who began a thousand years ago.[1009] His happiness depends on his ignorance to a certain degree. III. Heav'n 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?[1010] 80 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 flow'ry food, And licks the hand just raised to shed his blood.[1011] O blindness to the future! kindly giv'n, 85 That each may fill the circle marked by heav'n: Who sees with equal eye, as God of all, A hero perish, or a sparrow fall,[1012] Atoms or systems into ruin hurled,[1013] And now a bubble burst, and now a world. 90 And on his hope of a relation to a future state. 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.[1014] Hope springs eternal in the human breast; 95 Man never is, but always to be blessed.[1015] The soul, uneasy, and confined from[1016] 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;[1017] 100 His soul proud science never taught to stray Far as the solar walk[1018] or milky way;[1019] Yet simple nature to his hope has giv'n, Behind the cloud-topped hill,[1020] an humbler heav'n; Some safer world in depth of woods embraced, 105 Some happier island in the wat'ry waste,[1021] Where slaves once more their native land behold, No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold.[1022] To be, contents his natural desire; He asks no angel's wing, no seraph's fire; 110 But thinks, admitted to that equal sky, His faithful dog shall bear him company.[1023] The pride of aiming at more knowledge and perfection, and the impiety of pretending to judge of the dispensations of Providence, the causes of man's error and misery. IV. Go, wiser thou! and in thy scale of sense,[1024] Weigh thy opinion against Providence;[1025] Call imperfection what thou fanci'st such, 115 Say, Here he gives too little, there too much![1026] Destroy all creatures for thy sport or gust,[1027] Yet cry, If man's unhappy, God's unjust;[1028] If man alone ingross not heav'n's high care, Alone made perfect here, immortal there:[1029] 120 Snatch from his hand the balance and the rod,[1030] Re-judge his justice, be the god of God.[1031] In pride, in reas'ning pride,[1032] our error lies; All quit their sphere and rush into the skies! Pride still is aiming at the bless'd abodes, 125 Men would be angels, angels would be gods.[1033] Aspiring to be gods if angels fell, Aspiring to be angels men rebel:[1034] And who but wishes to invert the laws Of order, sins against th' Eternal Cause. 130 The absurdity of conceiting himself the final cause of creation, or expecting that perfection in the moral world which is not in the natural. V. Ask for what end the heav'nly bodies shine, Earth for whose use, Pride answers,[1035] "'Tis for mine! For me kind nature wakes her genial pow'r, Suckles each herb, and spreads out every flow'r;[1036] Annual for me, the grape, the rose renew 135 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!"[1037] 140 But errs not nature from this gracious end, From burning suns when livid deaths descend, When earthquakes swallow, or when tempests sweep[1038] Towns to one grave, whole nations[1039] to the deep?[1040] "No," 'tis replied, "the first Almighty Cause 145 Acts not by partial but by gen'ral laws:[1041] Th' exceptions few; some change since all began;[1042] And what created perfect?"—Why then man? If the great end be human happiness, Then nature deviates;[1043] and can man do less?[1044] 150 As much that end a constant course requires Of show'rs and sunshine, as of man's desires: As much eternal springs and cloudless skies, As men for ever temp'rate, calm, and wise.[1045] If plagues or earthquakes break not heaven's design, 155 Why then a Borgia or a Catiline?[1046] Who knows but He, whose hand the lightning forms, Who heaves old ocean, and who wings the storms; Pours fierce ambition in a Cæsar's mind,[1047] Or turns young Ammon[1048] loose to scourge mankind?[1049] 160 From pride, from pride our very reas'ning springs; Account for moral, as for nat'ral things:[1050] Why charge we heav'n in those, in these acquit? In both to reason right is to submit. Better for us, perhaps, it might appear, 165 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.[1051] 170 The gen'ral order,[1052] since the whole began, Is kept in nature, and is kept in man.[1053] The unreasonableness of the complaints against Providence, and that to possess more faculties would make us miserable. VI. What would this Man? now upward will he soar, And little less than angel, would be more![1054] Now looking downwards, just as grieved appears 175 To want the strength[1055] of bulls, the fur of bears.[1056] Made for his use, all creatures if he call,[1057] Say what their use, had he the pow'rs of all: Nature to these without profusion kind,[1058] The proper organs, proper pow'rs assigned; 180 Each seeming want compensated of course, Here with degrees of swiftness, there of force:[1059] All in exact proportion to the state;[1060] Nothing to add, and nothing to abate.[1061] Each beast, each insect, happy in its own:[1062] 185 Is Heav'n unkind to man, and man alone? Shall he alone, whom rational we call, Be pleased with nothing, if not blessed with all?[1063] The bliss of man (could pride that blessing find) Is not to act or think beyond mankind; 190 No pow'rs of body or of soul to share, But what his nature and his state can bear.[1064] Why has not man a microscopic eye? For this plain reason, man is not a fly. Say what the use, were finer optics giv'n, 195 T' inspect a mite, not comprehend the heav'n?[1065] Or touch, if tremblingly alive all o'er, To smart and agonize at ev'ry pore? Or quick effluvia darting through the brain, Die of a rose in aromatic pain?[1066] 200 If nature thundered in his op'ning ears, And stunned him with the music of the spheres,[1067] How would he wish that heav'n had left him still The whisp'ring zephyr, and the purling rill? Who finds not Providence all good and wise, 205 Alike in what it gives, and what denies? There is an universal order and gradation through the whole visible world, of the sensible and mental faculties, which causes the subordination of creature to creature, and of all creatures to man, whose reason alone countervails all the other faculties. VII. Far as creation's ample range extends, The scale of sensual, mental pow'rs ascends: Mark how it mounts to man's imperial race,[1068] From the green myriads in the peopled grass; 210 What modes of sight betwixt each wide extreme, The mole's dim curtain, and the lynx's beam: Of smell, the headlong lioness between,[1069] And hound sagacious on the tainted green: Of hearing, from the life that fills the flood,[1070] 215 To that which warbles through the vernal wood! The spider's touch how exquisitely fine![1071] Feels at each thread, and lives along the line:[1072] In the nice bee, what sense so subtly true From pois'nous herbs extracts the healing dew?[1073] 220 How instinct varies in the grov'ling swine, Compared, half-reas'ning elephant, with thine![1074] 'Twixt that and reason, what a nice barrier! For ever sep'rate, yet for ever near! Remembrance and reflection how allied; 225 What thin partitions sense from thought divide;[1075] And middle natures, how they long to join, Yet never pass th' insuperable line![1076] Without this just gradation could they be Subjected, these to those, or all to thee? 230 The pow'rs of all subdued by thee alone, Is not thy reason all these pow'rs in one? How much further this gradation and subordination may extend, were any part of which broken the whole connected creation must be destroyed. VIII. See, through this air, this ocean, and this earth, All matter quick, and bursting into birth. Above, how high progressive life may go! 235 Around, how wide! how deep extend below![1077] Vast chain of being! which from God began, Natures ethereal, human, angel, man,[1078] Beast, bird, fish, insect, what no eye can see, No glass can reach; from infinite to thee, 240 From thee to nothing.[1079] On superior pow'rs Were we to press, inferior might on ours:[1080] Or in the full creation leave a void,[1081] Where, one step broken, the great scale's destroyed:[1082] From nature's chain whatever link you strike, 245 Tenth or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike.[1083] And if each system in gradation roll[1084] Alike essential to th' amazing whole,[1085] The least confusion but in one, not all That system only, but the whole must fall. 250 Let earth unbalanced from her orbit fly,[1086] Planets and suns run lawless through the sky;[1087] Let ruling angels from their spheres be hurled, Being on being wrecked, and world on world; Heav'n's whole foundations to their centre nod, 255 And nature tremble[1088] to the throne of God![1089] All this dread order break—for whom? for thee? Vile-worm!—O madness! pride! impiety![1090] The extravagance, impiety, and pride of such a desire. IX. What if the foot, ordained the dust to tread, Or hand, to toil, aspired to be the head? 260 What if the head, the eye, or ear repined To serve mere engines to the ruling mind?[1091] Just as absurd for any part to claim To be another, in this gen'ral frame:[1092] Just as absurd, to mourn the tasks or pains 265 The great directing Mind of all ordains.[1093] All are but parts of one stupendous whole, Whose body nature is, and God the soul;[1094] That, changed through all, and yet in all the same, Great in the earth, as in th' ethereal frame, 270 Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze, Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees,[1095] Lives thro' all life, extends through all extent, Spreads undivided, operates unspent;[1096] Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part,[1097] 275 As full, as perfect in a hair as heart;[1098] As full, as perfect in vile man that mourns, As the rapt seraph that adores and burns:[1099] To him no high, no low, no great, no small; He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all.[1100] 280 The consequence of all, the absolute submission due to Providence, both as to our present and future state. X. Cease then, nor order imperfection name: Our proper bliss depends on what we blame.[1101] Know thy own point: this kind, this due degree[1102] Of blindness, weakness, heav'n bestows on thee. Submit: in this, or any other sphere, 285 Secure to be as blessed as thou canst bear;[1103] Safe in the hand of one disposing Pow'r,[1104] Or in the natal, or the mortal hour. All nature is but art[1105] unknown to thee,[1106] All chance, direction which thou canst not see;[1107] 290 All discord, harmony not understood;[1108] All partial evil, universal good; And, spite of pride, in erring reason's spite,[1109] 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, ver. 1 to 19. The limits of his capacity, ver. 19, &c. II. The two principles of man, self-love and reason, both necessary, ver. 53, &c. Self-love the stronger, and why, ver. 67, &c. Their end the same, ver. 81, &c. III. The passions, and their use, ver. 93 to 130. The predominant passion, and its force, ver. 132 to 160. Its necessity, in directing men to different purposes, ver. 165, &c. Its providential use, in fixing our principle, and ascertaining our virtue, ver. 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, ver. 202 to 216. V. How odious vice in itself, and how we deceive ourselves into it, ver. 217. VI. That, however, the ends of Providence and general good are answered in our passions and imperfections, ver. 238, &c. How usefully these are distributed to all orders of men, ver. 241. How useful they are to society, ver. 251. And to individuals, ver. 263. In every state, and every age of life, ver. 273, &c.
EPISTLE II.
The business of man not to pry into God, but to study himself. His middle nature, his power, frailties, and the limits of his capacity. I. Know then thyself, presume not God to scan,[1110] The proper study of mankind is man.[1111] Placed on this isthmus of a middle state,[1112] A being darkly wise, and rudely great: With too much knowledge for the sceptic side,[1113] 5 With too much weakness for the stoic's pride,[1114] He hangs between; in doubt to act, or rest;[1115] In doubt to deem himself a god or beast;[1116] In doubt his mind or body to prefer; Born but to die, and reas'ning but to err;[1117] 10 Alike in ignorance, his reason such,[1118] Whether he thinks too little or too much;[1119] Chaos of thought and passion, all confused;[1120] Still by himself abused,[1121] or disabused; Created half to rise, and half to fall;[1122] 15 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![1123] [1124] Go, wondrous creature! mount[1125] where science guides, Go, measure earth, weigh air, and state the tides; 20 Instruct the planets in what orbs to run,[1126] Correct old Time,[1127] and regulate the sun;[1128] Go, soar with Plato to th' empyreal sphere, To the first good, first perfect, and first fair;[1129] Or tread the mazy round his follow'rs trod; 25 And quitting sense call imitating God;[1130] As eastern priests in giddy circles run,[1131] And turn their heads to imitate the sun.[1132] Go, teach Eternal Wisdom how to rule[1133]— Then drop into thyself, and be a fool! 30 Superior beings, when of late they saw A mortal man[1134] unfold all nature's law, Admired such wisdom in an earthly shape,[1135] And showed a Newton, as we show an ape.[1136] Could he, whose rules the rapid comet[1137] bind,[1138] 35 Describe or fix one movement of his mind?[1139] Who saw its fires here rise, and there descend,[1140] Explain his own beginning or his end?[1141] Alas! what wonder![1142] man's superior part[1143] Unchecked may rise, and climb from art to art;[1144] 40 But when his own great work is but begun, What reason weaves, by passion is undone,[1145] Trace science then, with modesty thy guide; First strip off all her equipage of pride; Deduct what is but vanity or dress, 45 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[1146] our vices have created arts; 50 Then see how little the remaining sum, Which served the past, and must the times to come![1147] The two principles of man, self-love and reason, both necessary. II. Two principles in human nature reign; Self-love to urge, and reason to restrain;[1148] Nor this a good, nor that a bad we call, 55 Each works its end to move or govern all:[1149] And to their proper operation still[1150] Ascribe all good; to their improper, ill. Self-love the stronger, and why. Self-love, the spring of motion, acts[1151] the soul; Reason's comparing balance rules the whole.[1152] 60 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;[1153] Or, meteor-like, flame lawless through the void,[1154] 65 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, delib'rate, and advise. 70 Self-love still stronger, as its objects nigh: Reason's at distance, and in prospect lie:[1155] That sees immediate good by present sense; Reason, the future and the consequence.[1156] Their end the same. Thicker than arguments, temptations throng, 75 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;[1157] Each strengthens reason, and self-love restrains. 80 Let subtle schoolmen teach these friends to fight, More studious to divide than to unite; And grace and virtue,[1158] sense[1159] and reason split,[1160] With all the rash dexterity of wit. Wits, just like fools, at war about a name, 85 Have full as oft no meaning, or the same.[1161] Self-love and reason to one end aspire, Pain their aversion, pleasure their desire;[1162] The passions and their use. But greedy that, its object would devour, This taste the honey, and not wound the flow'r: 90 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:[1163] But since not ev'ry good we can divide, 95 And reason bids us for our own provide, Passions, though selfish, if their means be fair,[1164] List[1165] under reason, and deserve her care; Those, that imparted, court[1166] a nobler aim, Exalt their kind, and take some virtue's name.[1167] 100 In lazy apathy let stoics boast Their virtue fixed;[1168] 'tis fixed as in a frost;[1169] Contracted all, retiring to the breast;[1170] But strength of mind is exercise, not rest:[1171] The rising tempest puts in act the soul,[1172] 105 Parts it may ravage, but preserves the whole.[1173] On life's vast ocean diversely we sail,[1174] Reason the card,[1175] but passion is the gale;[1176] Nor God alone in the still calm we find, He mounts the storms, and walks upon the wind.[1177] 110 The predominant passion and its force. Passions, like elements, though born to fight, Yet, mixed and softened, in his work unite:[1178] These, 'tis enough to temper and employ; But what composes man, can man destroy?[1179] Suffice that reason keep to nature's road, 115 Subject, compound them, follow her and God.[1180] Love, hope, and joy, fair pleasure's smiling train, Hate, fear, and grief, the family of pain,[1181] These mixed with art,[1182] and to due bounds confined, Make and maintain the balance of the mind: 120 The lights and shades, whose well-accorded strife[1183] 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,[1184] 125 The whole employ of body and of mind.[1185] All spread their charms, but charm not all alike; On diff'rent senses diff'rent objects strike;[1186] Hence diff'rent passions more or less inflame, As strong or weak the organs of the frame;[1187] 130 And hence one master passion in the breast, Like Aaron's serpent, swallows up the rest.[1188] As man, perhaps, the moment of his breath, Receives the lurking principle of death; The young disease, that must subdue at length, 135 Grows with his growth, and strengthens with his strength: So, cast and mingled with his very frame,[1189] 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: 140 Whatever warms the heart, or fills the head, As the mind opens, and its functions spread, Imagination plies her dang'rous art, And pours it all upon the peccant part.[1190] Nature its mother, habit is its nurse; 145 Wit, spirit, faculties,[1191] but make it worse; Reason itself but gives it edge and pow'r;[1192] As heav'n's bless'd beam turns vinegar more sour.[1193] We, wretched subjects, though to lawful sway,[1194] In this weak queen some fav'rite still obey; 150 Ah! if she lend not arms as well as rules, What can she more[1195] 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 155 The choice we make, or justify it made;[1196] Proud of an easy conquest all along, She but removes weak passions for the strong.[1197] So when small humours gather to a gout, The doctor fancies he has driv'n them out.[1198] 160 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: Its necessity in directing men to different purposes. A mightier pow'r the strong direction sends,[1199] 165 And sev'ral men impels to sev'ral ends:[1200] Like varying winds, by other passions tossed, This drives them constant to a certain coast.[1201] Let pow'r or knowledge, gold or glory, please, Or (oft more strong than all) the love of ease;[1202] 170 Through life 'tis followed, ev'en 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. Its providential use in fixing our principle, and ascertaining our virtue. Th' Eternal Art, educing good from ill,[1203] 175 Grafts on this passion our best principle: 'Tis thus the mercury of man is fixed,[1204] Strong grows the virtue with his nature mixed; The dross cements what else were too refined, And in one int'rest body acts with mind. 180 As fruits, ungrateful to the planter's care, On savage stocks inserted learn to bear,[1205] The surest virtues thus from passions shoot,[1206] Wild nature's vigour working at the root.[1207] What crops of wit and honesty appear 185 From spleen, from obstinacy, hate or fear![1208] See anger, zeal and fortitude supply;[1209] Ev'n av'rice, prudence; sloth, philosophy; Lust, through some certain strainers well refined, Is gentle love, and charms all womankind; 190 Envy, to which th' ignoble mind's a slave, Is emulation in the learn'd or brave;[1210] Nor virtue, male or female, can we name, But what will grow on pride,[1211] or grow on shame.[1212] Virtue and vice joined in our mixed nature; the limits near, yet the things separate and evident. The office of reason. [1213]Thus nature gives us (let it check our pride)[1214] 195 The virtue nearest to our vice allied;[1215] Reason the bias turns to good from ill,[1216] And Nero reigns a Titus if he will.[1217] The fiery soul abhorred in Catiline, In Decius charms, in Curtius is divine:[1218] 200 The same ambition can destroy or save, And makes a patriot as it makes a knave.[1219] This light and darkness in our chaos joined, What shall divide? The god within the mind.[1220] Extremes in nature equal ends produce, 205 In man they join to some mysterious use;[1221] Though each by turns the other's bound invade, As, in some well-wrought picture, light and shade,[1222] And oft so mix, the diff'rence is too nice[1223] Where ends the virtue, or begins the vice. 210 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?[1224] Ask your own heart, and nothing is so plain; 215 'Tis to mistake them costs the time and pain. [1225] Vice odious in itself and how we deceive ourselves into it. Vice is a monster of so frightful mien, As to be hated needs but to be seen;[1226] Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face, We first endure, then pity,[1227] then embrace.[1228] 220 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, 225 But thinks his neighbour farther gone than he;[1229] Ev'n those who dwell beneath its very zone,[1230] Or never feel the rage, or never own;[1231] What happier natures shrink at with affright, The hard inhabitant contends is right.[1232] 230 The ends of Providence, and general good, answered in our passions and imperfections. How usefully these are distributed to all orders of men. Virtuous and vicious ev'ry man must be, Few in th' extreme, but all in the degree:[1233] The rogue and fool by fits is fair and wise; And ev'n the best, by fits, what they despise.[1234] 'Tis but by parts we follow good or ill; 235 For, vice or virtue, self directs it still;[1235] Each individual seeks a sev'ral goal; But heav'n's great view is one, and that the whole. That counterworks each folly and caprice; That disappoints th' effect of ev'ry vice;[1236] 240 That, happy frailties to all ranks applied,[1237] Shame to the virgin,[1238] 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, 245 Which seeks no interest, no reward but praise;[1239] And build[1240] on wants, and on defects of mind, The joy, the peace, the glory of mankind. How useful these are to society in general: Heav'n forming each on other to depend, A master, or a servant, or a friend, 250 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 int'rest, or endear the tie. To these we owe true friendship, love sincere, 255 Each home-felt joy that life inherits here;[1241] Yet from the same we learn, in its decline, Those joys, those loves, those int'rests to resign:[1242] Taught half by reason, half by mere decay, To welcome death, and calmly pass away. 260 And to individuals in particular in every state: Whate'er the passion,—knowledge, fame, or pelf,— Not one will change his neighbour with himself.[1243] The learn'd is happy nature to explore,[1244] The fool is happy that he knows no more; The rich is happy in the plenty giv'n, 265 The poor contents him with the care of heav'n. See the blind beggar dance, the cripple sing, The sot a hero, lunatic a king; The starving chemist in his golden views Supremely blessed, [1245] the poet in his muse. [1246] 270 And in every age of life. See some strange comfort ev'ry state attend, And pride bestowed on all, a common friend:[1247] See some fit passion ev'ry age supply, Hope travels through, nor quits us when we die.[1248] Behold the child, by nature's kindly law[1249] 275 Pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw: Some livelier plaything gives his youth delight, A little louder,[1250] but as empty quite: Scarfs, garters,[1251] gold, amuse his riper stage,[1252] And beads[1253] and pray'r-books are the toys of age: 280 Pleased with this bauble still, as that before; Till tired he sleeps, and life's poor play is o'er.[1254] Mean while[1255] opinion gilds with varying rays Those painted clouds that beautify our days;[1256] Each want of happiness by hope supplied, 285 And each vacuity of sense by pride:[1257] These build as fast as knowledge can destroy;[1258] In folly's cup still laughs the bubble, joy; One prospect lost, another still we gain;[1259] And not a vanity is giv'n in vain;[1260] 290 Ev'n mean self-love becomes, by force divine, The scale to measure others' wants by thine.[1261] See, and confess, one comfort still must rise;[1262] 'Tis this, though man's a fool, yet God is wise![1263]
ARGUMENT OF EPISTLE III.
OF THE NATURE AND STATE OF MAN WITH RESPECT TO SOCIETY.
I. The whole universe one system of society, ver. 7, &c. Nothing made wholly for itself, nor yet wholly for another, ver. 27. The happiness of animals mutual, ver. 49. II. Reason or instinct operate alike to the good of each individual, ver. 79. III. Reason or instinct operate also to society in all animals, ver. 109. How far society carried by instinct, ver. 115. How much farther by reason, ver. 131. IV. Of that which is called the state of nature, ver. 144. Reason instructed by instinct in the invention of arts, ver. 169, and in the forms of society, ver. 179. V. Origin of political societies, ver. 199. Origin of monarchy, ver. 207. VI. Patriarchal government, ver. 215. Origin of true religion and government, from the same principle of love, 231, &c. Origin of superstition and tyranny, from the same principle of fear, ver. 241, &c. The influence of self-love operating to the social and public good, ver. 269. Restoration of true religion and government on their first principle, ver. 283. Mixed government, ver. 288. Various forms of each, and the true end of all, ver. 303, &c.
EPISTLE III.
The whole universe one system of society.
I. Here then we rest: "The Universal Cause[1264] Acts to one end,[1265] but acts by various laws."[1266] In all the madness of superfluous health, The trim of pride, the impudence of wealth,[1267] Let this great truth be present night and day: 5 But most be present if we preach or pray. Look round our world, behold the chain of love[1268] Combining all below and all above. See plastic nature working to this end,[1269] The single atoms each to other tend, 10 Attract, attracted to, the next in place Formed and impelled its neighbour to embrace.[1270] See matter next with various life endued, Press to one centre still, the gen'ral good.[1271] See dying vegetables life sustain, 15 See life dissolving vegetate again:[1272] All forms that perish other forms supply, (By turns we catch the vital breath and die[1273]) Like bubbles on the sea of matter born, They rise, they break, and to that sea return. 20 Nothing is foreign; parts relate to whole; One all-extending, all-preserving soul Connects each being, greatest with the least;[1274] Made beast in aid of man, and man of beast;[1275] All served, all serving: nothing stands alone; 25 The chain holds on, and where it ends unknown. Nothing made wholly for itself, nor yet wholly for another, but the happiness of all animals mutual. Has God, thou fool! worked solely for thy good, Thy joy, thy pastime, thy attire, thy food? Who for thy table feeds the wanton fawn, For him as kindly spreads the flow'ry lawn:[1276] 30 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[1277] swell the note. The bounding steed you pompously[1278] bestride, 35 Shares with his lord the pleasure and the pride. Is thine alone the seed that strews the plain? The birds of heav'n shall vindicate their grain. Thine the full harvest of the golden year? Part pays, and justly, the deserving steer; 40 The hog, that ploughs not, nor obeys thy call, Lives on the labours of this lord of all.[1279] Know, nature's children all divide her care; The fur that warms a monarch[1280] warmed a bear.[1281] While man exclaims, "See all things for my use!" 45 "See man for mine!" replies a pampered goose:[1282] And just as short of reason he must fall, Who thinks all made for one, not one for all.[1283] Grant that the pow'rful still the weak control; Be man the wit,[1284] and tyrant of the whole: 50 Nature that tyrant checks; he only knows,[1285] And helps, another creature's wants and woes.[1286] Say, will the falcon, stooping from above, Smit with her varying[1287] plumage, spare the dove? Admires the jay the insect's gilded wings? 55 Or hears the hawk when Philomela sings?[1288] Man cares for all: to birds he gives his woods, To beasts his pastures, and to fish his floods. For some his int'rest prompts him to provide, For more his pleasure, yet for more his pride: 60 All feed on one vain patron, and enjoy Th' extensive blessing of his luxury.[1289] That very life his learned hunger craves, He saves from famine, from the savage saves; Nay, feasts the animal he dooms his feast, 65 And, till he ends the being, makes it blessed, Which sees no more the stroke, or feels the pain, Than favoured man by touch ethereal[1290] slain.[1291] The creature had his feast of life before; Thou too must perish, when thy feast is o'er! 70 To each unthinking being, heav'n, a friend, Gives not the useless knowledge of its end: To man imparts it; but with such a view[1292] As, while he dreads it, makes him hope it too; The hour concealed, and so remote the fear, 75 Death still draws nearer, never seeming near. Great standing miracle! that heav'n assigned Its only thinking thing[1293] this turn of mind.[1294] Reason or instinct alike operate to the good of each individual. II. Whether with reason, or with instinct blessed, Know, all enjoy that pow'r which suits them best:[1295] 80 To bliss alike by that direction tend, And find the means proportion'd to their end. Say, where full instinct is th' unerring guide, What pope or council[1296] can they need beside?[1297] Reason, however able, cool at best, 85 Cares not for service, or but serves when pressed, Stays till we call, and then not often near;[1298] But honest instinct comes a volunteer, Sure never to o'ershoot, but just to hit, While still too wide or short is human wit; 90 Sure by quick nature happiness to gain, Which heavier reason labours at in vain.[1299] This too serves always, reason never long; One must go right,[1300] the other may go wrong. See then the acting and comparing pow'rs 95 One in their nature, which are two in ours;[1301] And reason raise o'er instinct as you can,[1302] In this 'tis God directs, in that 'tis man.[1303] Who taught the nations of the field and flood[1304] To shun their poison,[1305] and to choose their food?[1306] 100 Prescient, the tides or tempests to withstand, Build on the wave,[1307] or arch beneath the sand? Who made the spider parallels design,[1308] Sure as Demoivre,[1309] without rule or line?[1310] Who bid the stork, Columbus-like, explore 105 Heav'ns not his own, and worlds unknown before?[1311] Who calls the council, states the certain day,[1312] Who forms the phalanx, and who points the way?[1313] Reason or instinct operate also to society in all animals. III. God, in the nature of each being, founds Its proper bliss, and sets its proper bounds: 110 But as he framed a whole, the whole to bless, On mutual wants built mutual happiness:[1314] So from the first, eternal order ran, And creature linked to creature, man to man. How far society carried by instinct. Whate'er of life all-quick'ning ether[1315] keeps, 115 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, 120 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.[1316] Thus beast and bird their common charge attend, 125 The mothers nurse it, and the sires defend;[1317] The young dismissed to wander earth or air, There stops the instinct, and there ends the care:[1318] The link dissolves, each seeks a fresh embrace, Another love succeeds, another race. 130 How much farther society is carried by reason. A longer care man's helpless kind demands; That longer care contracts more lasting bands:[1319] Reflection, reason, still the ties improve, At once extend the int'rest, and the love;[1320] With choice we fix,[1321] with sympathy we burn; 135 Each virtue in each passion takes its turn;[1322] And still new needs, new helps, new habits rise, That graft benevolence on charities.[1323] Still as one brood, and as another rose, These nat'ral love maintained, habitual those:[1324] 140 The last scarce ripened into perfect man, Saw helpless him from whom their life began:[1325] Mem'ry and forecast just returns engage, That pointed back to youth, this on to age; While pleasure, gratitude, and hope combined, 145 Still spread the int'rest, and preserved the kind.[1326] Of the state of nature that it was social. IV. Nor think in nature's state they blindly trod; The state of nature was the reign of God:[1327] Self-love and social at her birth[1328] began, Union[1329] the bond of all things, and of man. 150 Pride then was not; nor arts, that pride to aid; Man walked with beast joint tenant of the shade;[1330] The same his table, and the same his bed; No murder clothed him,[1331] and no murder fed. In the same temple, the resounding wood,[1332] 155 All vocal beings hymned their equal God:[1333] The shrine with gore unstained, with gold undressed, Unbribed, unbloody, stood the blameless priest:[1334] Heav'n's attribute was universal care, And man's prerogative to rule, but spare. 160 Ah! how unlike the man of times to come![1335] Of half that live the butcher and the tomb;[1336] Who, foe to nature, hears the gen'ral groan, Murders their species, and betrays his own.[1337] But just disease to luxury succeeds, 165 And ev'ry death its own avenger breeds; The fury-passions from that blood began, And turned on man a fiercer savage, [1338] man. [1339] Reason instructed by instinct in the invention of arts, and in the forms of society. See him from nature rising slow to art![1340] To copy instinct then was reason's part; 170 Thus then to man the voice of nature spake[1341]— "Go, from the creatures thy instructions take: Learn from the birds what food the thickets yield;[1342] Learn from the beasts the physic of the field;[1343] Thy arts of building from the bee receive;[1344] 175 Learn of the mole to plough, the worm to weave;[1345] Learn of the little nautilus to sail, Spread the thin oar, and catch the driving gale.[1346] Here too all forms of social union find, And hence let reason, late, instruct mankind:[1347] 180 Here subterranean works and cities see; There towns aërial on the waving tree. Learn each small people's genius, policies, The ants' republic, and the realm of bees: How those in common all their wealth bestow,[1348] 185 And anarchy without confusion know;[1349] And these for ever, though a monarch reign, Their sep'rate cells and properties maintain.[1350] Mark what unvaried laws preserve each state, Laws wise as nature, and as fixed as fate. 190 In vain thy reason finer webs shall draw, Entangle justice in her net of law, And right, too rigid, harden into wrong;[1351] Still for the strong too weak, the weak too strong.[1352] Yet go! and thus o'er all the creatures sway, 195 Thus let the wiser make the rest obey; And for those arts mere instinct could afford, Be crowned as monarchs, or as gods adored." [1353] Origin of political societies. V. Great nature spoke; observant man obeyed; Cities were built, societies were made:[1354] 200 Here rose one little state; another near[1355] 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, 205 And he returned a friend who came a foe. Converse and love mankind might strongly draw, [1356] When love was liberty, and nature law.[1357] Origin of monarchy. Thus states were formed: the name of king unknown, Till common int'rest placed the sway in one.[1358] 210 'Twas virtue only (or in arts or arms, Diffusing blessings, or averting harms), The same which in a sire the sons obeyed,[1359] A prince the father of a people made.[1360] Origin of patriarchal government. VI. Till then, by nature crowned, each patriarch sat, 215 King, priest, and parent of his growing state;[1361] On him, their second Providence, they hung, Their law his eye, their oracle his tongue. He from the wond'ring furrow called the food,[1362] Taught to command the fire, control the flood, 220 Draw forth the monsters of th' abyss profound, Or fetch th' aërial eagle to the ground,[1363] Till drooping, sick'ning, dying they began[1364] Whom they revered as god to mourn as man: Then, looking up from sire to sire, explored 225 One great first Father, and that first adored;[1365] Or plain tradition, that this all begun,[1366] Conveyed unbroken faith from sire to son; The worker from the work distinct was known, And simple reason never sought but one.[1367] 230 Ere wit oblique had broke that steady light,[1368] Man, like his Maker, saw that all was right;[1369] To virtue, in the paths of pleasure trod, And owned a father when he owned a God.[1370] Origin of true religion and government from the principle of love; and of superstition and tyranny from that of fear. Love all the faith, and all th' allegiance then, 235 For nature knew no right divine in men,[1371] No ill could fear in God; and understood A sov'reign being but a sov'reign good. True faith, true policy, united ran, That was but love of God, and this of man. 240 Who first taught souls enslaved, and realms undone, Th' enormous[1372] faith of many made for one; That proud exception to all nature's laws, T' invert the world, and counterwork its cause?[1373] Force first made conquest, and that conquest, law; 245 Till superstition taught the tyrant awe,[1374] Then shared the tyranny, then lent it aid, And gods of conqu'rors, slaves of subjects made: She, midst the lightning's blaze, and thunder's sound, When rocked the mountains, and when groaned the ground,[1375] She taught the weak to bend, the proud to pray, 251 To pow'r unseen, and mightier far than they: She, from the rending earth and bursting skies, Saw gods descend, and fiends infernal rise:[1376] Here fixed the dreadful, there the bless'd abodes; 255 Fear made her devils, and weak hope her gods; Gods partial, changeful, passionate, unjust, Whose attributes were rage, revenge, or lust;[1377] Such as the souls of cowards might conceive, And, formed like tyrants, tyrants would believe.[1378] 260 Zeal then, not charity, became the guide; And hell was built on spite, and heav'n on pride. Then sacred seemed th' ethereal vault no more;[1379] Altars grew marble then, and reeked with gore:[1380] Then first the Flamen[1381] tasted living food;[1382] 265 Next his grim idol smeared with human blood;[1383] With heav'n's own thunders shook the world below, And played the god an engine on his foe.[1384] The influence of self-love operating to the social and public good. So drives self-love, through just, and through unjust, To one man's pow'r, ambition, lucre, lust: 270 The same self-love, in all, becomes the cause Of what restrains him, government and laws.[1385] 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, 275 A weaker may surprise, a stronger take?[1386] His safety must his liberty restrain: All join to guard what each desires to gain. Forced into virtue thus by self-defence, Ev'n kings learned justice and benevolence: 280 Self-love forsook the path it first pursued, And found the private in the public good.[1387] Restoration of true religion and government on their first principle. 'Twas then the studious head or gen'rous mind, Foll'wer of God, or friend of human-kind, Poet or patriot[1388], rose but to restore The faith and moral nature gave before; 285 Relumed her ancient light, not kindled new; If not God's image, yet his shadow drew: Taught pow'r's due use to people and to kings; Taught not to slack, nor strain its tender strings, 290 Mixed government. The less, or greater, set so justly true, That touching one must strike the other too;[1389] Till jarring int'rests of themselves create Th' according music[1390] of a well-mixed state.[1391] Such is the world's great harmony, that springs 295 From order, union, full consent[1392] of things;[1393] Where small and great, where weak and mighty made To serve, not suffer, strengthen, not invade;[1394] More pow'rful each as needful to the rest, And in proportion as it blesses, bless'd; 300 Draw to one point, and to one centre bring Beast, man, or angel, servant, lord, or king. Various forms of each, and the true use of all. For forms of government let fools contest; Whate'er is best administered is best;[1395] For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight; 305 His can't be wrong whose life is in the right:[1396] In faith and hope the world will disagree,[1397] But all mankind's concern is charity:[1398] All must be false that thwart this one great end; And all of God, that bless mankind, or mend. 310 Man, like the gen'rous vine, supported lives; The strength he gains is from th' embrace he gives.[1399] On their own axis as the planets run, Yet make at once[1400] their circle round the sun,[1401] So two consistent motions act the soul, 315 And one regards itself, and one the whole. Thus God and nature[1402] linked the gen'ral frame, And bade self-love and social be the same.[1403]
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 ver. 19 to 26. II. It is the end of all men, and attainable by all, ver. 29. 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, ver. 35. 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, ver. 49. But notwithstanding that inequality, the balance of happiness among mankind is kept even by Providence, by the two passions of hope and fear, ver. 67. 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, ver. 77. The error of imputing to virtue what are only the calamities of nature, or of fortune, ver. 93. IV. The folly of expecting that God should alter his general laws in favour of particulars, ver. 121. V. That we are not judges who are good; but that whoever they are, they must be happiest, ver. 131, &c. VI. That external goods are not the proper rewards, but often inconsistent with, or destructive of virtue, ver. 167. That even these can make no man happy without virtue: instanced in riches, ver. 185. Honours, ver. 193. Nobility, ver. 205. Greatness, ver. 217. Fame, ver. 237. Superior talents, ver. 259, &c. With pictures of human infelicity in men possessed of them all, ver. 269, &c. VII. That virtue only constitutes a happiness whose object is universal, and whose prospect eternal, ver. 309. 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, ver. 327, &c.
EPISTLE IV.
O Happiness! our being's end and aim,[1404] Good, pleasure, ease, content! whate'er thy name: That something still which prompts th' eternal sigh, For which we bear to live, or dare to die; Which still so near us, yet beyond us lies, 5 O'erlooked, seen double by the fool and wise:[1405] Plant of celestial seed! if dropped below,[1406] Say, in what mortal soil thou deign'st to grow?[1407] Fair op'ning to some court's propitious shine,[1408] Or deep with diamonds in the flaming[1409] mine? 10 Twined with the wreaths Parnassian laurels yield, Or reaped in iron harvests of the field?[1410] Where grows!—where grows it not?[1411] If vain our toil, We ought to blame the culture, not the soil:[1412] Fixed to no spot is happiness sincere,[1413] 15 'Tis no where to be found, or ev'ry where: 'Tis never to be bought, but always free; And, fled from monarchs, St. John! dwells with thee.[1414] Ask of the learn'd the way! The learn'd are blind; This bids to serve, and that to shun mankind; 20 Some place the bliss in action,[1415] some in ease,[1416] Those call it pleasure, and contentment these; Some sunk to beasts find pleasure end in pain;[1417] Some swelled to gods confess e'en virtue vain;[1418] Or indolent, to each extreme they fall, 25 To trust in ev'ry thing, or doubt of all.[1419] Who thus define it, say they more or less Than this, that happiness is happiness?[1420] Happiness is the end of all men, and attainable by all. Take nature's path,[1421] and mad opinion's leave; All states can reach it, and all heads conceive; 30 Obvious her goods, in no extreme they dwell;[1422] There needs but thinking right, and meaning well;[1423] And mourn our various portions as we please, Equal is common sense,[1424] and common ease.[1425] God governs by general not particular laws; intends happiness to be equal, and to be so it must be social, since all particular happiness depends on general. Remember, man, "the Universal Cause 35 Acts not by partial, but by gen'ral laws;" And makes what happiness we justly call,[1426] Subsist, not in the good of one, but all. There's not a blessing individuals find, But some way leans and hearkens[1427] to the kind;[1428] 40 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, 45 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.[1429] It is necessary for order, and the common peace, that external goods be unequal, therefore happiness is not constituted in these. Order is heav'n's first law; and this confessed, Some are, and must be, greater than the rest, 50 More rich, more wise; but who infers from hence That such are happier, shocks all common sense.[1430] Heav'n to mankind impartial we confess, If all are equal in their happiness: But mutual wants this happiness increase; 55 All nature's diff'rence 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: 60 Heav'n breathes through ev'ry 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, 65 God in externals could not place content.[1431] The balance of human happiness kept equal, notwithstanding externals, by hope and fear. Fortune her gifts may variously dispose, And these be happy called, unhappy those; But heav'n's just balance equal will appear, While those are placed in hope, and these in fear:[1432] 70 Not present good or ill, the joy or curse, But future views of better, or of worse.[1433] O sons of earth! attempt ye still to rise, By mountains piled on mountains, to the skies?[1434] Heav'n still[1435] with laughter the vain toil surveys,[1436] 75 And buries madmen in the heaps they raise.[1437] In what the happiness of individuals consists, and that the good man has the advantage even in this world. Know, all the good that individuals find, Or God and nature[1438] meant to mere mankind,[1439] Reason's whole pleasure, all the joys of sense, Lie in three words, health, peace, and competence.[1440] 80 But health consists with temperance alone; And peace! O virtue! peace is all thy own.[1441] The good or bad the gifts of fortune gain; But these less taste them, as they worse obtain.[1442] Say, in pursuit of profit or delight, 85 Who risk the most, that[1443] take wrong means or right? Of vice or virtue, whether blessed or cursed, Which meets contempt, or which compassion first?[1444] Count all th' advantage prosp'rous vice attains, 'Tis but what virtue flies from and disdains: 90 And grant the bad what happiness they would, One they must want,[1445] which is to pass for good.[1446] That no man is unhappy through virtue. O blind to truth, and God's whole scheme below, Who fancy bliss to vice,[1447] to virtue woe! Who sees and follows that great scheme the best, 95 Best knows the blessing, and will most be blessed. 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! 100 See Sidney bleeds amid the martial strife! Was this their virtue, or contempt of life?[1448] Say, was it virtue, more though heav'n ne'er gave, Lamented Digby![1449] sunk thee to the grave?[1450] Tell me, if virtue made the son expire, 105 Why, full of days and honour, lives the sire?[1451] Why drew Marseilles' good bishop[1452] purer breath, When nature sickened, and each gale was death?[1453] Or why so long (in life if long can be)[1454] Lent heav'n a parent to the poor and me?[1455] 110 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 115 Short, and but rare, till man improved it all.[1456] We just as wisely might of heav'n 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. 120 Think we, like some weak prince, th' Eternal Cause, Prone for his fav'rites to reverse his laws?[1457] Shall burning Ætna, if a sage requires,[1458] Forget to thunder, and recall her fires?[1459] On air or sea new motions be impressed,[1460] 125 O blameless Bethel! to relieve thy breast?[1461] When the loose mountain trembles from on high, Shall gravitation cease if you go by?[1462] Or some old temple nodding to its fall, For Chartres' head reserve the hanging wall?[1463] 130 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:[1464] But first consider how those just agree. The good must merit God's peculiar care; 135 But who, but God, can tell us who they are? One thinks on Calvin heav'n's own Spirit fell; Another deems him instrument of hell; If Calvin feel heav'n's blessing, or its rod, This cries there is, and that, there is no God.[1465] 140 What shocks one part will edify the rest,[1466] Nor with one system can they all be blessed.[1467] The very best will variously incline,[1468] And what rewards your virtue, punish mine. Whatever is, is right.[1469] This world, 'tis true, 145 Was made for Cæsar, but for Titus too:[1470] And which more bless'd? who chained his country, say, Or he whose virtue sighed to lose a day?[1471] "But sometimes virtue starves, while vice is fed." What then? Is the reward of virtue bread?[1472] 150 That vice may merit, 'tis the price of toil;[1473] 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.[1474] The good man may be weak, be indolent; 155 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 pow'r?" Add health, and pow'r, and ev'ry earthly thing: "Why bounded pow'r? why private? why no king?[1475] 160 Nay, why external for internal giv'n? Why is not man a god, and earth a heav'n?"[1476] Who ask and reason thus, will scarce conceive God gives enough while he has more to give:[1477] Immense the pow'r, immense were the demand; 165 Say, at what part of nature will they stand? That external goods are not the proper rewards of virtue, often inconsistent with, or destructive of it; but that all these can make no man happy without virtue. Instances in each of them. 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,[1478] 170 Justice a conqu'ror's sword, or truth a gown,[1479] Or public spirit its great cure,[1480] a crown.[1481] Weak, foolish man! will heav'n[1482] reward us there,[1483] With the same trash mad mortals wish for here? The boy and man an individual makes,[1484] 175 Yet sigh'st 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: 180 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! 1. Riches. To whom can riches give repute or trust,[1485] 185 Content, or pleasure, but the good and just?[1486] Judges and senates have been bought for gold, Esteem and love were never to be sold.[1487] O fool! to think God hates the worthy mind, The lover and the love of human kind,[1488] 190 Whose life is healthful, and whose conscience clear, Because he wants a thousand pounds a year.[1489] 2. Honours. Honour and shame from no condition rise; Act well your part, there all the honour lies. Fortune in men has some small diff'rence made, 195 One flaunts in rags, one flutters in brocade;[1490] The cobbler aproned,[1491] 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.[1492] 200 You'll find, if once the monarch acts the monk,[1493] 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.[1494] 3. Titles. Stuck o'er with titles, and hung round with strings,[1495] 205 That thou may'st be by kings, or whores of kings.[1496] 4. Birth. Boast the pure blood of an illustrious race,[1497] In quiet flow from Lucrece to Lucrece:[1498] But by your fathers' worth if yours you rate, Count me those only who were good and great. 210 Go! if your ancient, but ignoble blood Has crept through scoundrels ever since the flood,[1499] Go! and pretend your family is young; Nor own your fathers have been fools so long. What can ennoble sots, or slaves, or cowards? 215 Alas! not all the blood of all the Howards.[1500] 5. Greatness. Look next on greatness; say where greatness lies. "Where but among the heroes and the wise!" Heroes are much the same, the point's agreed, From Macedonia's madman[1501] to the Swede; 220 The whole strange purpose of their lives to find, Or make, an enemy of all mankind![1502] Not one looks backward, onward still he goes,[1503] Yet ne'er looks forward further than his nose.[1504] No less alike[1505] the politic and wise; 225 All sly slow things,[1506] 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[1507] to call a villain great:[1508] 230 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,[1509] or bleed 235 Like Socrates,[1510] that man is great indeed. 6. Fame. What's fame? a fancied life in others' breath,[1511] A thing beyond us, ev'n before our death.[1512] Just what you hear, you have, and what's unknown The same, my lord,[1513] if Tully's, or your own. 240 All that we feel of it begins and ends In the small circle of our foes or friends;[1514] To all beside as much an empty shade[1515] An Eugene living,[1516] as a Cæsar dead; Alike, or when or where they shone or shine, 245 Or on the Rubicon, or on the Rhine. A wit's a feather, and a chief a rod;[1517] An honest man's[1518] the noblest work of God. Fame but from death a villain's name can save,[1519] As justice tears his body from the grave; 250 When what t' oblivion better were resigned, Is hung on high, to poison half mankind.[1520] 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 255 Of stupid starers and of loud huzzas; And more true joy Marcellus[1521] exiled feels, Than Cæsar with a senate at his heels.[1522] 7. Superior parts. In parts superior[1523] what advantage lies? Tell, for you can, what is it to be wise? 260 'Tis but to know how little can be known;[1524] To see all others' faults, and feel our own;[1525] Condemned in bus'ness or in arts to drudge, Without a second or without a judge:[1526] Truths would you teach, or save a sinking land? 265 All fear, none aid you, and few understand.[1527] Painful pre-eminence![1528] yourself to view Above life's weakness, and its comforts too.[1529] Bring then these blessings to a strict account; Make fair deductions; see to what they 'mount: 270 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,[1530] 275 Say would'st thou be the man to whom they fall? To sigh for ribbons if thou art so silly, Mark how they grace Lord Umbra, or Sir Billy.[1531] Is yellow dirt the passion of thy life? Look but on Gripus, or on Gripus' wife.[1532] 280 If parts allure thee, think how Bacon shined, The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind:[1533] Or ravished with the whistling of a name,[1534] See Cromwell, damned to everlasting fame![1535] If all, united, thy ambition call, 285 From ancient story learn to scorn them all.[1536] 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,[1537] these betray! 290 Mark by what wretched steps their glory grows,[1538] From dirt and sea-weed as proud Venice rose; In each how guilt and greatness equal ran,[1539] And all that raised the hero sunk the man:[1540] Now Europe's laurel on their brows behold, 295 But stained with blood, or ill-exchanged for gold: Then see them broke with toils, or sunk in ease, Or infamous for plundered provinces.[1541] O wealth ill-fated! which no act of fame[1542] E'er taught to shine,[1543] or sanctified from shame![1544] 300 What greater bliss attends their close of life? Some greedy minion,[1545] or imperious wife, The trophied arches, storied halls[1546] invade, And haunt their slumbers in the pompous shade.[1547] Alas! not dazzled with their noon-tide ray, 305 Compute the morn and ev'ning 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, That virtue only constitutes a happiness whose object is universal, and whose prospect eternal. "Virtue alone is happiness below."[1548] 310 The only point where human bliss stands still,[1549] And tastes the good without the fall to ill; Where only merit constant pay receives, Is blessed in what it takes,[1550] and what it gives;[1551] The joy unequalled, if its end it gain,[1552] 315 And if it lose, attended with no pain:[1553] Without satiety, though e'er so blessed, And but more relished as the more distressed: The broadest mirth[1554] unfeeling folly wears, Less pleasing far than virtue's very tears:[1555] 320 Good, from each object, from each place acquired, For ever exercised, yet never tired;[1556] Never elated, while one man's oppressed; Never dejected, while another's blessed; And where no wants, no wishes can remain, 325 Since but to wish more virtue is to gain.[1557] That the perfection of happiness consists in a conformity to the order of Providence here, and a resignation to it here and hereafter. See the sole bliss heav'n 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,[1558] untaught, will find; 330 Slave to no sect,[1559] who takes no private road, But looks through nature up to nature's God;[1560] Pursues that chain which links th' immense design, Joins heav'n and earth, and mortal and divine; Sees, that no being any bliss can know, 335 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.[1561] 340 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.[1562] He sees why nature plants in man alone 345 Hope of known bliss, and faith in bliss unknown: (Nature, whose dictates to no other kind Are giv'n in vain,[1563] but what they seek they find;)[1564] Wise is her present: she connects in this His greatest virtue with his greatest bliss;[1565] 350 At once his own bright prospect to be blessed, 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? 355 Extend it, let thy enemies have part: Grasp the whole worlds of reason, life, and sense, In one close system of benevolence:[1566] Happier as kinder, in whate'er degree, And height of bliss but height of charity. 360 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;[1567] The centre moved, a circle straight succeeds, 365 Another still, and still another spreads; Friend, parent, neighbour, first it will embrace; His country next; and next all human race;[1568] Wide and more wide th' o'erflowings of the mind Take ev'ry creature in, of ev'ry kind; 370 Earth smiles around, with boundless bounty blessed, And heav'n beholds its image in his breast.[1569] Come then, my friend![1570] my genius! come along, O master of the poet and the song! And while the muse now stoops, or now ascends, 375 To man's low passions, or their glorious ends,[1571] Teach me, like thee in various nature wise, To fall with dignity, with temper rise;[1572] Formed by thy converse, happily to steer From grave to gay, from lively to severe;[1573] 380 Correct with spirit, eloquent with ease, Intent to reason, or polite to please.[1574] Oh! while along the stream of time thy name Expanded flies, and gathers all its fame; Say, shall my little bark attendant sail, 385 Pursue the triumph, and partake the gale?[1575] When statesmen, heroes, kings, in dust repose, Whose sons shall blush their fathers were thy foes,[1576] Shall then this verse to future age pretend[1577] Thou wert my guide, philosopher, and friend? 390 That, urged by thee, I turned the tuneful art From sounds to things, from fancy to the heart;[1578] For wit's false mirror held up nature's light; Showed erring pride, whatever is, is right; That reason, passion, answer one great aim; 395 That true self-love and social are the same; That virtue only makes our bliss below; And all our knowledge is, ourselves to know.[1579]