Note 1299 — AN ESSAY ON MAN, IN FOUR EPISTLES (continued 3)

Pope says, ver. 79, that whether blessed with reason or instinct "all enjoy the power that tends to bliss,—all find the means proportioned to the end." He now contradicts himself with regard to reason, and says that, in the effort to determine which of our impulses are beneficial and which injurious, it never hits the mark, but labours in vain after happiness. The wisdom he denies to reason he erroneously ascribes to instinct, which has no superiority in securing an immunity from ill. Through want of foresight, and the limitation of their powers of contrivance, myriads of creatures die of hunger and cold. Those which come off with life suffer frequently from scarcity and inclement seasons. Their defective sagacity makes them a prey to each other and to man, and often when they escape death they receive torturing injuries. The young are exposed to wholesale destruction, and in many instances the parents manifest a grief which if short is at least acute. Creatures of the same species have their intestine enmities, and engage in combats attended by wounds and death. They have their fears, jealousies, and tempers, their alternations of contentment and dissatisfaction, and upon the whole the instinct conferred upon animals seems a less protection from present evils than a moderate use of reason in man. What alleviation there may be to animals in their inevitable trials cannot be known to us, but no one will imagine that they can be supported by sublimer hopes than our own.