EPISTLE I

THE ARGUMENT.

Of the Nature and State of Man with respect to the

Universe.

Or man in the abstract.-I. That we can judge only with regard to our own fyftem, being ignorant of the relations of fyftems and things, ver. 17, &c. II. That man is not to be deemed imperfect, but a being fuited 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 ftate, that all his happiness in the prefent depends, ver. 77, &c. IV. The pride of aiming at more knowledge, and pretending to more perfection, the caufe of man's error and mifery. The impiety of putting himself in the place of God, and judging of the fitness or unfitnefs, perfection or imperfection, juftice or unjuftice, of his difpenfations, ver. 109, &c. V. The abfurdity of conciting himself the final caufe 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 perfection of the angels, and on the other the bodily qualifications of the brutes; though, to poffefs any of the fenfitive faculties in a higher degree, would render him miferable, ver. 173, &c. VII. That throughout the whole vifible world, au univerfal order and gradation in the fenfual and mental faculties is obferved, which caufes a fubordination of creature to creature, and of all creatures to man. The gradations of fenfe, inftinct, thought, reflection, reafon; that reafon alone countervails all the other faculties, ver. 207. VIII. How much farther this order and fubordination 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, madnefs, and pride of fuch a defire, ver. 250. X. The confequence of all the abfolute fubmiffion due to providence, both as to our prefent and future ftate, ver. 281, &c. to the end.

AWAKE, my St. John! leave all meaner things
To low ambition, and the pride of kings.
1.et us (fince life can little more fupply
Than just to look about us, and to die),
Expatiate free o'er all this fcene of man;

A mighty maze! but not without a plan : [fhoot;
A wild, where weeds and flowers promifcuous
Or garden, tempting with forbidden fruit.
Together let us beat this ample field,
Try what the open, what the covert yield;
The latent trads, the giddy heights, explore
Of all who blindly creep, or fightless foar;
Eye nature's walks, fhoot folly as it flies,
And catch the manners living as they rife:

'Tis ours to trace him only in our own.
He, who through vaft immensity can pierce,
See worlds on worlds compofe one univerfe,
Obferve how fyftem into fyftem runs,
What other planets circle other funs,
What vary'd being peoples every ftar,
May tell why heaven has made us as we are:
But of this frame the bearings and the ties,
The ftrong connections, nice dependencies,
Gradations juft, has thy pervading foul
Look'd through? or can a part contain the whole?
Is the great chain, that draws all to agree,
And drawn fupports, upheld by God, or thee?
II. Prefumptuous man! the reafon would'
thou find,

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Why form'd fo weak, fo little, and so blind?
First, if thou canft, the harder reafon guess,
Why form'd no weaker, blinder, and no lefs?
Afk of thy mother earth, why oaks are made
Taller or weaker than the weeds they fhade? 40
Or afk of yonder argent fields above,
Why Jove's fatellites are lefs than Jove?

Of fyftems poffible, if 'tis confeft,
That Wildon Infinite muft form the beft,
Where all muft fall or not coherent be,
And all that rifes, rife in due degree;
Then, in the scale of reasoning life, 'tis plain,
There must be, fomewhere, fuch a rank as man :
And all the queftion (wrangle e'er so long),
Is only this, if God has plac'd him wrong?

50

Refpecting man, whatever wrong we call May, must be right, as relative to all. In human works, though labour'd on with pain, A thousand movements fcarce one purpose gain: In God's, one fingle can its end produce; Yet ferves to fecond too fome other use. So man, who here feems principle alone, Perhaps acts fecond to fome sphere unknown, Touches fome wheel or verges to fome goal; 'Tis but a part we fee, and not a whole.

60

When the proud fteed fhall know why man refrains

His fiery courfe, 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 fhail man's pride and duinefs comprehend
His actions', paffions', being's, ufe and end;
Why doing, fuffering, check'd, impell'd; and why
This hour a flave, the next a deity.

VARIATIONS.

In the former editions, ver. 64.
Now wears a garland an Egyptian god.
After ver. 68, the following lines in the firft
edition.

If to be perfed in a certain Iphere,
What matter, foon or late, or here, or there?

Then fay not man's imperfect, heaven in fault;
Say rather, man's as perfect as he ought: 70
His knowledge measur’d to his state and place;
His time a moment, and a point his fpace.
If to be perfect in a certain sphere,

What matter, foon or late, or here, or there?
The bleft to-day is as completely fo,

As who began a thousand years ago.

III. Heaven from all creatures hides the book of fate,

All but the page prescrib'd, their present state: From brutes what men, from men what fpirits

know:

| Call imperfection what thou fancy'ft fuch;
Say, here he gives too little, there too much:
Destroy all creatures for thy fport or guft,
Yet fay, if man's unhappy, God's unjust;
If man alone ingrofs not heaven's high care,
Alone made perfect here, immortal there :
Snatch from his hand the balance and the rod,
Re-judge his juftice, be the god of God.
In pride, in reafoning pride, our error lies;
All quit their fphere, and rufh into the skies.
Pride ftill is aiming at the bleft abodes,
Men would be angels, angels would be gods.
Afpiring to be gods, if angels fell,
Afpiring to be angels, men rebel:

80

And who but wishes to invert the laws Of order, fins against th' eternal caufe.

Or who could fuffer being here below?
The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day,
Had he thy reafon, would he skip and play?
Pleas'd to the laft, he crops the flowery food,
And licks the hand just rais'd to shed his blood.
Oh, blindness to the future kindly given,
That each may fill the circle mark'd by heaven:
Who fees with equal eye, as God of all,
A hero perish, or a sparrow fall,

་

Atom- or fyftems into ruin hurl'd,

90

And now a bubble burst, and now a world.
Hope humbly then; with trembling pinions
foar;

Wait the great teacher death; and God adore.
What future blifs, he gives not thee to know,
But gives that hope to be thy blefling now.
Hope fprings eternal in the human breaft:
Man never is, but always to be bleft:
The foul, uneafy, and confin'd from home,
Refts and expatiates in a life to come.

Lo, the poor Indian! whofe untutor'd mind
Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind; 100
His foul proud fcience never taught to ftray
Far as the folar walk, or milky way;
Yet fimple nature to his hope has given,
Behind the cloud-topt hill, an humbler heaven;
Some fafer world in depth of woods embrac'd,
Some happier island in the watery waste,
Where flaves once more their native land behold,
No fiends torment, no Chriftians thirst for gold.
To be, contents his natural defire,

He afks no angel's wing, no feraph's fire;
But hinks, admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog fhall bear him company.
IV. Go, wifer thou and in thy fcale of fenfe,
Weigh thy opinion against providence;

VARIATIONS.

The bleft to-day is as completely fo,
As who began ten thousand years ago.
After ver. 88, in the MS.

No great, no little; 'tis as much decreed
That Virgil's gnat fhould die as Cæfar bleed.
Ver 93, in the first folio and quarto.
What blifs above he gives not thee to know,
But gives that hope to be thy blifs below.
After ver. 108, in the first edition.
But does he fay the Maker is not good,
Till he's exalted to what ftate he wou'd;
Himfelf alone high heaven's peculiar care,
Alone made happy when he will, and where?

120

130

V. Afk for what end the heavenly bodies fhine, Earth for whofe ufe? 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 rofe, renew "The juice nectareous, and the balmy dew; "For me, the mine a thousand treasures brings; "For me, health gufhes from a thousand fprings; "Seas roll to waft me, funs to light me rife; "My foot-ftool earth, my canopy the fkies."

140

But errs not nature from this gracious end, From burning funs when livid deaths defcend, When earthquakes fwallow, or when tempefts fweep

Towns to one grave, whole nations to the deep? "No ('tis reply'd) the firft Almighty caufe "Acts not by partial, but by general laws; "Th' exceptions few; fome change fince all began:

"And what created perfect?"-Why then man?
If the great end be human happiness,
Then nature deviates; and can man do lefs? 150
As much that end a conftant courfe requires
Of fhowers and fun-fhine, as of man's defires;
As much eternal fprings and cloudlefs fkies,
As men for ever temperate, calm, and wife.
If plagues or earthquakes break not heaven's defign,
Why then a Borgio, or a Catiline? [forms,
Who knows, but he whofe hand the lightning
Who heaves old ocean, and who wings the ftorms;
Pours fierce ambition in a Cæfar's mind,

Or turns young Ammon loofe to fcourge man160

kind?

(From pride, from pride, our very reafoning springs
Account for moral as for natural things:
Why charge we heaven in those, in these acquit?
In both, to reafon right, is to fubmit.

Better for us, perhaps, it might appear,
Were there all harmony, all virtue here;
That never air or ocean felt the wind,
That never paffion difcompos'd the mind.
But all fubfifts by elemental ftrife;
And paflions are the elements of life.
The general order, fince the whole began,
Ys kept in nature, and is kept in man.
vi. What would this man? Now upward will
he foar,

And, little lefs than angel, would be more;

170

EPISTLE II.

Or tread the mazy round his followers trod,
And quitting fenfe call imitating God;
As eastern priests in giddy circles run,

as an Individual.

THE ARGUMENT.

1. 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, felf-love and reafon, both neceffary, ver. 53. &c. Self-love the ftronger, and why, ver. 67. &c. Their end the fame, ver. 81. &c. III. The paffions, and their use, ver. 93. to 130. The predominant paffion, and its force, ver. 132. to 160. Its neceflity, in directing men to different purpoíes, ver. 165. &c. Its providential. ufe, 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 feparate and evident: what is the office of reafon, 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 paffions and imperfections, ver. 238, &c. How ufefully thefe are diftributed to all orders of men, ver. 241. How ufeful they are to fociety, ver. 251. And to individuals, ver. 263. In every flate, and every age of life, ver. 273. &c.

I KNOW then thyself, prefume not God to scan,
The proper ftudy of mankind is man.
Plac'd on this ifthmus of a middle state,
A being darkly wife, and rudely great :
With too much knowledge for the fceptic fide,
With too much weakness for the ftoic's pride,
He hangs between; in doubt to act, or reft;
In doubt to deem himself a god, or beast;
In doubt his mind or body to prefer ;
Born but to die, and reafoning but to err;
Alike in ignorance, his reafon fuch,
Whether he thinks too little, or too much :
Chaos of thought and paflion, all confus'd;
Still by himself abus'd or difabus'd;
Created half to rife, and half to fall;
Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all;
Sole judge of truth, in endlefs error hurl'd:
The glory, jeft, and riddle of the world!

10

Go, wondrous creature! mount where science guides.

Go, teach Eternal Wifdom how to rule-
Then drop into thyfelf, and be a fool!

Superior beings, when of late they faw
A mortal man unfold all nature's law,
Admir'd fuch wifdom in an earthly shape,
And fhew'd a Newton as we fhew an ape.
Could he, whofe rules the rapid comet bind,
Defcribe or fix one movement of mind?
Who faw its fires here rife, and there defcend,

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Explain his own beginning or his end?
Alas, what wonder! Man's fuperior part
Uncheck'd may rife, and climb from art to art; 40
But when his own great work is but begun,
What reafon weaves, by paffion is undone.

Trace science then, with modefly thy guide;
Firft ftrip off all her equipage of pride;
Dedact what is but vanity or drefs,
Or learning's luxury, or idleness;
Or tricks to fhow the stretch of human brain,
Mere curious pleasure, or ingenious pain;
Expunge the whole, or lop excrefcent parts
Of all our vices have created arts;
Then fee how little the remaining fum,
Which ferv'd the past, and must the times to come!
I. Two principles in human nature reign;
Self-love to urge, and reafon, 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 ftill,
Afcribe all good, to their improper ill.

Self-love, the fpring of motion, acts the foul; Reafon's comparing balance rules the whole. 60 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, aud rot;

VARIATIONS.

As wifely fure a modeft ape might aim
To be like man, whofe faculties and frame
He fees, he feels, as you or I to be
An angel thing we neither knew nor fee.
Obferve now near he edges on our race;
What human tricks! how rifible of face!
It must be fo-why elle have I the fenfe
Of more than monkey charms and excellence?
Why elfe to walk on two so oft effay'd?
And why this ardent longing for a maid?
So pug might plead, and call his gods unkind
Till fet on end, and married to his mind.
Go, reafoning thing! affume the doctor's chair,
As Plato deep, as Seneca fevere:

Fix moral fitnefs, and to God give rule,
Then drop into thyself, &c.

Ver. 21. Edit. 4th and 5th.

Show by what rules the wandering planets ftray, Correct old time, and teach the fun his way.

Ver. 35, Ed. Ift.

Could he, who taught each planet where to roll, Describe or fix one movement of the foul?

Who mark'd their points, to rife or to defcend, Explain his own beginning, or his end?

Or, meteor-like, flame lawlefs through the void, Deftroying others, by himself destroy'd.

Moft ftrength the moving principle requires; Active its talk, it prompts, impels, infpires. Sedate and quiet the comparing lies.

70

Form'd but to check, deliberate, and advife.
Self-love, ftill stronger, as its objects nigh;
Reason's at distance, and in profpect lie:
That fees immediate good by prefent fenfe;
Reason, the future and the confequence.
Thicker than arguments, temptations throng,
At beft more watchful this, but that more strong.
The action of the ftronger to fufpend,
Reason still use, to reafon ftill attend.
Attention, habit, and experience gains;

Each strengthens reafon, and felf-love reftrains. 80
Let fubtle schoolmen teach these friends to fight,
More ftudious to divide than to unite;
And grace and virtue, fenfe and reason split,
With all the rafh dexterity of wit.
Wits, just like fools, at war about a name,
Have full as oft no meaning, or the fame.
Self-love and reafon to one end afpire,
Pain their averfion, pleasure their defire;
But greedy that, its object would devour,
This taste the honey, and not wound the flower :
Pleasure, or wrong or rightly understood,
Our greatest evil, or our greatest good.

[call;

III. Modes of felf-love the paffions we may
'Tis real good, or feeming, moves them all :
But fince not every good we can divide,
And reafon bids us for our own provide;
Paffions, though fellish, if their means be fair,
Lift under reafon, and deferve her care;
Thofe, that in parted, court a nobler aim,
Exalt their kind, and take fome virtue's name. 100
In lazy apathy let ftoics boast
Their virtue fix'd; 'tis fix'd as in a frost;
Contracted all, retiring to the breaft;
But ftrength of mind is exereife, not reft:
The rifing tempeft puts in act the foul;
Parts it may ravage, but preferves the whole.
On life's valt ocean diverfely we fail,
Reafon the card, but paffion is the gale;
Nor God alone in the still calm we find,

He mounts the form and walks upon the wind. 110
-Paflions, like elements, though born to fight.
Yet, mix'd and foften'd, in his work unite:
Thefe, 'tis enough to temper and employ ;
But what compofes man, can man destroy?
Suffice that reafon keep to nature's road,
Subject, compound them, follow her and God.
Love, hope, and joy, fair pleasure's smiling train;
Hate, fear, and grief, the family of pain;

VARIATIONS.

After ver. 86, in the MS.

Of good and evil gods what frighted fools, Of good and evil reafon puzzled schools, Deceiv'd, deceiving, taught

After. ver. 108, in the MS.

A tedious voyage! where how useless lies
The compafs, if no powerful gufts arife!
After ver. 112, in the MS.
The foft reward the virtuous, or invite:
The fierce, the vicious punish or affright.

Thefe mix'd with art, and to due bonnds confin'd, Make and maintain the balance of the mind; 120 The lights and fhades, whose well-accorded ftrife Gives all the ftrength and colour of our life.

Pleasures are ever in our hands and eyes; And, when in act they ceafe, in profpect rife : Prefent to grasp, and future ftill to find, The whole employ of body and of mind. All fpread their charms, but charm not all alike; On different fenfes, different objects ftrike; Hence different paffions more or lefs inflame, As ftrong or weak, the organs of the frame; 130 And hence one mater paflion in the breaft, Like Aaron's ferpent, fwallows up the reft.

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 ftrengthens with his
frength:

So, caft and mingled with his very frame,
The mind's difcafe, its ruling paflion came;
Each vital humour, which fhould feed the whole,
Soon flows to this, in body and in foul:
Whatever warms the heart, or fills the head,
As the mind opens, and its functions spread,
Imagination plies her dangerous art,
And pours it all upon the peccant part.

Nature its mother, habit is its nurse;
Wit, fpirit, faculties, but make it worse;
Reafon itfelf but gives it edge and power;
As heaven's bleft beam turns vinegar more four.

165

We, wretched fubjects though to lawful sway, In this weak queen, fome favourite ftill obey: 150 Ah! if the lend not arms, as well as rules, What can fhe more than tell us we are fools? Teach us to mourn our nature, not to mend; A fharp accufer, but a helpless friend! Or from a judge turn pleader, to perfuade The choice we make, or juftify it made; Proud of an eafy conqueft all along, She but removes weak paflions for the frong: So, when small humours gather to a gout, The doctor fancies he has driv'n them out. Yes, nature's road must ever be preferr'd; Reafon is here no guide, but fill a guard: 'Tis hers to rectify, not overthrow, And treat this paflion more as friend than foe; A mightier power the ftrong direction fends, And feveral men impels to feveral ends: Like varying winds, by other paffions toft, This drives them conftant to a certain coaft. Let power or knowledge, gold or glory, please, Or (oft more ftrong than all) the love of cafe; 170 Through life 'tis follow'd, ev'n at life's expence; The merchant's toil, the fage's indolence, The monk's humility, the hero's pride, All, all alike, find reafon on their fide.

Th' eternal art, educing good from ill, Grafts on this paffion our belt principle: 'Tis thus the mercury of man is fix'd, Strong grows the virtue with his nature mix'd; The drofs cements what elfe were too refin'd, And in one intereft body as with mind.

As fruits, ungrateful to the planter's care,

On favage flocks inferted learn to bear;

18.