II. Whether with reason, or with instinct blest,
Know, all enjoy that power which suits them best;
To bliss alike by that direction tend,

And find the means proportioned to their end.
Say, where full instinct is the unerring guide,
What pope or council can they need beside ?*
Reason, however able, cool at best,

Cares but for service, or but serves when prest,
Stays till we call, and then not often near;
But honest instinct comes a volunteer,
Sure never to o'ershoot, but just to hit;
While still too wide or short is human wit;
Sure by quick nature happiness to gain,
Which heavier reason labors at in vain.
This too serves always, reason never long;
One must go right, the other may go wrong.
See then the acting and comparing powers,
One in their nature, which are two in ours!
And reason raise o'er instinct as you can,
In this 'tis God directs, in that 'tis man.

Who taught the nations of the field and wood
To shun their poison, and to choose their food?
Prescient, the tides or tempest to withstand,
Build on the wave, or arch beneath the sand?
Who made the spider parallels design,

Sure as De Moivre, without rule or line?
Who bid the stork, Columbus like, explore

Heavens not his own, and worlds unknown before?

Who calls the council, states the certain day;
Who forms the phalanx, and who points the way?
III. God, in the nature of each being, founds
Its proper bliss, and sets its proper bounds:

house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." It is not hard for a good man to let go of earth. He contemplates the change with serenity and hope. It is only the skeptic, the infidel, and the animal part of man that shrinks, fears, and trembles at the thought of his inevitable change.

*It would be blasphemy to attempt to teach a dog to pray. His instinct could not comprehend its significance. He has no moral sense, no Veneration.

+ We claim, on phrenological grounds, that reason is at least a step higher than mere instinct. But we also claim that man possesses all the instincts common to the lower animals, even in a higher degree than the animals themselves; that reason is superadded, and that the moral sentiments make man by nature a religious beingfor are not all nations and tribes inclined to worship?-and is not man, by virtue of his reason and his moral or spiritual sense, rather than by size or physical strength, lord of all created things? and who can place limits on the possibilities of his mental reach, or of development and improvement?

But as he framed the whole, the whole to bless,
On mutual wants build mutual happiness;
So, from the first eternal order ran,

And creature linked to creature, man to man,
Whate'er of life all quickening either keeps,

Or breathes through air, or shoots beneath the deeps,
Or pours profuse on earth, and nature feeds
The vital flame, and swells the genial seeds.
Not man alone, but all that roam the wood,
Or wing the sky, or roll along the flood,
Each loves itself, but not itself alone,
Each sex desires alike, till two are one.

Nor ends the pleasure with the first embrace;
They love themselves a third time in their race.
Thus beast and bird their common charge attend,
The mothers nurse it, and the sires defend :
The young dismissed to wander earth or air,
There stops the instinct, and there ends the care;
The link dissolves, each seeks a fresh embrace,
Another love succeeds, another race.*

A longer care man's helpless kind demands;
The longer care contracts more lasting bands;
Reflection, reason, still the ties improve,
At once extend the interest and the love:
With choice we fix, with sympathy we burn;
Each virtue in each passion takes its turn;
And still new needs, new helps, new habits rise,
That graft benevolence on charities.

Still as one brood, and as another rose,

These natural love maintained, habitual those :
The last, scarce ripened into perfect man,
Saw helpless him from whom their life began:
Memory and forecast just returns engage;
That pointed back to youth, this on to age;
While pleasure, gratitude, and hope combin'd,
Still spread the interest and preserve the kind.

IV. Nor think, in nature's state they blindly trod;
The state of nature was the reign of God;

Self-love and social at her birth began,
Union the bond of all things, and of man.

* This is according with the Divine injunction, to multiply and replenish the earth. There are no commands, no obligations on man, in Divine or natural law, which he is not capable of fulfilling.

Pride then was not; nor arts, that pride to aid;
Man walked with beast, joint-tenant of the shade;
The same his table, and the same his bed;
No murder cloth'd him, and no murder fed.
In the same temple, the resounding wood,
All vocal beings hymn'd their equal God:
The shrine with gore unstain'd, with gold undrest,
Unbrib'd, unbloody, stood the blameless priest:.
Heaven's attribute was universal care,

And man's prerogative to rule, but spare.
Ah! how unlike the man of times to come!
Of half that live the butcher and the tomb ;-
Who, foe to nature, hears the general groan,
Murders their species, and betrays his own.*
But just disease to luxury succeeds,
And every death its own avenger breeds:
The fury-passions from that blood began,
And turned on man, a fiercer savage, man.

See him from nature rising slow to art:
To copy instinct then was reason's part.
Thus then to man the voice of nature spake-
"Go, from the creatures thy instructions take:
Learn from the birds what food the thickets yield;
Learn from the beast the physic of the field;
Thy arts of building from the bee receive;
Learn of the mole to plow, the worm to weave;
Learn of the little nautilus to sail,

Spread the thin oar, and catch the driving gale.t

Here, too, all forms of social union find,
And hence let reason, late, instruct mankind :
Here subterranean works and cities see;
There towns aerial on the waving tree.
Learn each small people's genius, policies,
The ant's republic, and the realm of bees;
How those in common all their wealth bestow,
And anarchy without confusion know;
And these forever, though a monarch reign,
Their separate cells, and properties maintain.

* Is it to be inferred from these words of the poet, that man was intended to live without animal food? that he was to subsist on fruits and farinacea? and is he a murderer if he partakes of fish, flesh, or fowl? Did not animals from the beginning feed on each other? See the illustration of the nautilus at the head of this Epistle. adapted to society, and must have it, to harmoniously and Hermits and celibates are exceptions, and are eccentric or

Man is a social being, fully develop his nature. insane.

Mark what unvaried laws preserve each state,
Laws, wise as nature, and as fixed as fate.
In vain thy reason finer webs shall draw,
Entangle justice in her net of law,

And right, too rigid, harden into wrong;

Still for the strong too weak, the weak too strong.
Yet go! and thus o'er all the creatures sway,
Thus let the wiser make the rest obey.*

And for those arts mere instinct could afford,
Be crown'd as monarchs, or as gods ador'd."

V. Great nature spoke; observant man obeyed;
Cities were built, societies were made:

Here rose one little state, another near

Grew by like means, and joined through love or fear.
Did here the trees with ruddier burdens bend,
And there the streams in purer rills descend?
What war could ravish, commerce could bestow;
And he return'd a friend who came a foe.

Converse and love, mankind might strongly draw,
When love was liberty, and nature law.

Thus states were form'd: the name of king unknown,
Till common interest placed the sway in one.

'Twas VIRTUE ONLY, (or in arts or arms,
Diffusing blessings, or averting harms,)
The same which in a sire the sons obey'd,

A prince, the father of a people made.†

VI. Till then, by nature crown'd, each patriarch sate,
King, priest, and parent of his growing state;
On him, their second Providence, they hung,
Their law his eye, their oracle his tongue.
He from the wond'ring furrow call'd the food,
Taught to command the fire, control the flood,
Draw forth the monsters of the abyss profound,
Or fetch the aerial eagle to the ground;
Till drooping, sickening, dying, they began
Whom they rever'd as God to mourn as man :
Then, looking up, from sire to sire explor'd
One great First Father, and that first ador'd.
On plain tradition that this all begun,
Convey'd unbroken faith from sire to son.

* It is natural and right for parents to govern their children, and for wise men to enact laws to govern such as can not or do not properly govern themselves.

+ In America, we choose or elect our President and public servants for a term. In Europe, and in the East, they have monarchies, with hereditary rulers.

The worker from the work distinct was known,
And simple reason never sought but one:
Ere wit oblique had broke that steady light,
Man, like his Maker, saw that all was right:

To virtue, in the paths of pleasure trod,
And own'd a father when he own'd a God.
Love, all the faith, and all the allegiance then,
For nature knew no right divine in men:
Nor ill could fear in God, and understood
A sovereign being, but a sovereign good.

True faith, true policy, united ran,

That was but love of God, and this of man.

Who first taught souls enslav'd, and realms undone, The enormous faith of many made for one;

That proud exception to all nature's laws,

T' invert the world, and counterwork its cause.

Force first made conquest, and that conquest law;
Till superstition taught the tyrant awe.

Then shar'd the tyranny, then lent it aid,

And Gods of conquerors, slaves of subjects made: