But couldst thou seize some tongues that now are In diamonds, pearls, and rich brocades,

last; and I will venture to say, they have less sharpened the wits than the hearts of men against each other, and have diminished the practice more than advanced the theory of morality. If I could flatter myself that this Essay has any merit, it is in steering betwixt the extremes of doctrines seemingly opposite, in passing over terms utterly unintelligible, and in forming a temperate yet not inconsistent, and a short, yet not imperfect, system of ethics.

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 farther 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. 250. X. The consequence of all, the absolute submission due to Providence, both as to our present and future state, ver. 281, to the end. EPISTLE I.

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 it is true: I found I could express them more shortly this way than in AWAKE, my St. John! leave all meaner things prose itself; and nothing is more certain, than that To low ambition, and the pride of kings: much of the force, as well as the grace of arguments Let us (since life can little more supply or instructions, depends on their conciseness. I was Than just to look about us, and to die) unable to treat this part of my subject more in detail, Expatiate free o'er all this scene of man ; without becoming dry and tedious; or more poeti- A mighty maze! but not without a plan : cally, without sacrificing perspicuity to ornament, A wild, where weeds and flowers promiscuous shoot ; without wandering from the precision, or breaking the Or garden, tempting with forbidden fruit, chain of reasoning: if any man can unite all these Together let us beat this ample field, without diminution of any of them, I freely confess Try what the open, what the covert yield; he will compass a thing above my capacity. The latent tracts, the giddy heights, explore, Of all who blindly creep, or sightless soar; Eye nature's walks, shoot folly as it flies, And catch the manners living as they rise: Laugh where we must, be candid where we can, But vindicate the ways of God to man.

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. 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.

AN ESSAY ON MAN.

ARGUMENT OF EPISTLE I.

Universe.

Of man in the abstract. I, That we can judge only with

10

I. Say first, of God above, or man below,
What can we reason, but from what we know?
Of man, what see we but his station here,
From which to reason, or to which refer?
Through worlds unnumber'd though the God be
known,

'Tis ours to trace him only in our own.
He, who through vast immensity can pierce,
See worlds on worlds compose one universe,
Observe how system into system runs,
What other planets circle other suns,
What varied being peoples every star,
May tell why heaven has made us as we are.

20

30

Of the Nature and State of Man with respect to the But of this frame, the bearings and the ties, The strong connexions, nice dependencies, Gradations just, has thy pervading soul regard to our own system, being ignorant of the rela- Look'd through? or can a part contain the whole? tions of systems and things, ver. 17, &c. II. That Is the great chain that draws all to agree, man is not to be deemed imperfect, but a being suited And drawn supports, upheld by God, or thee to his place and rank in the creation, agreeable to the II. Presumptuous man! the reason wouldst thou find, general order of things, and conformable to ends and Why form'd so weak, so little, and so blind? relations to him unknown, ver. 35, &c. III. That it First, if thou canst, the harder reason guess, is partly upon his ignorance of future events, and Why form'd no weaker, blinder, and no less? partly upon the hope of a future state, that all his Ask of thy mother earth, why oaks are made happiness in the present depends, ver. 77, &c. IV. The pride of aiming at more knowledge, and pretendTaller or stronger than the weeds they shade? ing to more perfection, the cause of man's error and Or ask of yonder argent fields above, misery. The impiety of putting himself in the place Why Jove's satellites are less than Jove. of God, and judging of the fitness or unfitness, per- Of systems possible, if 'tis confess'd, fection or imperfection, justice or injustice, of his That wisdom infinite must form the best, dispensations, ver. 109, &c. V. The absurdity of Where all must fall or not coherent be, conceiting himself the final cause of the creation, And all that rises, rise in due degree; or expecting that perfection in the moral world, Then, in the scale of reasoning life, 'tis plain, which is not in the natural, ver. 131, &c. VI. The

unreasonableness of his complaints against Provi. There must be somewhere, such a rank as man : dence, while on the one hand he demands the perfec. And all the question (wrangle e'er so long) tion of the angels, and on the other the bodily qualifi. Is only this, if God has placed him wrong? cations of the brutes; though to possess any of the Respecting man, whatever wrong we call, sensitive faculties in a higher degree, would render May, must be right, as relative to all.

40

50

50

When the proud steed shall know why man restrains
His fiery course, or drives him o'er the plains;
When the dull ox, why now he breaks the clod,
Is now a victim, and now Egypt's god,
Then shall man's pride and dulness comprehend
His actions', passions', being's use and end;
Why doing, suffering, check'd, impell'd; and why
This hour a slave, the next a deity.

Then say not man's imperfect, Heaven in fault:
Say rather, man's as perfect as he ought:
His knowledge measured to his state and place
His time a moment, and a point his space.
If to be perfect in a certain sphere,
What matter, soon or late, or here or there?
The bless'd to-day is as completely so,
As who began a thousand years ago.

V. Ask for what end the heavenly bodies shine,
Earth for whose use ? Pride answers,"Tis for mine.
For me kind nature wakes her genial power;
Suckles each herb, and spreads out every flower;
Annual for me, the grape, the rose, renew
The juice nectareous, and the balmy dew;
For me, the mine a thousand treasures brings;

70 For me, health gushes from a thousand springs;
Seas roll to waft me, suns to light me rise;
My foot-stool earth, my canopy the skies.'

140

But errs not nature from this gracious end,
From burning suns when livid deaths descend,
When earthquakes swallow, or when tempests sweep
Towns to one grave, whole nations to the deep?
No,' 'tis replied, 'the first Almighty Cause
Acts not by partial, but by general laws;
The exceptions few; some change since all began
80 And what created perfect ?-Why then man?
If the great end be human happiness,
Then nature deviates; and can man do less?
As much that end a constant course requires
Of showers and sun-shine, as of man's desires?
As much eternal springs and cloudless skies,
As men for ever temperate, calm, and wise.
If plagues or earthquakes break not Heaven's design,
Why then a Borgia, or a Catiline?

III. Heaven from all creatures hides the book of fate,
All but the page prescribed, their present state;
From brutes what men, from men what spirits know:
Or who could suffer being here below?
The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day,
Had he thy reason, would he skip and play?
Pleased to the last, he crops the flowery food,
And licks the hand just raised to shed his blood.
Oh blindness to the future! kindly given,
That each may fill the circle mark'd by Heaven,
Who sees with equal eye, as God of all,
A hero perish, or a sparrow fall,
Atoms or systems into ruin hurl'd,

And now a bubble burst, and now a world.

Hope humbly then; with trembling pinions soar;
Wait the great teacher, Death; and God adore.
What future bliss, he gives not thee to know,
But gives that hope to be thy blessing now.
Hope springs eternal in the human breast:
Man never Is, but always To be bless'd:
The soul, uneasy, and confined from home,
Rests and expatiates on a life to come.

Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutor'd mind
Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind;
His soul proud science never taught to stray
Far as the solar walk, or milky way;
Yet simple nature to his hope has given,
Behind the cloud-topp'd hill, an humbler heaven;
Some safer world in depth of woods embraced,
Some happier island in the watery waste,
Where slaves once more their native land behold,
No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold.
To be, contents his natural desire,

He asks no angel's wing, no seraph's fire;
But thinks, admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog shall bear him company.
IV. Go wiser thou! and in thy scale of sense,
Weigh thy opinion against Providence ;
Call imperfection what thou fanciest such;
Say, here he gives too little, there too much:
Destroy all creatures for thy sport or gust,
Yet say, if man's unhappy, God's unjust:
If man alone engross not Heaven's high care,
Alone made perfect here, immortal there:

90

150

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,

Or turns young Ammon loose to scourge mankind? 160
From pride, from pride, our very reasoning springs;
Account for moral as for natural things:
Why charge we Heaven in those, in these acquit,
In both, to reason right, is to submit.

Better for us, perhaps, it might appear,
Were there all harmony, all virtue here;
That never air or ocean felt the wind,

100 That never passion discomposed the mind.
But all subsists by elemental strife;
And passions are the elements of life.
The general order since the whole began,
Is kept in nature, and is kept in man.

170

VI. What would this man? Now upward will he soar
And, little less than angel, would be more;
Now looking downwards, just as grieved appears
To want the strength of bulls, the fur of bears.
Made for his use all creatures if he call,

110 Say what their use, had he the powers of all ?
Nature to these, without profusion, kind,
The proper organs, proper powers assign'd;
Each seeming want compensated; of course,
Here with degrees of swiftness, there of force;
All in exact proportion to the state;
Nothing to add, and nothing to abate.
Each beast, each insect, happy in its own:
Is Heaven unkind to man, and man alone?
Shall he alone, whom rational we call,
120 Be pleased with nothing, if not bless'd with all 7

180

The bliss of man (could pride that blessing find) [All this dread order break-for whom? for thee?

Is not to act or think beyond mankind;

No powers of body or of soul to share,

But what his nature and his state can bear.

Why has not man a microscopic eye?

For this plain reason, man is not a fly.

Say what the use, were finer optics given,

To inspect a mite, not comprehend the heaven?
Or touch, if tremblingly alive all o'er,
To smart and agonize at every pore?

Or quick effluvia darting through the brain, -
Die of a rose in aromatic pain?

If Nature thunder'd in his opening ears,
And stunn'd him with the music of the spheres,
How would he wish that Heaven had left him still
The whispering zephyr, and the purling rill!
Who finds not Providence all good and wise,
A like in what it gives, and what denies?

VII. Far as creation's ample range extends,
The scale of sensual, mental, powers ascends:
Mark how it mounts to man's imperial race,
From the green myriads in the peopled grass :
What modes of sight betwixt each wide extreme,
The mole's dim curtain, and the lynx's beam;
Of smell, the headlong lioness between,
And hound sagacious on the tainted green;
Of hearing, from the life that fills the flood,

To that which warbles through the vernal wood!

The spider's touch how exquisitely fine!
Feels at each thread, and lives along the line:
In the nice bee, what sense so subtly true,

190 Vile worm!-oh madness! pride! impiety!

IX. What if the foot, ordain'd 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?
Just as absurd for any part to claim
To be another in this general frame:
Just as absurd, to mourn the task or pains
The great directing Mind of all ordains.

270

All are but parts of one stupendous whole,
200 Whose body Nature is, and God the soul;
That, changed through all, and yet in all the same,
Great in the earth, as in the ethereal frame;
Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze,
Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees;
Lives through all life, extends through all extent,
Spreads undivided, operates unspent ;
Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part,
As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart;

As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns,
210 As the rapt seraph that adores and burns:
To him no high, no low, no great, no small;
He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all.

X. Cease then, nor order imperfection name:
Our proper bliss depends on what we blame.
Know thy own point: this kind, this due degree
Of blindness, weakness, Heaven bestows on thee.
Submit.-In this, or any other sphere,

Secure to be as bless'd as thou canst bear:
Safe in the hand of one disposing Power,

From poisonous herbs extracts the healing dew! 220 Or in the natal, or the mortal hour.

230

How instinct varies in the grovelling swine,
Compared, half-reasoning elephant, with thine!
Twixt that and reason what a nice barrier;
For ever separate, yet for ever near!
Remembrance and reflection how allied;
What thin partitions sense from thought divide!
And middle natures, how they long to join,
Yet never pass the insuperable line!
Without this just gradation, could they be
Subjected, these to those, or all to thee?
The powers of all subdued by thee alone,
Is not thy reason all these powers in one?
VIII. See, through this air, this ocean, and this earth,
All matter quick, and bursting into birth.
Above, how high progressive life may go!
Around, how wide! how deep extend below!
Vast chain of being! which from God began,
Natures ethereal, human, angel, man,
Beast, bird, fish, insect, which no eye can see,
No glass can reach; from infinite to thee;
From thee to nothing.-On superior powers
Were we to press, inferior might on ours;
Or in the full creation leave a void,
Where, one step broken, the great scale's destroy'd:
From nature's chain whatever link you strike,
Tenth, or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike.
And, if each system in gradation roll

Alike essential to the amazing whole,
The least confusion but in one, not all
That system only, but the whole must fall.
Let earth unbalanced from her orbit fly,
Planets and suns run lawless through the sky;.
Let ruling angels from their spheres be hurl'd,
Being on being wreck'd, and world on world;
Heaven's whole foundations to their centre nod
And nature trembles to the throne of God.

240

250

All nature is but art, unknown to thee;
All chance, direction which thou canst not see :
All discord, harmony not understood;
All partial evil, universal good.

And, spite of pride, in erring reason's spite,
One truth is clear, WHATEVER 13, IS RIGHT.

ARGUMENT OF EPISTLE II.

280

290

On 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. 1, &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. 231, &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.

I. KNOW then thyself, presume not God to scan; The proper study of mankind is man.

Placed on this isthmus of a middle state,
A being darkly wise, and rudely great:
With too much knowledge for the sceptic side,
With too much weakness for the Stoic's pride,
He hangs between ; in doubt to act, or rest;
In doubt to deem himself a god, or beast;
In doubt his mind or body to prefer;
Born but to die, and reasoning but to err;
Alike in ignorance, his reason such,
Whether he thinks too little or too much;
Chaos of thought and passion, all confused;
Still by himself abused or disabused;
Created half to rise, or half to fall;
Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all;
Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurl'd;
The glory, jest, and riddle of the world!

Self-love still stronger, as its object 's nigh;
Reason's at distance, and in prospect lie:
That sees immediate good by present sense;
Reason, the future and the consequence.
Thicker than arguments temptations throng,
At best more watchful this, but that more strong.
The action of the stronger to suspend,

10 Reason still use, to reason still attend.
Attention habit and experience gains;

Go, wondrous creature! mount where science guides,
Go, measure earth, weigh air, and state the tides; 20
Instruct the planets in what orbs to run,
Correct old time, and regulate the sun;
Go, soar with Plato to the empyreal sphere,
To the first good, first perfect, and first fair;
Or tread the mazy round his followers trod,
And quitting sense call imitating God;
As Eastern priests in giddy circles run,
And turn their heads to imitate the sun.
Go, teach Eternal Wisdom how to rule-'
Then drop into thyself, and be a fool!

Superior beings, when of late they saw
A mortal man unfold all nature's law,
Admired such wisdom in an earthly shape,
And show'd a Newton as we show an ape.
Could he, whose rules the rapid comet bind,
Describe or fix one movement of his mind?
Who saw its fires here rise, and there descend,
Explain his own beginning or his end?
Alas, what wonder! Man's superior part
Uncheck'd may rise, and climb from art to art;
But when his own great work is but begun,
What reason weaves, by passion is undone.
Trace science then, with modesty thy guide;
First strip off all her equipage of pride:
Deduct what is but vanity or dress,
Or learning's luxury, or idleness:

Or tricks to show the stretch of human brain,
Mere curious pleasure, or ingenious pain?
Expunge the whole, or lop the excrescent parts
Of all our vices have created arts;
Then see how little the remaining sum,

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, sense and reason split,
With all the rash dexterity of wit.
Wits, just like fools, at war about a name,
Have full as oft no meaning or the same.
Self-love and reason to one end aspire,
Pain their aversion, pleasure their desire;
But greedy that, its object would devour,

This taste the honey, and not wound the flower. 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 :
But since not every good we can divide,
And reason bids us for our own provide :.
30 Passions, though selfish, if their means be fair,
List under reason, and deserve her care;
Those, that imparted, court a nobler aim,
Exalt their kind, and take some virtue's name.
In lazy apathy let Stoics boast
Their virtue's fix'd: 'tis fix'd as in a frost;
Contracted all, retiring to the breast;
But strength of mind is exercise, not rest :
The rising tempest puts in act the soul;
Parts it may ravage, but preserve the whole.
40 On life's vast ocean diversely we sail,

100

Reason the card, but passion is the gale;
Nor God alone in the still calm we find,
He mounts the storm, and walks upon the wind. 110
Passions, like elements, though born to fight,
Yet mix'd and soften'd, in his work unite:
These 'tis enough to temper and employ;
But what composes man, can man destroy?
Suffice that reason keep to nature's road,
Subject, compound them, follow her and God.
50 Love, hope, and joy, fair pleasure's smiling train ;
Hate, fear, and grief, the family of pain;
These mix'd with art, and to due bounds confined,
Make and maintain the balance of the mind:
The lights and shades, whose well-accorded strife
Gives all the strength and colour of our life.

Which served the past, and must the times to come!
II. Two principles in human nature reign;
Self-love to urge, and reason to restrain:
Nor this a good, nor that a bad we call,
Each works its end, to move or govern all :
And to their proper operation still,
Ascribe all good, to their improper, ill.

Self-love, the spring of motion, acts the soul;
Reason's comparing balance rules the whole.
Man, but for that, no action could attend,
And, but for this, were active to no end:
Fix'd like a plant on his peculiar spot,
To draw nutrition, propagate, and rot;
Or, meteor-like, flame lawless through the void,
Destroying others, by himself destroy'd.

Most strength the moving principle requires;
Active its task, it prompts, impels, inspires.
Sedate and quiet the comparing lies,
Form'd but to check, deliberate, and advise

Pleasures are ever in our hands and eyes;
And when in act they cease, in prospect rise:
Present to grasp, and future still to find,
The whole employ of body and of mind,

120

130

60 All spread their charms, but charm not all alike;
On different senses, different objects strike:
Hence different passions more or less inflame,
As strong or weak, the organs of the frame;
And hence one master passion in the breast,
Like Aaron's serpent, swallows up the rest.
As man, perhaps, the moment of his breath,
Receives the lurking principle of death;
The young disease, which must subdue at length,
Grows with his growth, and strengthens with his
strength :

701