For hard's the task the daubing to pervade
Folly and fraud on Truth's fair form have laid;
Yet let that task be ours; for the prize?
Nor let us Truth's celeftial charms defpife,
Because that priests, or poets may disguise.
That there's a God from Nature's voice is clear,
And yet what errors to this truth adhere?
How have the fears and follies of mankind
Now multiply'd their Gods, and now fubjoin'd
To each the frailties of the human mind!
Nay fuperftition spread at length fo wide,
Beafts, birds, and onions too were deify'd.
Th' Athenian fage revolving in his mind
This weakness, blindness, madness of mankind,
Foretold, that in maturer days, though late,
When Time should ripen the decrees of Fate,
Some God would light us, like the rising day,
Through error's maze, and chase these clouds away,
Long fince has Time fulfill'd this great decree,
And brought us aid from this Divinity.
Well worth our fearch discoveries may be made
By Nature, void of the celeftial aid:
Let's try what her conjectures then can reach,
Nor fcorn plain Reafon, when fhe deigns to teach.
That mind and body often sympathize
Is plain; fuch is this union Nature ties :
But then as often too they difagree,
Which proves the foul's fuperior progeny.
Sometimes the body in full ftrength we find,
Whilft various ails debilitate the mind;
At others, whilft the mind its force retains,
The body finks with fickness and with pains :
Now did one common fate their beings end,
Alike they'd ficken, and alike they'd mend.
But fure experience, on the flightest view,
Shews us, that the reverfe of this is true;
For when the body oft expiring lies,
Its limbs quite fenfelefs, and half clos'd its eyes,
The mind new force, and eloquence acquires,
And with prophetic voice the dying lips inspires.
Of like materials were they both compos'd,
How comes it, that the mind, when sleep has clos'd
Each avenue of sense, expatiates wide
Her liberty restor'd, her bonds unty'd ?
And like fome bird who from its prison flies,
Claps her exulting wings, and mounts the skies.
Grant that corporeal is the human mind,
It must have parts in infinitum join'd;
And each of thefe muft will, perceive, defign,
And draw confus'dly in a different line;
Which then can claim dominion o'er the reft,
Or ftamp the ruling paffion in the breast?
Perhaps the mind is form'd by various arts
Of modelling, and figuring these parts;
Juft as if circles wiser were than squares;
But furely common sense aloud declares
That fite, and figure are as foreign quite
From mental pow'rs, as colours black or white.
Allow that motion is the cause of thought,
With what strange pow'rs must motion then be fraught?
Reason, fenfe, fcience, muft derive their fource
From the wheel's rapid whirl, or pully's force;
Tops whip'd by fchool-boys fages must commence,
Their hoops, like them, be cudgel'd into fenfe,
And boiling pots o'erflow with eloquence.
Whence can this very motion take its birth?
Not fure from matter, from dull clods of earth;
But from a living spirit lodg'd within,
Which governs all the bodily machine:
Just as th' Almighty Univerfal Soul
Informs, directs, and animates the whole.
Cease then to wonder how th' immortal mind
Can live, when from the body quite disjoin'd;
But rather wonder, if fhe e'er could die,
So fram'd, fo fashion'd for eternity;
Self-mov'd, not form'd of parts together ty'd,
Which time can diffipate, and force divide;
For beings of this make can never die,
Whose pow'rs within themfelves, and their own effence lie.
If to conceive how any thing can be
From shape abstracted and locality
Is hard; what think you of the Deity?
His Being not the leaft relation bears,
As far as to the human mind appears,
To shape, or fize, fimilitude or place,
Cloath'd in no form, and bounded by no space.
Such then is God, a Spirit pure refin'd
From all material drofs, and fuch the human mind.
For in what part of effence can we fee
More certain marks of Immortality?
Ev'n from this dark confinement with delight
She looks abroad, and prunes herself for flight;
Like an unwilling inmate longs to roam
From this dull earth, and feek her native home.
Go then forgetful of its toil and ftrife, t
Pursue the joys of this fallacious life, you ne
Like fome poor fly, who lives but for a day,
Sip the fresh dews, and in the funshine play,
And into nothing then diffolve away.
Are thefe our great purfuits, is this to live?
These all the hopes this much-lov'd world can give!
How much more worthy envy is their fate,
Who fearch for truth in a fuperior state!
Not groping step by step, as we pursue,
And following reafon's much entangled clue,
But with one great, and inftantaneous view.
But how can fenfe remain, perhaps you'll fay,
Corporeal organs if we take away,
Since it from them proceeds, and withthem must decay?
Why not? or why may not the foul receive
New organs, fince ev'n art can these retrieve de
The filver trumpet aids th' obftructed ear,
And optic glaffes the dim eye can clear;
These in mankind new faculties create,
And lift him far above his native state;
Call down revolving planets from the sky,
Earth's fecret treasures open to his eye,
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