In vain, in vain,-the all-composing hour In vain! they gaze, turn giddy, rave, and die. For public flame, nor private, dares to shine, Thy hand, great Anarch! lets the curtain fall, And universal darkness buries all. AN ESSAY ON MAN. TO H. ST. JOHN, LORD BOLINGBROKE. WRITTEN IN 1732. INCORPORATED IN POPE'S WORKS, 1735. THE DESIGN. 66 HAVING proposed to write some pieces on human life and manners, such as (to use my Lord Bacon's expression) come home to men's business and bosoms," I thought it more satisfactory to begin with considering man in the abstract, his nature and his state; since, to prove any moral duty, to enforce any moral precept, or to examine the perfection or imperfection of any creature whatsoever, it is necessary first to know what condition and relation it is placed in, and what is the proper end and purpose of its being. The science of human nature is like all other sciences, reduced to a few clear points. There are not many certain truths in this world. It is therefore in the anatomy of the mind as in that of the body; more good will accrue to mankind by attending to the large, open, and perceptible parts, than by studying too much such finer nerves and vessels, the conformations and uses of which will forever escape our observation. The disputes are all upon these 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. 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 prose itself; and nothing is more certain, than that much of the force as well as grace of arguments or instructions depends on their conciseness. I was unable to treat this part of my subject more in detail, without becoming dry and tedious; or more poetically, without sacrificing perspicuity to ornament, 1 In first edition, "out of all," ce the rivers, to follow them in their course, and to observe eir effects, may be a task more agreeable. ARGUMENT OF EPISTLE I. F THE NATURE AND STATE OF MAN, WITH RESPECT TO THE UNIVERSE. 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, 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 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 of the fitness or unfitness, perfection or imperfection, justice or injustice of His dispensations, ver. 109, &c.-V. The absurdity of conceiting himself the final cause 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 perfections of the angels, and on the other the bodily 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 to man. The gradations of sense, instinct, thought, reflection, reason: that reason alone countervails all the other faculties, ver. 207.-VIII. How much further 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, &c., to the end, EPISTLE I. AWAKE, my St. John!1 leave all meaner things I. Say first, of God above or Man below, "Tis ours to trace Him only in our own. May tell us why Heaven has made us as we are. Looked through, or can a part contain the whole? II. Presumptuous man! the reason wouldst thou find, 1 Henry St. John, the famous Lord Bolingbroke. He was the son of Sir Henry St. John of Lydiard Tregose, in Wiltshire. He fled to France to escape impeachment for treason as a Jacobite soon after the accession of George I., but was pardoned and returned. He has been called the English Alcibiades; his best work is the "Patriot King." 2 An allusion to the golden chain by which Homer tells us the world was sustained by Jove, Why formed so weak, so little, and so blind? In human works, though laboured on with pain, When the proud steed shall know why man restrains His fiery course, or drives him o'er the plains: Then shall man's pride and dulness comprehend 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; If to be perfect in a certain sphere, What matter, soon or late, or here or there? As who began a thousand years ago. 1 The ox was worshipped in ancient Egypt under the name of Apis, |