XII. ON MR. ELIJAH FENTON, AT EASTHAMSTED IN BERKS, 1730. THIS modest stone, what few vain marbles can, Whom Heaven kept sacred from the proud and great: Calmly he look'd on either life, and here From nature's temperate feast rose satisfied, XIII. ON MR. GAY, IN WESTMINSTER-ABBEY, 1732. Or manners gentle, of affections mild; With native humour tempering virtuous rage, XIV. INTENDED FOR SIR ISAAC NEWTON, IN WESTMINSTER-ABBEY. ISAACUS NEWTONUS: Testantur Tempus, Natura, Cœlum: Hoc marmor fatetur. Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night: XV. ON DR. FRANCIS ATTERBURY, BISHOP OF ROCHESTER, WHO DIED IN EXILE AT PARIS, 1732, (HIS ONLY DAUGHTER HAVING · EXPIRED IN HIS ARMS, IMMEDIATELY ATER SHE ARRIVED IN FRANCE TO SEE HIM.) DIALOGUE. SHE. YES, we have lived-one pang, and then we part! HE. Dear shade! I will: Then mix this dust with thine-O spotless ghost! -He said, and died. XVI. ON HIMSELF. UNDER this marble, or under this sill, AN ESSAY ON MAN. IN FOUR EPISTLES. TO H. ST. JOHN, LORD BOLINGBROKE. THE DESIGN. HAVING proposed to write some pieces on Human Life and Manners, such as (to use my Lord Bacon's expression) come home to mèn'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 for ever 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 yerse, 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 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, without wandering from the precision, or breaking the chain of reasoning: if any man can unite all these without diminution 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 now 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. deduce the rivers, to follow them in their course, and to observe their effects, may be a task more agreeable. To EPISTLE I. ARGUMENT. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. VII. That, throughout the whole visible world, a 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. 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. IX. The extravagance, madness, and pride of such a desire. X. The consequence of all the absolute submission due to Providence, both as to our present and futura state. AWAKE, my ST. JOHN ! leave all meaner things I. Say first, of God above, or man below, And drawn supports, upheld by God, or thee? II. Presumptuous Man! the reason wouldst thou find Why form'd so weak, so little, and so blind? 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 confest That Wisdom infinite must form the best, |