these without dimination 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 fol low them in their course, and to observe their effects, may be a task more agreeable. AN ESSAY ON MAN. 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 relations 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, agrecable to the general order of things, and conformable to ends and relations to him anknown, ver. 35, &c. III. That it is partly upon his ignos rance of future events, and partly upon the hope of a fu ture 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 the fitness or unfitness, perfec tion or imperfection, justice or injustice, of his dispensa tions, ver. 109, &c. V. The absurdity of conceiting him. self the final cause of the creation, or expecting that perfec non in the inoral 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 oodily 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 man. The gradations of sense, instinct, thought, reflec tion, reason; that reason alone countervails all the other faculties, ver. 207. VII. 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 des troyed, 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 te our present and future state, ver. 281, to the end. EPISTLE I. AWAKE, my St. John! leave all meaner things A wild, where weeds and flowers promiscuous shoot Try what the open, what the covert yield; I. Say first, of God above, or man below, 20 Of man, what see we but his station here, He, who through vast immensity can pierce, 30 II. Presumptuous man! the reason wouldst thou Why form'd so weak, so little and so blind? [find, First, if thou canst, the harder reason guess, Why form'd no weaker, blinder, and no less? Ask of thy mother earth, why oaks are made Taller or stronger than the weeds they shade? Or ask of yonder argent fields above, Why Jove's satellites are less than Jove. Of systems possible, if 'tis confess'd, That wisdom infinite must form the best, Where all must fai! or not coherent be, And all that rises, rise in due degree; Then, in the scale of reasoning life, 'tis plain, There must be somewhere, such a rank as man: And all the question (wrangle e'er so long) Is only this, if God has placed him wrong? Respecting 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 scarce one purpose gain: In God's one single can its end produce; Yet serve to second too some other use: So man who here seems principal alone, 60 When the proud steed shall know whyman 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. 70 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? As who began a thousand years ago. 80 III. Heavenfrom 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 rum hurl'd, And now a bubble burst, and now a world. 90 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? Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutor'd mind Behind the cloud-topp'd hill, an humbler heaven He asks no angel's wing, no seraph's fire; Of order, sins against the Eternal Cause 110 120 130 V. Ask for what end the heavenly bodies shine, Earth for whosc use? Pride answers, ""Tis for mine |