And, binding Nature fast in Fate, What Conscience dictates to be done, Or warns me not to do, This, teach me more than Hell to shun, What Blessings Thy free Bounty gives, For God is paid when Man receives, Yet not to Earth's contracted Span Let not this weak, unknowing hand Presume thy bolts to throw, If I am right, thy grace impart, Still in the right to stay; If I am wrong, oh teach my To find that better way. heart Save me alike from foolish Pride, Teach me to feel another's Woe, 15 20 25 30 35 That Mercy I to others show 40 Mean tho' I am, not wholly so Thro' this day's Life or Death. This day, be Bread and Peace my Lot: To Thee, whose Temple is all Space, All Nature's Incense rise! 45 50 [1738] MORAL ESSAYS IN FOUR EPISTLES TO SEVERAL PERSONS Est brevitate opus, ut currat sententia, neu se [Close be your language; let your sense be clear, Discreetly hide your strength, your vigour spare; And cut the knot when graver reasons fail.-FRANCIS.] EPISTLE I To Sir Richard Temple, Lord Cobham ARGUMENT OF THE KNOWLEDGE AND CHARACTERS OF MEN I. That it is not sufficient for this knowledge to consider Man in the Abstract: Books will not serve the purpose, nor yet your own Experience singly, ver. 1. General maxims, unless they be formed upon both, will be but notional, ver. 10. Some Peculiarity in every man, characteristic to himself, yet varying from himself, ver. 15. Difficulties arising from our own Passions, Fancies, Faculties, etc., ver. 31. The shortness of Life to observe in, and the uncertainty of the Principles of action in men to observe by, ver. 37, etc. Our own Principle of action often hid from ourselves, ver. 41. Some few Characters plain, but in general confounded, dissembled, or inconsistent, ver. 51. Unimaginable weakness in the greatest, ver. 69, etc. The same man utterly different in different places and seasons, ver. 71. Nothing constant and certain but God and Nature, ver. 95. No judging of the Motives from the actions; the same actions proceeding from contrary Motives, and the same Motives influencing contrary actions, ver. 100. II. Yet to form Characters we can only take the strongest actions of a man's life and try to make them agree: the utter uncertainty of this, from Nature itself and from policy, ver. 120. Characters given according to the rank of men of the world, ver. 135. And some reason for it, ver. 140. Education alters the Nature, or at least Character, of many, ver. 149. Actions, Passions, Opinions, Manners, Humours, or Principles, all subject to change. No judging by Nature, from ver. 158 to ver. 178. III. It only remains to find (if we can) his Ruling Passion: that will certainly influence all the rest, and can reconcile the seeming or real inconsistency of all his actions, ver. 175. Instanced in the extraordinary character of Clodio, ver. 179. A caution against mistaking second qualities for first, which will destroy all possibility of the knowledge of mankind, ver. 210. Examples of the strength of the Ruling Passion, and its continuation to the last breath, ver. 222, etc. YES, you despise the man to Books confin'd, Some gen'ral maxims, or be right by chance. 5 That from his cage cries Cuckold, Whore, and Knave, Tho' many a passenger he rightly call, You hold him no Philosopher at all. And yet the fate of all extremes is such, Some unmark'd fibre, or some varying vein: ΤΟ 15 Grant but as many sorts of Mind as Moss. That each from other differs, first confess; Next, that he varies from himself no less: Our depths who fathoms, or our shallows finds, It may be Reason, but it is not Man: His principle of action once explore, That instant 'tis his Principle no more. Like following life thro' creatures you dissect, 20 25 You lose it in the moment you detect. Yet more; the diff'rence is as great between The optics seeing, as the objects seen. All Manners take a tincture from our own; Or come discolour'd through our Passions shown. 30 35 It hurries all too fast to make their way: In vain sedate reflections we would make, When half our knowledge we must snatch, not take. 40 Our spring of action to ourselves is lost: 45 50 55 All see 'tis Vice, and itch of vulgar praise. 60 While one there is who charms us with his Spleen. |