Epistles philosophical and moral

Table of contents

- EPISTLES PHILOSOPHICAL AND MORAL.

- To The First Minister of STATE, for the Time being.

- ADVERTISEMENT.

- [tableofcontents]

- 1

- [halftitle]

- ARGUMENT.

- SUMMARY.

- EPISTLE THE FIRST.

- 2

- [halftitle]

- ARGUMENT.

- SUMMARY

- EPISTLE THE SECOND.

- 3

- [halftitle]

- ARGUMENT.

- SUMMARY.

- EPISTLE THE THIRD.

- 4

- [halftitle]

- ARGUMENT.

- SUMMARY.

- EPISTLE THE FOURTH.

- 5

- [halftitle]

- ARGUMENT.

- SUMMARY.

- EPISTLE THE FIFTH.

- 6

- [halftitle]

- ARGUMENT.

- SUMMARY

- EPISTLE THE SIXTH.

- 7

- [halftitle]

- ARGUMENT.

- SUMMARY.

- EPISTLE THE SEVENTH.

- 8

- [halftitle]

- ARGUMENT.

- SUMMARY.

- EPISTLE THE EIGHTH.

EPISTLES PHILOSOPHICAL AND MORAL.

LONDON: Printed for T. WILCOX, opposite the New-Church, in the Strand, M.DCCLIX.

To The First Minister of STATE, for the Time being.

HAIL mighty Pam! if song without offence

Thus hail the first court card in eminence,

Thou in whom kings find oft the sov'reign sway;

For kings at loo the leading knave obey:

Or if, content to play an humbler game,

Plain Jack we stile thee, more familiar name,

Thou, whose sly blows the lower party feels,

While bent the high to catch thy tripping heels;

Great in thyself, whatever thou art call'd,

Nations by thee enfranchis'd or inthrall'd,

Holla'd to day to Palace-yard along,

Flatter'd at once in metzotint and song;

Or piqu'd, perhaps, while chimes the present line,

Ere yet turn'd out, as usual, to resign;

Branded by th' honest satire of the times

With all a minister's mysterious crimes!

To thee I pay my court, till in disgrace,

And then as humbly to the next in place.

For know, what private worth soe'er thy boast,

I not address thy person, but thy post;

Is there a time when statesmen, good or great,

Look down with pity on the toils of state;

Superiour to the boast of boasted things,

The pomp of titles, and the smile of kings:

When, in the private hour of social ease,

Ambition sleeps, and truth itself may please?

At such an hour, when ev'n politeness deigns

To taste the rudeness of familiar strains,

Presuming thou, in honour to the muse,

Indulgent once her labours may peruse,

To thee those honest labours she commends:

At court while honest doubtless finding friends.

But, through thy levee if forbid to press,

In freedom's plain and anti-courtier's dress,

Light of her rhimes as of petitions made,

Should they be lost, forgotten or mislaid,

If not so vain to think thou shouldst commend,

In either case permit me to defend.

Too well I know imputed as a crime

The gift of reason to the man of rhime;

To childish Fiction gingling numbers tied,

As bells that dangle by its infant side;

To useless whims poetick worth confin'd,

To strike the sense but not improve the mind.

Should on the daring verse, then, censure fall,

From priest or prelate, waken'd in the stall;

Or should the learned jurors take in hand

To burn the books they may not understand;

Scorn'd the loud torrent of the mob's abuse,

With thee I leave my errour and excuse.

Know then, my patron, once upon a time,

While yet a boy, I caught the itch of rhime:

But, born with hatred to the sing-song train,

Whose numbers charm, like empty notes, in vain,

While strange to themes t' employ the muse about,

The peccant humour broke but little out;

Till late, in waking dreams that trouble youth,

On one side prudence urg'd, on t'other truth:

Prudence, a worldly-minded dame, and sly,

Who fix'd on earth still kept her cautious eye;

While truth, whose open breast did mine inflame,

Look'd up to Heav'n; to heav'n, from whence she came.

When now my eager heart her pow'r confess'd,

And thus her willing captive truth address'd.

"Art thou, my friend, that enterprizing youth

"Who make pretensions to the song of truth;

"By reason taught to leave, in early life,

"The wanton mistress, for the faithful wife?

"Among the sciences thy subject chuse.

"Philosophy's the sister of the muse.

Prudence, who heard, made various hems and haws;

And, after due, deliberating pause,

Shaking her head, "beware rash youth," she cried,

"Let prudence here your early footsteps guide.

"Art thou so ignorant as not to know

"Truth leads us oft to poverty and woe?

"Let me advise—wouldst thou succeed in rhime?

"Mark, at the proper season, well thy time;

"Taking this maxim as a gen'ral rule,

"The knave is honest till he plays the fool:

"For times there are of such malignant face,

"That sharpers only rise to pow'r and place;

"Times, when the mere huzza for publick good

"Breaks down all ranks of honour and of blood;

"When sacred characters like bawds are us'd,

"And princes with impunity abus'd:

"The throne of majesty a vulgar thing;

"While George, the cobler, damns great GEORGE, the king.

"In times like these, behold on ev'ry side

"What pains we take offensive truth to hide:

"Asham'd to show her bashful face at court,

"See her simplicity the mob's rude sport;

"Her lovers stigmatiz'd by gen'ral hate,

"As bold disturbers of the church and state.

"Wouldst thou to this abandon'd tribe belong?

"What bard e'er heeded yet the TRUTH of song!

"Again, 'tis certain there may come a time,

"When impudence finds no excuse in rhime;

"When even prudence may herself be just;

"Her int'rest more to keep than break her trust;

"When crowns are honour'd, and, in proper season,

"Sh-bb-re, dread patriot, may be hang'd for treason:

"A time, perhaps (years work the strangest things)

"When the brave Scots may love their best of kings;

"When slighted science may approach the throne;

"And Britons make true policy their own.

"What tho' their patriot hearts are known to fail,

"When dearth of barley threatens want of ale

"What tho' religion, arm'd by common-sense,

"Breaks but its weapons in its own defence;

"Ev'n yet may piety be kept alive,

"And half expiring patriotism revive.

"At such a season, should the muse inspire,

"If touch'd with caution, mayst thou strike the lyre,

"Perhaps uncensur'd; but to look for praise!

"Know these, young bard, are no poetick days.

"But should the age, as probably it may,

"Turn its loose politicks another way;

"While, in religious mood, far push'd the schemes

"Of true born Britons, always in extremes,

"The times may yet return when frantick zeal

"Shall give its wooden sword an edge of steel;

"When convocations shall in judgment sit,

"To canvass th' infidelity of wit;

"On wicked KNOWLEDGE Britain's guilt to lay,

"And drive the destin'd victim far away.

"O, thus if ignorance should rule, in turn,

"Bards lose their ears, and martyr theists burn;

"Ready reforming constables, at hand,

"Of scientifick vice to cleanse the land;

"Have thou with truth nor morals aught to do.

"Things are not always fit that may be true."

Here Prudence ended—her advice was good:

But Truth had charms that could not be with stood.

Hers then the muse—how far success will show

In times like ours her song be à propos.

So much indeed of prudence did I learn,

My fingers ne'er in politicks to burn.

Silent I sat, amidst the party rout,

When late the ministry turn'd in and out;

When rag'd the furious goose-quills of the times,

To shame their country with their shameless rhimes.

Careless what turtle-eating son of White's

Might set the blunders of the state to rights,

If Pollio, Gallus, Tully, or his grace,

Should all keep out, or who get into place.

I car'd not, I, tho' these, or none of these,

The king, the house, or mightier mob might please.

Blam'd I the peer, whom adverse winds had blown

Round the wide world, to prop a monarch's throne;

Taught, in the hurricanes of southern seas,

The statesman's wisdom and the courtier's ease;

By plunder'd Spaniards, the consummate skill

To steer a kingdom, like a bark, at will?

Tho' made too plain the lee-way of the realm,

Did I presume to bid him mind the helm?

Nay, when the guardian genii of the land

To save our desp'rate fortunes took in hand;

I sung them not, tho' crown'd, by half the nation,

With civick wreaths, from town and corporation.

I ne'er, officious, crack'd my brains t'amend

Errours, the great alone might comprehend;

Plagu'd, with no songs of praise, our Lord the King;

Nor gave one faggot to the blaze of Byng:

But, free from panegyrick as abuse,

Put all my little wit to private use.

Thus far of temp'ral politicks I'm clear;

Nor has the spiritual had more to fear.

Since gospel witnesses in form were tried,

Their valid evidence I ne'er denied;

Ne'er intermeddled with the jury's quest,

Nor contradicted Littleton or West.

When church and state learn'd Warburton would join,

Tho' sad th'affair, I made it none of mine:

Nor did I e'er, 'gainst Leland's pen, presume

To vindicate Lord Bolingbroke or Hume:

Made no pretence to freedom of debate;

Nor risk'd, like harmless —n—t, Woolston's fate.

And tho' for once, in this, a trick of youth,

Prudential views are sacrific'd to truth;

Could I shake off those vices rhime and sense;

This first might likely prove my last offence;

Or, in thy cause enlisted once my pen,

I never more might trouble truth agen:

But to thy purpose turn my ready hand,

True to the law and gospel of the land.

ADVERTISEMENT.

THE ground work of the following Epistles being the fruit of a private correspondence, it was found necessary, in preparing them for the press; to adapt them to more general use and amusement. It may not, therefore, be improper to observe that, whatever theological subjects have fallen in the author's way, he hath purposely avoided taking part with divines of any sect or party: leaving it to the ingenuous, of every persuasion, to determine how far their particular sentiments may be supported by authorities, superior to common-sense and simple demonstration. — As to his poetry; having no reputation to lose, he is little anxious about what he may acquire. Indeed, it must be confess'd that perspicuity and argument have been frequently consulted, at the expence both of the dignity and harmony of his numbers, Elegance, however, would have been more attended to, had the author's leisure permitted; or, had his design been to distinguish himself as a poet; a character he is much less ambitious of than that of a philosopher. —

Unmov'd by sophistry, unaw'd by name,

No dupe to doctrines, and no fool to fame.

CONTENTS.

- EPISTLE THE FIRST — Page 5—42

- OF truth in general.

- Its criterion.

- Its relation to opinion.

- The uncertainty of the latter.

- Necessary that both should concur in Science.

- EPISTLE THE SECOND — page 47—88

- On Science, as our guide to truth.

- The criterion best adapted to the opinion of individuals.

- The absurdity of persecution.

- Our pretensions to divine, and the bounds of human knowledge.

- EPISTLE THE THIRD — page 93—126

- On the infatuation of mankind, respecting paradox and mysteries.

- The effects and causes of such infatuation.

- The absurdity of supposing ignorance and folly the means to promote the cause of truth; or that the freedom of scientifick inquiry is incompatible with the political welfare of society.

- EPISTLE THE FOURTH — Page 131—154

- On the weakness of the human understanding

- The abstract existence of the Deity

- The incomprehensibility of the divine nature, and the incongruity of pretended atheism.

- EPISTLE THE FIFTH — page 159—202

- On happiness.

- The apparent incapacity of mankind for its enjoyment.

- The comparative pain and pleasure of human sensations; and their relation to our physical and moral constitution.

- EPISTLE THE SIXTH — page 209—256

- On abstract good and evil.

- The physical perfection of the material universe, and the moral harmony observable in the dispensations of Providence.

- EPISTLE THE SEVENTH — page 263—298

- On moral principles

- The respective influence of reason and the passions

- The immorality of ignorance and the indispensable duty of seeking knowledge.

- EPISTLE THE EIGHTH — page 303—336

- On the immortality of the soul; and the arments for, and against, a future state.

EPISTLE THE FIRST.

ARGUMENT.

Of truth in general. —Its criterion. —Its relation to opinion. —The uncertainty of the latter. — Necessary that both should concur in Science.

SUMMARY.

UNiversal belief being, in fact, an undisputed criterion of truth, and all mankind necessarily believing those positions which they conceive demonstrable; science, or demonstrative knowledge, is supposed to be the least exceptionable test of what is true or false, in general. —The abstract certitude of the schools is, therefore, exploded. But, as particular opinions are not always the effect of knowledge, nor are systems constantly founded on scientifick principles, it is inquired if there be no other criterion, sufficiently obvious to relieve the doubts and reconcile the opposite sentiments of mankind. —The dispensations of providence, as well as the dictates of revelation, appear inadequate to the purpose; theologists being found too unsucceessful, in clearing up the sacred page, and phisiologists too ignorant of the system of nature, for either to form opinions, equally adapted to the credulity of individuals. —Divines and philosophers are censured, indeed, rather as, mercenary wranglers, or bigots to particular systems, than fair inquirers after, or teachers of, the truth. —A fair and ingenuous inquirer characteriz'd. —Such not frequently to be found; few being capacitated for so arduous a task. —Fortitude and moderation the grand requisites: the scarcity of which in the minds of men, in general, serves to account for their want of success in the attempt; as well as for their promptitude either to embrace skepticism, as an antidote to errour, or conformity, to avoid the trouble of thinking. —Dogmatists and Skepticks censured: The former on account of their absurd dependance on tradition and futile authorities: the latter for superciliously rejecting, on the other hand, all authority and tradition, without distinction. —In our inquiries after truth, however, our belief is to be suspended in regard to points beyond our knowledge. —In scientifick researches, also, the subtilty of metaphysical arguments should be with caution trusted, as insensibly leading us into errour and perplexity.

EPISTLE THE FIRST.

WHILE zeal, beyond the grave, pursues

Whom priest and patriot abuse,

With some the foster-sire of lies,

Extoll'd by others to the skies,

St. John [a], thus sav'd and damn'd by fame,

An honour'd and a blasted name!

Lorenzo asks, ingenuous youth,

What is, and who believes, the truth.

The truth my friend, wouldst learn of me?

'Tis that wherein mankind agree.

At least no safer truth we know

Than that the world will grant us so.

"But when and where?" —the sages tell,

Of yore 'twas buried in a well, [b]

So deep, that hid, for want of light,

From ev'ry peeping mortal's sight,

The more suspicious than the rest

Conceiv'd the story was a jest;

And, as no soul could find it out,

That truth itself was all a doubt.

Philosophizing train of thought!

Since by improving moderns caught;

Who tell us nature trick'd mankind,

When giving eyes she left us blind:

Heav'n making fools, and thinking fit [c]

To play upon their want of wit.

But sure we boldly may receive

As truth what all mankind believe:

Such universal faith a guide

In skepticism itself implied.

"Yet say in what the world unite,

"Else useless this our rule of right;

"Else still inquiry's at a pause;

"Still vague investigation's laws."

Lorenzo, all, with you and me,

In points demonstrable agree:

Conviction, right, or wrong, the test [d]

Of truth in ev'ry human breast:

While truths, demonstratively so,

Who once believe profess to know.

On Science hence our search must rest;

That universal rule confess'd.

Laid then those subtilties aside

Where human certitude's denied,

Inquiry safely may proceed

To form its scientifick creed.

Doth Solomon himself profess

His science all uncertain guess, [e]

Th'egregious sophister affirms

A contradiction, ev'n in terms.

Who can his ignorance suppose

Of that he's conscious that he knows? [f]

Sayst thou slow knowledge faith outflies;

Believers spurning at the wise;

Opinion, wing'd, feet, hand and head,

In haste, without her errand, sped;

Or driv'n, inactive, here and there,

With ev'ry vagrant breath of air.

Wouldst, therefore, know what systems err,

To whom opinions to refer,

Where trembling doubt and errour blind

At once a guard and guide may find;

At once successfully apply,

And give to falshood's face the lie?

No sect, alas! profess the rule

That reconciles the knave and fool;

Unites the ignorant and wise:

Revering these what those despise.

Whether from nature's general law

The outlines of our creed we draw,

Or think the truth be only given

In revelation pure from Heaven,

It matters not; unless we find

Some active index in the mind,

Some ray of Heaven's unerring light,

To point, or here or there, aright.

Let Christianity display

Its wond'rous volume to the day;

The sacred lines, however true,

Alike affect not me and you:

Th' accepted sense of holy writ

Still resting on th' accepting wit.

For who that read but comprehend

As taught by father, priest or friend,

Or tenets new, more nice than wise,

Peculiar to themselves, devise.

How then prevails the sacred text,

If by the comment thus perplex'd;

If hereticks, of ev'ry kind,

Their tenets in the gospel find;

If thus the spirit hide the flaw

That mars the letter of the law!

Let Nature's striking scenes engage

The letter'd and unletter'd age;

Various as ev'ry varied tribe

The notions hence the world imbibe.

When meteors glow and comets blaze,

How wond'ring ignorance doth gaze;

Foretelling, ev'n in errour wise,

The judgments gath'ring in the skies!

Th' aurora [g] streaming from the pole,

What groundless fear sthe weak control

Hear them address their angry God,

And take his mercies for his rod:

Whilst thine, or Bradley's curious, eyes

As calmly view the threat'ning skies,

The plagues, the famines, wars they yield,

As Colin drives his team a-field.

Rolls the big thunder o'er the plain,

Melt the fierce light'nings clouds to rain,

Ah me! how impious, Crito cries,

To lift thy hand against the skies;

Thy lines of magick steel to form,

To brave the fury of the storm;

With Franklin, [h] madly to defy

The thunderer's red right-arm, on high,

Bold Titan! to erect thy stand

To wrest the light'nings from his hand! [i]

Yet those in physicks better read

At honest Crito shake the head;

In pity, or derision, smile;

Nature and truth their guard the while.

Thus, by unlike experience taught,

Peculiar are our modes of thought;

Explain'd, by Custom's partial nod,

The voice of nature and of God.

Dost thou apply to saint or sage,

The guides of each believing age,

The truths, which mysteries conceal,

Or those of science to reveal?

From far and near, what tales absurd

Adulterate the written word!

How oft the pure, and perfect, text

Have base Theologists perplex'd!

What transcripts! what interpolation!

Eternal source of disputation!

Alas, Lorenzo, few believe,

In fact, the doctrines they receive.

How few of ev'n the reverend tribe

The very canons they subscribe!

Do such their mother-church defend?

On her pluralities depend:

The mitre and the sine-cure

Preserving best her tenets pure.

For, rob the priesthood of its gain,

What pillar will the church sustain.

What cement binds the crazy wall,

Whose sapt foundation threats its fall.

Do such profess to turn the key

On myst'ries, hid from you and me;

Or of the oracles of old

The dubious phrases to unfold;

To teach the truth to vulgar minds,

Which Heav'n's own blaze of rhetorick blinds?

Ah, think not these will e'er display

Their secrets to the eye of day.

Tell me what artist will impart

To thee th' arcanum of his art.

Not one—but all, reserv'd and sly,

Affect to cheat th' observer's eye:

Their slightest knacks important made,

To raise the wonder of their trade.

Thus oft the reverend tiro, taught

That none may serve their God for naught,

Casts o'er his ignorance a veil,

Or masks the moral of his tale;

Securely laughing in his sleeve,

When fools the tale itself believe.

To save his calling from abuse

His caution here, in fact, of use.

For once his art and mist'ry [k] known

Who church-authority would own?

As, when sublime conundrums hit,

We laugh to scorn the quibbler's wit;

So, in rever'd enigmas wise,

His riddling reverence we despise.

Sayst thou, since reformation's hand

From spiritual slav'ry freed the land,

The sacerdotal hydra chain'd,

By truth opinions are restrain'd?

Look round, believing friend, and see

How pious Protestants agree.

In what less fickle do we find

The daughter's than the mother's mind!

For know th' abandon'd scarlet whore [l]

Our present alma-mater bore;

Whose beauty, modesty and truth

Were all debauch'd in early youth,

While in seraglio, close confin'd,

Sly priests conceal'd her from mankind.

And tho', when zeal to hide her sin

Had almost stript her to the skin;

To skreen her batter'd charms from shame,

She laid to truth her artful claim;

Yet, once secure, the cunning jade

Gave up its temporary aid;

Playing again her mother's game

With priests of ev'ry church the same. [m]

For tho', in pure excess of grace,

Miss perk'd it in her mother's face,

Her disobedience felt the smart,

When stabb'd her int'rest to the heart.

What tho' she flaunt no longer gay;

Her tawdry trappings cast away;

Her trim simplicity, at best,

Is vanity but sprucely dress'd.

What tho' forbid to patch and paint,

And pass the sinner for a saint,

Yet still the holy dame, afraid

That truth and reason spoil her trade,

Her pulpit-trumpet sounds to arms,

And fills the zealot with alarms.

Awaken'd by her fearful cries,

Behold her doughty champions rise;

Arm'd cap-a-piè each mother's son,

To save their parent, roaring run;

Conscious how greatly to their cost

Might church-authority be lost.

While thus the orthodox in grain,

In spite of fate, their church maintain;

The truth, a term of meaning wide,

To all the priest affirms applied;

No less the het'rodox than they,

From pride or av'rice, go astray:

As motives similar prevail

With those who brew or broach the tale.

Say, else, if self-conviction true

The conscientious Henley knew;

Fir'd by a pure religious zeal,

That champion of the publick weal,

For pence, the primacy to slight, [n]

To jest with ev'ry sacred rite,

To trample, with avow'd design,

On laws both human and divine.

Say what his aim, whose dread rebukes

Craz'd his poor neighbours of St. Luke's; [o]

Who, godly warfare proud to seek,

In suff'rance turns the smitten cheek:

As knavish Jews, to sell their ware,

Abuse and insult tamely bear.

No worldly gain to Whitfield yields

The plenteous harvest of Moor-Fields;

While from the gift of sterling gold,

Like off'rings to the Lord of old, [p]

The coatless priest with Aaron vies, [q]

And modern tabernacles rise?

Or, are fanatick weavers led

Because his vanity is fed;

A tickling transport that he feels,

To find his thousands at his heels;

To hear the Io poeans ring,

Due to the hero, saint or king;

Which, ne'ertheless, the mob bestow,

On sainted pick-pockets, below.

If then, by poverty or pride,

The priest and parson led aside;

While these, th' instructors of mankind,

Our ignorance their interest find;

O shun, Lorenzo, shun the street

Where disputant theologues meet.

See the wing'd cork, from side to side

Rebound, the truant school-boy's pride,

With equal warmth, with equal noise,

So these, by turns, like truant boys,

Between what saint or father saith,

Bang the light shittle-cock of faith.

But hark! what jargon strikes our ear?

What hebrew madmen have we here?

What pen the frenzy shall describe

Of Hutchinson's or Behmen's tribe; [r]

Who, scorning reason's vain pretence,

Make war, a dire croisade, on sense?

If reason, then, reprizals make,

At once their cause and them forsake,

What wonder? yet, in truth, 'twere well

Might Bedlam spare one vacant cell;

Since no good christian, yet, for Law, [s]

Hath strown his darken'd room with straw.

Theologists so prone to err,

Dost thou philosophers prefer?

These oft, an interested sect,

Like poverty or pride affect.

Logicians, casuists by trade,

At random draw their furious blade;

Taking, in gladiatorial pride,

The cudgels up on either side.

To them indiff'rent wrong or right;

Swiss champions! theirs the task to fight:

And share, with venal art, the prey;

The golden gettings of the day.

So Broughton's [t] heroes bruis'd and bled,

At once for honour and for bread:

And Powel's [u] virtuous thirst of fame

Inur'd his iron lips to flame.

The learn'd, prodigious wise indeed

The man by Heav'n inspir'd to read!

Affecting merely to decide,

Indulge their magisterial pride,

And, deigning scarce on sense a look,

Profoundly dogmatize by book:

Save here those champions of the gown,

Meek [w] Warburton and modest Brown. [x]

To real merit ne'er allied

The pedant's, or the parson's pride,

By singularity of taste

Good sense and lit'rature disgrac'd,

See wrangling Sophisters, intent

On cross-grain'd paradoxes bent;

As if to truth they made pretence

By wand'ring but from common-sense.

Among the witty and the wise,

Hence oft in words their difference lies;

While empty terms, for years, engage

The scholar's and the skeptick's rage:

Till, wearied out, they stare to see

In fact how nearly all agree.

So, poiz'd between two empty scales,

Now here, now there, the beam prevails,

That, as their false vibrations cease,

In equilibrio rests in peace.

Nor seldom, when in fact dissent

These slashing sons of argument,

The subject-matter in debate

Beneath the pains t'investigate.

Philosophy at Arthur's [y] taught,

So Bond and Brag, disputing, fought,

Whether as near, from Change to Kew, [z]

To cross the old bridge or the new.

"Could neither wheel nor chain decide?"

Alas, my friend, they never tried.

For neither of these learned youth

Car'd one brass farthing for the truth:

But each, to make his judgment out,

Would drive full-speed ten miles about.

The first-philosophy aa in use

Thus argumentative abuse:

While truth and falsehood, right and wrong,

Serve as the burthen of a song:

With sophists, as with scolding wives,

Quarrel the business of their lives.

Leave then; Lorenzo, vain dispute.

Empty the triumph to confute.

Nor those for truth's defenders take,

Who cavil but for cavil's sake.

But is there, lay-man or divine,

In whom good sense and temper join;

A priest of honest bb Clogher's mould,

Or theist moderate as bold,

To whom indulgent Heav'n assign'd

A truly ethick turn of mind;

Who dares the mob in scorn to hold;

Hath weigh'd the happiness of gold;

Hath found the pond'rous cheat so light,

That avarice gets nothing by't;

Who rates the value of a name

From th' insignificance of same;

Not vainly seeking more to know

Than God, has giv'n to man, below;

Yet, wheresoe'er display'd her charms,

Embracing truth with open arms.

On such Lorenzo may depend,

For guide, philosopher and friend.

"But where such friend and guide" you cry.

Knowst thou no such? alas, nor I.

For O, the truth, in fact, how few

Have pow'r or talents, to pursue.

Alike th' abilities unfit

Of pedant dull or sprightly wit,

Of captious criticks, scholiasts vain,

Of ev'ry superficial brain.

Indeed too oft ev'n genius gains

Its labour only for its, pains:

Immortal bards not seldom here,

Dupes, from their mother's milk, to fear.

Tho' smoothly run the hackney'd lay

Along the beaten, moral way;

Should truth on custom turn its back,

Or deviate from the vulgar track,

Like crabs, with retrogressive feet,

Such temporizing bards retreat;

Humming, their credit to maintain,

To worn-out tunes th' old catch again.

Ev'n thus thy fav'rite bard retir'd,

Whom ev'ry muse at once inspir'd,

Whose strains immortalize the guide.

His scholiast piously decried,

Thy Pope, who, like a forward child,

In leading-strings, ran bold and wild;

But, fearful of himself to stand,

Seiz'd his old, tottering mother's hand. cc

Look back, Lorenzo, never thou,

When set thy hand unto the plough.

In vain we sacrifice to truth

The sportive giddiness of youth,

If falshood's painted charms engage

The doting levity of age.

Truth's thorny paths who fear to run,

Should e'er her dang'rous portal shun:

Nor set like heroes boldly out,

To founder in the deeps of doubt.

Yet ne'er forget—tho' boldness thine,

Temp'rance that boldness must refine.

True temp'rance, rational and brave;

To stoick pride no sullen slave:

Not such as, gently meek and mild,

Betrays the weakness of a child;

Nor that, without or fear or wit,

By chance, ev'n blunderers may get.

The rash, too angry to be bold,

By falshood oft are bought and sold.

The proud, too haughty to be wise,

See not where grov'ling errour lies.

The heedless counts without his host,

Or runs his nose against the post:

And oft their tim'rous indolence

The meek indulge, at truth's expence.

So hard to keep that middle way,

From which inquiry ne'er should stary;

While, for the task, as hard to find

A truly firm, capacious mind;

No wonder fools, the would-be-wise,

Suppose in doubt that wisdom lies:

Or that, because so short their sight,

Truth may be errour, wrong be right. dd

For ignorance, to sooth its pride,

Must seek its own defects to hide.

Affecting, hence, all unbelief,

Is Scoto infidel in chief;

His hand and heart, his ears and eyes

Confessing what his tongue denies?

To truth in ev'ry system blind,

Yet seeking it where none shall find;

Lorenzo, here his wit a cheat,

That mocks his judgment with deceit.

Where'er opinion gaily dress'd,

Runs gadding in her rainbow vest,

Among her sisterhood, a crew

Of motley wives black, red or blue;

See skeptick faith, the truth in chase,

Run giddily, from face to face;

Now this, now that, by turns, enjoy;

Nor find them false till found to cloy.

Thus, with the fair he most admires,

Full soon the wav'ring lover tires.

At morn, her smiles with joy he meets;

At night, affronts her in the streets;

By loose suspicion wand'ring led,

Or spider fancy's flimsy thread;

Till, on some lying whore, at last,

He lights, and holds her dogmas fast.

Oppos'd to these, nor strange to find,

In uniformity combin'd,

Believing thousands; who suppose

Truth with a mob for ever goes:

As if convinc'd the rabble rout,

Because too obstinate to doubt.

Yet customs old or fashions new

Are all th' unthinking herd pursue.

The orthodox in dress and song

As modish as to right and wrong. ee

Of custom born, to fashion bred,

Thus blind credulity is led:

While modes of faith, like modes of dress,

Mankind capriciously profess.

Yet all agreed, through shame or pride,

Nature's simplicity to hide,

Whate'er the fashion of the time,

It holds the naked truth a crime.

Thus, to a man, we find the crowd,

To doubt too bashful, or too proud,

In errour rather chuse to fall,

Than boast no scheme of faith at all.

Impatient, hence, of stop or stay,

They blunder on the broadest way;

Or make a guide, in ev'ry street,

Of fool or knave, the first they meet.

Authorities how blind and lame

Hence bring the credulous to shame;

While all revere the mould'ring page,

Where moths have spent their gothick rage.

Tales half destroy'd, the rest so true!

So much inspir'd the Lord-knows-who! ff

Couldst thou, Lorenzo, build thy hopes.

On muftis, patriarchs or popes;

On names implicitly depend,

And mere authorities defend?

Split on this rock, mistaken youth,

Lost were thy voyage to the truth:

'Twere best to give thy labour o'er,

Nor urge in vain thy genius more.

Lorenzo, credit not too soon

Fine tales and tidings from the moon:

Nor, howsoever learn'd or just;

In priest or prophet put thy trust.

By Paul or by Apollos taught,

Still to one test their tenets brought,

Their doctrines, howsoever true,

Adopt not till they're so to you.

For oft, when stript of its disguise,

Folly the wisdom of the wise.

Yet superciliously reject

No dogmas that the world respect.

'Gainst such too rashly ne'er inveigh;

Nor cast thy grandsire's wit away.

Disdaining at the lamp to pore,

That lights us to the classick lore,

The half-taught deist thus exclaims

At texts rever'd and hallow'd names,

Damning profane or sacred writ,

That squares not with his shallow wit.

But while, through ignorance or pride,

Opinions thus the world divide;

Faith made the priest's and statesman's tool;

By turns while truth and falshood rule,

Or, with some temporizing view,

Nonsense, that's neither false nor true;

Canst thou, at ease in doubt, my friend,

On points too dark thy faith suspend?

Canst thou the world's esteem forego;

And burns thy bosom but to know?

Is truth thy only creed profess'd?

Canst leave to providence the rest?

Throw partial systems all aside,

And take thy knowledge for thy guide.

See where the stream of Science flows

From nature's fountain, whence it rose;

Through hills and dales meand'ring led,

As clear as at the fountain head.

Stand thou not shiv'ring on the brink,

Once well embark'd thou canst not sink:

Nor can the current falsely guide,

While reason's banks inclose the tide;

Whence truth, in sight, on either hand,

Smiles on thy voyage through the land.

But, O, with caution, hoist thy sail,

To court the metaphysick gale;

Lest, hurried on, thy heedless youth

Should lose, with land, the sight of truth:

Turn'd forth adrift, thy lot to take,

On errour's broad unfathom'd lake;

'Mong struck leviathans, in vain,

To plunge and flounder through the main:

Where tides nor set, nor currents steer;

But winds all round the compass veer;

While floating isles, that cheat the sight,

To faithless anchorage invite:

Hobbes, St. John, Hume and hundreds more,

Rich barks! all wreck'd upon the shore.

Notes

a
The late Lord Viscount Bolingbroke.
↵

b
A trite saying of Democritus.
↵

c
We know not, says Descartes, whether God hath not created us in such a manner, that we are constantly deceiv'd, even as to things the most palpable and evident.
↵

d
As the suppos'd demonstration may be either false or true: it being sufficient, to our argument, that all mankind agree to call that truth which but appears to be demonstrated.
↵

e
Forc'd by reflective reason, I confess, That human science is uncertain guess. PRIOR's Solomon.
↵

f
Or, according to Monsieur Huet, if we do not allow that to be evident which actually appears so, truth and falsehood are equally demonstrable: and we may add, knowledge and ignorance synonymous terms.
↵

g
Borealis.
↵

h
B. Franklin, Esq of Philadelphia.
↵

i
Alluding to the manner of preventing the damage apprehended from thunder-clouds, discover'd by our late improvements in electricity.
↵

k
Mistery not Mystery. See Johnson's Dict, fol. edit.
↵

l
The church of Rome— of which all the reform'd churches may be call'd the descendants: at least, so far as they usurp an ecclesiastical authority and require implicit obedience: in which light only, such presumption being destructive of their institution as seminaries of truth and religion, they are censur'd in the text.
↵

m
As the word priest is not frequently us'd in common discourse to signifie a Protestant divine, so neither hath it here such an indiscriminate implication; meaning such only as lay claim to that title by their maintaining the tenets of church-authority, and their endeavours rather to keep the world in ignorance than to diffuse the knowledge of the truth.
↵

n
If I would have chang'd my principles for interest, I might have been Archbishop of Canterbury before now. HENLEY, vivâ você.
↵

o
St. Luke's hospital, for lunaticks, in Moor-Fields, near the Tabernacle and Foundery.
↵

p
See Exod. ch. 35.
↵

q
Alluding to their admitting coblers, porters, and beggars as well as regular divines, to the ministry.
↵

r
Two of the most incomprehensible writers that ever reflected scandal on the science of divinity.
↵

s
The Reverend Mr. William Law—a writer little inferiour to Bebmen himself.
↵

t
A famous boxer.
↵

u
An eminent toad-eater.
↵

w
A fine genius and polite critick.
↵

x
A most exemplary divine and patriot.
↵

y
An academy well known to students in the politer sciences of pitting, betting and whist.
↵

z
Brundisium minuci melius via ducat, an Appi. HOR.
↵

aa
A term in vogue, given, by way of eminence, to the philosophy of the present age.
↵

bb
The late Bishop of Clogher; an honour to his profession, as well as to the age and country in which he liv'd.
↵

cc
The church of Rome, to which Mr. Pope return'd, after having written his essay on man: for, that he was a true roman-catholick at the time of his writing that essay is a tale, adapted merely to the credulity and ignorance of a Racine. Unless indeed we have as little opinion of his judgment as his friend Bolingbroke had: who is said to have ridicul'd him as one who understood nothing of his own principles, nor saw to what they naturally led.
↵

dd
Cicero somewhere observes, there is no opinion, however absurd, which has not been espous'd by some or other of the philosophers. And nothing surely can be more so than the famous inserence drawn from the weakness of the human understanding, i. e. that, because we do not comprehend ev'ry thing, we in reality, know nothing. Agrippa, it is true, has declaim'd prettily, and the ingenious Bishop of Avranches chopp'd logick as dextrously on the subject. Yet, alas, such is the perverseness of common-sense that the greatest part of mankind, even to this day, do insist on the certainty of their knowing the right hand from the left.
↵

ee
Whatever country you go into, let the religion be what it will, the unthinking part thereof are always the reputed orthodox. DED. to Essay on SPIRIT.
↵

ff
There is nothing so contemptible, says Glanville, but antiquity can render it august and excellent.
↵

EPISTLE THE SECOND.

ARGUMENT.

On Science, as our guide to truth—The criterion best adapted to the opinion of individuals— The absurdity of persecution—Our pretensions to divine, and the bounds of human knowledge.

SUMMARY

SCience, though admitted as the rule of faith in matters relating to the investigation of truth, is neither exclusive nor universal, affecting only our opinion in speculative points. For, however refin'd are our credenda, we insensibly join, in our practical notions, with the rest of mankind. —Whatever objection, therefore, scientifick inquirers may make to the systems of others, none can be made to their fixing the criterion of truth on knowledge: the certainty of which is, by implication, admitted in the general pretensions of mankind to common-sense. —This is the privilege of ev'ry mind, without distinction; enabling us equally to draw like conclusions from like premises. —All actual dispute, therefore, arises from some misunderstanding, or different acceptation, of the matter in question: as the most ignorant peasant is equally certain of the proofs he comprehends with the greatest philosopher. —For the same reason, nevertheless, those would be engag'd in a desperate undertaking, who should attempt to reconcile mankind to any one system of opinion; the capacity and credulity of individuals being so very different, in consequence of their diversity of temperament, education and experience. —It is injurious and ridiculous, therefore, to insult others, for thinking in the manner we ourselves should have done, under the same circumstances. —It is still more absurd to reprobate the rest of mankind for not believing what we ourselves do not, nor can possibly be made to, believe: as is the case when we would impose tenets, that either contradict themselves, or are, in fact, downright nonsense—For it is impossible to believe apparent falshood, or to be convinc'd of any thing, by a set of words, that convey no determinate meaning—Mysterious or unintelligible propositions cannot, therefore, be believ'd—If the truth of revelation, in general, be admitted, as what is reveal'd from Heaven must undoubtedly be true, the difficulty of knowing what is particularly so, or who are the truly inspir'd, is yet inexplicably great. —Tho' the power of working miracles also be allow'd a proof of inspiration, in the agent; the fallacy of pretended ones, and the suppos'd inspiration of impostors, are almost invincible obstacles to our discovery of the truth. —The supposition, also, that real miracles are transgressions of the laws of nature is not at all necessary to support their veracity; but argues the contrary; and implies an injurious reflection on the omnipotence and prescience of the Deity. —Whatever reasonable objections, however, we may have against putting implicit faith in either pretended miracles or revelation; yet as the utmost extent of scientifick discovery falls so infinitely short of a perfect knowledge of the designs and operations of Nature; we cannot philosophically deny that God sometimes produces effects, for ends best known to himself, by means wholly unknown to us. —To proceed, nevertheless, in our inquiries on the most certain grounds, the criterion of Science is to be neglected only in points indisputably and intelligibly reveal'd.

EPISTLE THE SECOND.

NOR to the fount of Hippocrene,

Nor groves of laurel ever green,

Nor where the wanton graces stray,

With flow'rs is strown the muse's way.

Lorenzo, no, I more rejoice

At reason's bold, and manly, voice

Than at the softest, sprightliest air

Mirth ever sung to lighten care:

Truth's sober tale more pleas'd to hear

Than all that tickle fancy's ear;

Tho' such, to babbling echo sweet,

Aloud the publick voice repeat.

Our numbers, then, let truth excuse,

If rudely sing th' unpolish'd muse;

Careless of ornament, and proud

To differ from the sing-song crowd,

So boastful of their poor pretence

To swell with sound their starveling sense.

Truth hopes not for poetick praise:

To fiction sacred are the bays.

Dost thou, Lorenzo, still demur:

So fearful in thy search to err,

If plac'd thy faith on points alone

Whose truth demonstratively known;

These much too few, and too confin'd,

To serve the purpose of mankind.

Let a trite moral here advise.

"Be not more credulous than wise."

Whatever doubts thy course impede,

Seek not to amplify thy creed,

By myst'ries dark or dogmas old,

Because to son from father told;

Severely to known truth confin'd,

Of little faith were all mankind.

Thy present, arduous task, my friend,

No vague determinations end.

Of practice speculation wide,

Demands for thee a surer guide,

If in the former prone to stray,

The justling world oppose our way:

While, in the last, are thousands flown

Past the world's knowledge or their own.

"But hath this scientifick choice

"The suffrage of the general voice:

"The means consistent with the end;

"That truth which you, yourself, commend? [a]

Lorenzo, see to common-sense [b]

How just, how gen'ral the pretence.

To nation, climate, age or sect,

Unlimited without respect:

Whence, howsoever wide we stray,

When church, or system, lead the way,

All, of necessity, agree

In what, alike, they hear and see.

For not a son of Adam's race

Innate conviction can efface

The highland loon, the lowland lout,

Wild Irish fierce, and Cambrian stout,

The boor that Rhynland's polder drains,

Tho' reason slumber in his brains,

All, all, like premises in view, [c]

The like conclusions ever drew.

For know that like our mother earth

Its human offspring, at its birth.

Where fertile clay and barren sand

Compose the variegated land,

Th' unequal strata of the soil

Unequally demand our toil:

The rich that toil with gain repay;

Thrown on the poor our pains away.

In man's uncultivated mind

So varied is the soil, in kind.

The flow'rs of science, fresh and fair,

On some expand, without our care;

On others scarce, by culture, grow

The buds, that wither as they blow.

Yet here essentially allied,

However else diversified.

The fertile marl, the steril sand

Alike the seed or plant, demand:

Denied no more spontaneous grain

To Bergen's rocks than Baioe's plain [d]

So, not a truth innate our own, [e]

The seeds of knowledge must be sown.

Experience slow must swell the root,

And tend the fibres as they shoot;

Or speedier aid instruction grant,

And slips of foreign growth implant.

The mental and material claim

Here too essentially the same:

Grow seed or plant where'er it will

In kind 'tis propagated still.

No soil nor climate can produce

In tares the barley's potent juice:

To thorns no culture can assign

The purple honours of the vine.

Thus when, by simple nature's aid,

Put forth sensation's tender blade;

If, to perfection nearer brought,

It bloom and ripen into thought,

Wherever situate the root;

The same its intellectual fruit.

Its taste, its form, perhaps, we blame,

But still its genus is the same:

In this no poverty of soil,

No dullness ever mock'd our toil.

If vainly, then, in letter'd pride,

The scholar deep is dignified;

So false, so empty the pretence

Of wits to more than common-sense;

If plain to th' idiot as to you

Th' immediate object of his view;

While ev'n the blockhead truly knows

Far as his little science goes;

Consistent, sure our confidence,

In search of truth, on common-sense:

That gen'ral index to mankind, [f]

To taste and genius unconfin'd;

Pointing in all one common way;

By dullness shorten'd but its ray;

Of wit and knowledge all the end

In length that radius to extend:

In stubborn age, or pliant youth,

Its bearing in the line of truth;

A needle constant to the pole,

Whence beams true faith upon the soul.

Dost thou object "if common-sense

"So plausible an evidence,

"And all mankind of this possess'd,

"That any differ from the rest."

Know thou when honest minds dissent,

Misunderstood their argument:

Diff'rent the premises appear,

Else were the fix'd deduction clear.

Hence half our num'rous quarrels rise.

We see not with each others eyes:

So that precisely all alike

Nor terms, nor things conception strike.

For ev'ry individual draws

His plan by mere perspective laws;

Fix'd to one station, time and place,

In pow'r no full survey to trace;

The false mistaking oft for true,

Observ'd at diff'rent points of view.

So, when to cheat the partial sight,

And prove in mirth that black is white,

With lights dispos'd the shades between,

In folds is spread the artful scene;

Oppos'd, the colours strike the eye,

And he affirms what you deny.

Here spotless all appears and fair;

Perceiv'd a total blackness there.

The demonstration of his sight

Who doubts? who knows not black from white?

Thus evidence supports dispute;

Nor one the other can refute.

And yet is common-sense to blame?

The premises were not the same.

Were these alike, tho' say you err,

Both would infallibly concur:

For take each others point of sight,

And set, at once, the matter right. [g]

Conceive not, then, because we find

One source of truth in ev'ry mind,

We individuals think to see,

At ev'ry time and place, agree.

As well, amidst yon grove of trees

While plays a constant eastern breeze,

Each single spray we hope to find

In one direction, west, reclin'd.

For, tho' to truth alike our claim,

Our taste nor sentiments the same.

For dusky green the jaundic'd eye

Mistakes the clear-blue summer sky;

The distant scene, however bright,

Is darkness to the short of sight;

To loaded ears as whispers still

The clack and thunder of the mill.

Thus lost, as colours on the blind,

On dullness qualities refin'd;

Than musick to the deaf no more,

To ignorance th' abstracted lore.

Hence oft objection calls us out,

To satisfy the blockhead's doubt;

Who not one proof, whereon depends

His sought solution, comprehends: [h]

The tritest arguments, of yore,

In vain repeated o'er and o'er,

Proving how fruitless were the toil,

The jarring world to reconcile.

And yet, as but from time and place

Our sev'ral modes of thought we trace,

Alas! how blindly do we run

Each others heresy to shun;

Our own our glory and our pride,

While curses all the rest betide:

By pious children doom'd their sire,

By sires, their children to hell-fire:

Heirs to salvation's brighter sphere

So strangely damn'd, and damning here!

Thus Calvin ignorantly raves

At souls which, therefore,Luther saves;

To both denied Lord Peter's keys;

Who shuts out hereticks like these.

And yet ev'n those, who boast to feel

Their bosoms burn with christian zeal;

Who dooming mussulmen to hell,

With pride uncharitable swell;

In Naz'reth bred, or Bethle'm born,

Had laugh'd our Saviour's birth to scorn;

Mere Turks, denounc'd for you and me,

The bitter fruit of Zacon's tree

To eat with fiends below: the doom

Of Anti-Mahomet and Rome!

Yet, blind as Sampson, when despair

Had sunk his life below his care,

The numbers wanton Gaza lost

Destroy'd but at his proper cost,

Half-witted Zeal, of all the test,

Itself condemns among the rest;

For, if requir'd by gracious Heaven

Our service but as knowledge given,

Should I in Pope or Mufti, trust;

For proving to their tenets just,

Your rule to censure me, or mine,

Holds the like condemnation thine. [i]

Yet still more wicked, weak and blind

This reprobating, zeal we find;

When, void of truth, absurd and vain

The tenets zealots thus maintain.

Oh! how ridiculous and odd

That zeal precipitate for God,

So short of knowledge, [k] that, indeed,

It understands not ev'n its creed.

For know, whate'er the world pretend,

But few believe what they defend.

In modes of faith, tho' falsehood taught,

Nonsense is equally their fault:

Thousands by forms of speech deceiv'd

Ne'er yet by mortal man believ'd;

Creeds penn'd, as said, at Heaven's command,

In terms no soul can understand;

Or such, tho' thunder'd from on high,

That plainly give themselves the lie.

But sure, if words no sense convey,

Faith in their utt'rance dies away;

Nor can a single son of Eve

Apparent falsehood e'er believe. [l]

Belief no vague declaimer's rant,

No bigot's creed, no sophist's cant;

'Tis not the scripture text to quote;

To get our catechism by rote;

O'er homilies to spend the day;

At midnight, half asleep, to pray;

To chatter matins at the dawn,

Or gabble with the man of lawn:

True faith that consciousness of soul,

That times nor accidents control;

Save those adapted and combin'd

To root conviction from the mind.

For know that neither threats nor blows

Sincere belief can e'er impose.

The monk's hot zeal, the jesuit's skill

Lead not conviction as they will.

Go, turn inquisitor and burn

The hereticks, all round, in turn;

The Turk, refusing to resign

His sensual paradise for thine;

The Indian, that in death pretends

To visit but his former friends;

Unless his faith what you may tell,

Of joys in Heav'n and pains in Hell.

Not one of all the suffering tribe

Thy sentiments per-force imbibe.

Howe'er induc'd by hope or fear,

The mind is no free agent here:

To change their faith beyond the power

Of martyrs at their dying hour.

How idly, then, enthusiasts rave

Of systems, that will damn or save;

Or think true proselytes to gain

By torture, gallows, whip or chain:

Since, ever constant to its cause,

True faith depends on nature's laws;

By nonsense nor caprice misled,

The honest heart and sober head.

How idly wild fanaticks preach,

While ignorant of what they teach.

The spirit ne'er affects the mind,

Unless with th' understanding join'd;

Nor hath the word, if void of sense,

To gospel pow'r the least pretence. [m]

Some certain meaning, hence, and plain

A saving faith must needs contain:

If fix'd its object, sure, no less

The sense of terms our creed express:

A parrot, else, if none deceive her,

A sound and orthodox believer;

Convinc'd as much as ever yet

The Athanasian paroquet. [n]

Let not fanaticism deceive.

None can a mystery believe. [o]

Tho' plung'd by zeal in errour deep,

While common-sense lies fast asleep,

Their faith rash bigots strangely boast;

The strongest his who's cheated most;

Who least for truth presumes to search;

But headlong runs into the church.

For, laid thy hand upon thy heart,

The formule of thy creed impart;

Dost thou its substance comprehend?

Lo! all its mystery's at an end.

In spite of their misguiding zeal,

Here to their hearts let all appeal:

Enough if just be their pretence

To honesty and common-sense:

Here rests that umpire of mankind,

Conscience, the God within the mind.

At eastern temples as, of yore,

Without the threshold of the door,

In reverence, did the zealot use

To doff, and leave, his dirty shoes:

Like him, the modern faithful, taught

That reason is a thing of naught,

Lest they should soil the church with doubt,

Their understandings leave without.

For ask who thus in mystery trust,

If Euclid's demonstration's just;

If truth the geometrick art,

Or subtile algebra, impart.

Unknowing what precisely meant,

They honestly resuse assent;

Consess they first must comprehend,

Before they credit or contend.

O self condemn'd! O dead to shame!

Have these a conscience void of blame;

Who take no worldly points on trust,

But scruple till they know them just;

Yet their supreme concerns will rest

On tenets half the world contest;

Conviction openly defie,

And with their tongues their hearts belie!

These the true faithful shall we call?

These have, alas, no faith at all.

For, howsoe'er with art they strive

To keep absurdity alive,

Cloath'd in equivocal disguise,

Or garb of truth, their specious lies,

Still common-sense, unrooted out,

Will find a flaw to fix a doubt:

And where one doubt is left behind

No firm belief informs the mind.

Yet is there whose officious zeal

Pretends a consciousness to feel,

A fix'd internal evidence

Of axioms, hid from common-sense;

A stronger testimony given,

By inspiration breath'd from Heaven?

Lorenzo, neither you, nor I,

What God reveals can e'er deny.

But here how needful to be wise

To know where revelation lies.

Art thou thyself inspir'd by Heav'n?

Tell me what certain proof is given.

Dost thou intuitively view

What reason tells thee must be true?

No revelation here requir'd;

How proves such truth that thou'rt inspir'd?

For why inspir'd, if but to tell

What reason might have told as well.

As truth beholds thy mental eye

What seems to all the world a lie;

Thy proof imagination strong?

Here also mayst thou still be wrong.

From Heav'n if ever fir'd conceit,

Brandy has also done the feat.

Nay oft th' infatuate of brain,

Of Heav'n's presum'd injunctions vain,

Have madly broke its dread commands.

And dipt in blood their murd'ring hands.

If God or devil then inspire,

Of reason still we must inquire:

And reason doubtless would reply,

"Heav'n never yet reveal'd a lie."

On others gifts confiding more,

Dost give thine own pretensions o'er?

Dost from th' inspir'd thy faith receive,

And pin it on thy neighbour's sleeve?

Reason or Heav'n must tell thee too,

If such be more inspir'd than you.

"Where then the proof?" I frankly own,

To me, yet uninspir'd, unknown:

Such guides, to me, by madness fir'd,

As madmen,[p] with the Turks, inspir'd.

In spite of Middleton and Hume,

Dost thou on miracles presume?

To revelation these thy guide;

Thy faith by wonders verified.

Go thou, and, easy of belief,

My comrade ask if I'm a thief.

If inspiration false and true,

Sure miracles suspicious too:

And, hence, thy conduct most absurd,

To take for one the other's word.

Our souls how long to damn and save,

Hath subtile priestcraft play'd the knave!

Its pupils train'd, from early youth,

T'equivocate and hide the truth;

To practise the deception nice,

Of tricking hand, or quaint device;

To cheat the palate, nose and eye;

And gild that dirty pill, a lie.

Yet dost thou miracles maintain?

Be here thy definition plain:

The muse disdaining to reply

To such as shock the naked eye. [q]

Events as miracles dost own,

Whose cause immediate is unknown;

Or is thy faith establish'd more

On actions ne'er perform'd before?

Alas, my much believing friend,

The times of yore might these defend;

When heretick free-thinkers rose,

That dar'd the holy church oppose;

For infidelity renown'd,

Asserting that the globe was round;

Vile heresy! whence, doom'd to hell,

Upsal's good bishop martyr fell:

Wretches, so impious as to hold,

The earth about its axis roll'd,

And, as the years their courses run,

Still took its journeys round the sun;

Vile heresy! for which, 'tis said,

Old Galileo too had bled,

Had not the sage, more loth to die,

Recanting, damn'd it for a lie. [r]

In days of ignorance like these,

When legends had the pow'r to please;

While love of wonder salv'd deceit,

And gudgeons swallow'd whole the cheat;

How little strange that monks and fryars

Should prove miraculously liars;

Or converts to divines so sad

Turn out miraculously mad!

But now, a century worn away,

Time working wonders ev'ry day,

The vast discov'ries years have made

Have spoilt the wonder-monger's trade.

Sayst thou, events so strange of yore

Since now miraculous no more,

True miracles thou wouldst define

As real acts of power divine,

Th' effects of some immediate cause,

In fact transgressing nature's laws. [s]

How!—did th' omnipotent, on high,

Let those, his laws, at random fly:

Or was his providence so blind

To what omnisciency design'd,

That still his sov'reign will attends

To strike his foes or skreen his friends;

That pow'r beyond th' Almighty's art

To nature's system to impart:

Needful Heav'n's arbitrary fire

To blast a fig-tree or a liar?

Lorenzo, be not thou so vain,

To think thus brittle nature's chain;

From which whatever link we strike,

Tenth or ten thousandth, broke alike, [t]

Connecting systems all destroy'd,

Unballanc'd worlds would strow the void,

To atoms burst; restor'd again

Old Chaos to his ancient reign:

Unless, in time, the God attend

The works of his own hand to mend.

Alas, how blasphemous to say

That Heav'n can save no other way;

Or that, for trifles or in joke,

Creation's sacred order's broke. [u]

For do we not, in fact, confess,

If God may nature's laws transgress,

The wise creator wanted skill

His vast intentions to fulfil,

Or that th' intention, tho' his own,

Was in th' extent to him unknown:

Or, still more impiously, imply

That Heav'n can give itself the lie.

Say, then, that miracles there be;

They're but miraculous to thee:

So many links conceal'd remain,

Which form the complicated chain,

True causes and effects between,

In Nature's providential scene.

What tho' without an obvious cause

We see inverted custom's laws,

Must we immediately infer

That nature from itself can err?

Commanded by the word divine,

Say water chang'd itself to wine;

Graves open'd wide their pond'rous jaws;

A breath the sole apparent cause.

Ah, who shall boast, that God revere,

Creation's laws were broken here? [w]

Might not ten thousand springs unite,

Causes too fine for mortal sight,

Such varied wonders to produce;

To providential ends of use:

Form'd when by Heav'n, its pow'r display'd,

The earth's foundation first was laid:

Or when that Logos [x] was design'd

By miracles to save mankind.

Think not, Lorenzo, nature strays

Whene'er the world is in amaze.

Extend thy view from pole to pole:

See one great miracle the whole;

Where all events their cause succeed,

As once the great, first cause decreed;

Where order still from order flows,

And never interruption knows;

Capricious but to mortal sense

The harmony of providence.

How strangely, therefore, bigots err

Who wonders to plain facts prefer;

With list'ning ear, who love to range,

And greedy eye, for all that's strange;

Rejecting their creator's plan,

The voice of God for that of man.

Besides, thy miracles confin'd

To former ages of mankind,

Nature in these our latter days

Unmov'd by pray'r, and deaf to praise,

Ne'er turning back, nor led aside,

To help our wants, or sooth our pride;

But keeping, pack-horse like, its track,

Bearing the world upon its back:

Say such to revelation guide;

For these on hear-say we confide:

In want of proof, on trust must take

For honest jew or gentile's sake;

Since, howsoe'er the truth conceal'd,

None trust in miracles reveal'd;

Unless learn'd Jortin's [y] scheme may pass

Of dreaming Balaam's talking ass.

Dost thou, secure, historians trust?

How know we if their tale be just.

From num'rous causes prone to err,

Dubious, alas, what these aver.

What from deception e'er can save

The man whose trust is in a knave;

To falsehood he how oft a tool

Whose confidence is in a fool:

And should, themselves, the honest speak;

The honest may be blind or weak;

Be led a visionary dance,

Like Peter, in prophetick trance, [z]

Or good St. Paul, that seldom knew

If what he said was false or true;

Forgetful, if his word we take,

When fast asleep or wide awake. aa

My friend, no wonder, then, at all,

Adventures strange should such befall;

Or that, by wild opinions, they

From truth are blindly led astray;

Who, like old wives in winter nights,

Hear, see, and feel, and chat with sprights.

Their prudent caution, therefore, just

Who waking dreamers seldom trust;

To whom light visions fact may seem,

And fact itself an idle dream.

In reverence, yet, we all must own

The pow'r and will of God unknown;

Confin'd not to the narrow bound

Of reason's most extensive round;

Active a thousand ways beside; bb

Beyond unknown how far and wide.

From grey experience, hence, conceal'd

The gifts of grace to babes reveal'd;

From Science hid that sacred fire

Heav'n's chosen servants doth inspire;

Who, highly favour'd from above,

Behold descend th' all-quickening dove,

Or cloven tongue; the spiritual boast

Of brethren in the Holy Ghost.

Lorenzo, then let you, nor I,

Unless we can disprove, deny.

And yet, in search of truths unknown,

Experience be thy guide alone;

Nay held perception in suspense

Till reason may confirm the sense:

To Science only unconfin'd

When God, himself, informs the mind.

Notes

a
See the begining of the first Epistle.
↵

b
By common-sense is not meant any set of principles, or method of logicizing established by custom. But an innate capacity in all mankind to reason, or draw conclusions, from what they hear and see.
↵

c
Premises not only alike in terms, but whose terms are alike understood.
↵

d
The country near Baioe, celebrated by Pliny and others, as the most fruitful part of Italy, Nullus in orbe locus, says Horace, Baiis praelucet amoenis. Agreeable to the above sentiment, it is at present called Terra di Lavoro
↵

e
Tho' we have not, all, by nature, an equal capacity to acquire knowledge, our minds may, nevertheless, be justly consider'd as originally tabuloe rasoe; in which there may be a very essential difference, however, as to their aptitude for impression.
↵

f
See Epistle the first.
↵

g
From the consideration of the different appearances of circumstances and things to different minds, many of the Academicks fagaciously concluded there was no criterion, whereby we might distinguish between reality and appearance; truth and falshood. A deduction ridiculous enough. For, in the words of Mr. Pope,

If black and white blend, soften and unite

A thousand ways; is there no black or white?

↵

h
Tous ceux, says a certain French author, qui sont capable de faire des objectons, ne sont pas toujours en etat de comprendre tous les principes, dont depend la resolution de leurs objections.
↵

i
Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art, that judgest: for wherein thou judgest another thou condemnest thy self.
↵

k
I bear them record, says ST. PAUL, of the Jews, that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge.
↵

l
A man may perhaps believe a proposition to be true, tho' he cannot conceive how it can possibly be so: but he never can sincerely believe a position that contradicts itself, or is evidently false. —Thus I may believe that one man has rais'd another from the dead, tho' I cannot understand by what means it can possibly be true; but I can never actually believe that two are but one, and that the same one is, at the same time, two; because it is a contradiction in terms, and apparently impossible.
↵

m
The nonsense of our modern saints is, therefore, equally reprehensible with the affectation of speaking in unknown tongues, so severely censur'd, in the Apostle's first letter to the Cor. chap. 14.
↵

n
That the Athanasians believe nothing by the creed they profess, might be perhaps too harsh to say, as we confess that, after the way which they call heresy, we believe it ourselves: but that they deceive themselves, in supposing they really believe what they say, is, for the above reasons, very evident.
↵

o
That is, a mysterious or non-intelligible proposition; as the real assent, or dissent, of the mind must necessarily succeed some determinate conception of the premises laid down: so that no man can possibly believe a position he does not understand.
↵

p
More properly perhaps idiots. The sentiment as it thus stands is Dr. Whichcote's.
↵

q
i. e. palpable impostures.
↵

r
According to the terms of Abjuration. Ego, Galileo, corde sincero et fide non ficta, abjuro, maledico et detestor supradictos errores et baereses.
↵

s
This is Mr. Hume's definition of a miracle, to which, however, we do not subscribe; as it appears to us to supersede the very possibility of miracles: the reality of which cannot be philosophically denied: As, from several late discoveries it appears, that the knowledge of mankind, in physical causes and effects, is not sufficiently extensive to establish a negative against any pretended phenomenon whatever. It should be consider'd, also, that the truth of miracles does not depend on the reality of the facts represented, but on the veracity of that representation. Neither doth the certainty of the fact appear at all needful to the end for which miracles were confessedly intended; for the apparent effect of a supernatural power would have the same influence on the spectator as a real one: as it is by appearance only we judge of reality.
↵

t
See Pope's essay on man. Epis. I. Ver. 246.
↵

u
The accounts, given us of the miracles of our Saviour and his Apostles, cannot, however, be denied, whether we suppose the facts really, or only apparently, to have happen'd: as in either case, the perceptible effects might flow from natural causes, unknown to philosophy; yet adapted in the general system of things to answer the ends of providence.
↵

w
It cannot be denied, indeed, but God may act praeter tho' not contra scientiam naturae; the supposition, however, is not at all necessary to justifie our belief in miracles.
↵

x
The word. St. John chap. I.
↵

y
Or rather that of Maimonides, a Jew, of whom Dr. Jortin says, he borrowed it. The interpretation, however, is ingenious, and the Dr. has made the best on't. He supposes Balaam was in a trance or vision.
↵

z
See Acts Chap. 11. and 12.
↵

aa
Cor. 2 Ep. Chap. 12. et passim.
↵

bb
Providence, says South, acts by methods beside and beyond the discoveries of man's reason.
↵

EPISTLE THE THIRD.

ARGUMENT.

On the infatuation of mankind, respecting paradox and mysteries. —The effects and causes of such infatuation. —The absurdity of supposing ignorance and folly the means to promote the cause of truth; or that the freedom of scientifick enquiry is incompatible with the political welfare of society.

SUMMARY.

IT is remarkable that, notwithstanding the universality of those truths which are founded on common-sense, mankind have ever been so infatuated as to reject this general and obvious criterion, for the more particular dogmas and mysterious paradoxes of pretended revelation. —The moral effects of this infatuation exemplified in our superficial attachment to religion, our indolent security in time of prosperity, and our transitory astonishment and penitence under the immediate weight of misfortune. —An absurd scheme of education the grand cause of that cowardice and imbecility of mind, which render us so ridiculous in speculation and inconsistent in practice. —The misapplication of their talents, therefore, who think by encreasing such weakness to promote the cause of truth, or the interest of religion and morality, is plac'd in a ridiculous light; as the just object of censure. —The supposition, also, that ignorance and implicit subjection to authority are necessary to the well-being of society, or the political happiness of mankind, is exploded; and shown to be exemplarily false and absurd: polity in general, as well as religion and private virtue in particulars, being founded on truth and nature, and not dependant on the chimerical productions of fancy, the low artifices of faction, or the knavish cunning of designing falsehood.

EPISTLE THE THIRD.

IF truth in science we may find;

Its root implanted in the mind;

To this so just the world's pretence;

On the plain rules of common-sense;

Our mental faculties t'abuse,

How prostituted is the muse!

How long have childish bards too long,

Their hours employ'd in idle song;

Busied the lineaments to trace

Of wither'd fiction's painted face;

Where not a native beauty blows;

But cankers eat the budding rose!

Yet, captive to her smiles and wit,

Pleas'd with their chains, her slaves have writ;

And all the labour'd pomp of verse

Employ'd, her fables to rehearse;

While thou, O sacred truth! remain

The theme of ev'ry humbler strain.

And yet, if true what each pretends,

How num'rous are her rhyming friends!

While such her fond admirers prove,

And tune their rival songs to love.

But, fools in fondness as in awe,

The truth, 'tis plain, they never saw;

And but themselves her lovers boast,

Because her name the publick toast.

So smit with sacred truth and rhyme,

The bard and sophist of the time; [a]

Long play'd, by turns, the wit and fool,

The monarch's and the printer's tool;

The jest the genius of the age,

Till hiss'd and pelted off the stage:

Whence now no more his lyre he strings

For tyrant booksellers and kings;

But, fir'd with vanity and spleen,

Dotes on the truth unsought, unseen;

Chaunting, so happy to be free,

Enraptur'd rhymes on liberty.

Such lovers truth must e'er despise;

Who see her but with borrow'd eyes,

Who only play the lover's part,

No real passion at the heart.

For say, what lover's passion true

For beauty that he never knew?

So eastern monarchs love their wives,

Tho' barren strangers all their lives.

So lov'd la Mancha's famous knight

The fair, for whom he swore to fight;

Fir'd by th' enthusiastick rage,

With men and monsters to engage.

Yet, ask'd, for whom this martial strife;

"He never saw her in het life:

"Nor was he positive, God wot,

"Whether, indeed, she liv'd or not."

Thus bards too oft in truth's defence,

Break through the rules of common-sense;

And; o'er his rival each t'aspire;

Strive which shall prove the greatest liar.

Strange to the liberty of thought,

Vile slaves! but seeking to be bought;

To lying faction early train'd;

A purchase by the truth disdain'd.

Mean-time, as insolent as vain;

They freedom's sacred name profane;

And, boasting, hug the chains that bind

That worst of slaves, the servile mind.

Such, Dryden, thou, supreme in wit,

Immortal and unrival'd yet:

How honour'd; might not truth accuse

Thy venal, prostiuted muse.

Sayst thou 'tis strange the world should rest

Content, by falsehood thus depress'd?

Alas, thou little knowst mankind,

That, seeing, imitate the blind;

In spite of truth and open day,

In darkness chuse to grope their way;

Suspecting plainness of disguise,

The obvious sense of terms despise;

From sound or derivation gleaning,

Some hard-word, deuteroscope meaning:

While each impostor's word prevails

In mystick parables and tales;

Neglected ev'n the voice of Heaven,

When rational instructions given.

Look back through each successive age:

How honour'd the mysterious page!

What millions have been made the tools

Of knaves, whose nat'ral prey are fools!

How strangely trick'd deluded crowds

Who, truth expecting from the clouds,

And therefore gaping up in th'air,

On errour stumbled unaware!

Thus an astrologer of old,

In learned history we're told;

Contemplating the milky way,

Neglected that before him lay;

And led by wand'ring planets, fell,

Unluckily into a well.

Yet e'er with slander branding those

Who sought the naked truth t' expose:

Short sighted mortals, in their pride,

Thus strove their ignorance to hide;

By holding all beyond their view

Beyond investigation too.

Lorenzo, our misfortune here

Th' effect of idleness and fear.

The sluggard shuns inquiry's task,

Because too great the pains to ask;

Stifling th' emotions of his breast,

T' indulge his lazy brains in rest.

A paradox, yet such the fact,

"More fear to think than fear to act;

"In thought tho' danger we surmize,

"In act while real danger lies." [b]

In truth, my friend, 'tis sad to find

Hence rise the zeal of half mankind;

Religion but the compound vice

Of indolence and cowardice.

Ev'n pious christians, much I fear,

Oft practically atheists here.

How deaf and blind to calls of grace

When nature wears a smiling face:

But when she frowns; in wild amaze,

Look how th' affrighted cowards gaze.

When clouds drop fatness on the plains,

In mildly soft descending rains;

In their due season harvests smile,

And plenty crowns the peasant's toil:

As nothing rare, as nothing new,

We take the blessing as our due.

For O! prosperity's a lot

At ease enjoy'd, with ease forgot.

In June's warm sun and April's shower

We trace not an Almighty power:

Ingrates! so light of Heav'n we make,

Nor think the hand that gives may take.

But ah! when threat'ning storms arise;

When thunders rattle through the skies;

When the tall mountain bows its head,

And earthquakes vomit up the dead;

Behold whole nations prostrate fall

Before the mighty God of all.

T' appease his anger now their care,

Lo, all is fasting, sighs and pray'r;

Till, the dread storm blown haply o'er,

They rise and revel as before,

Forget, or ridicule, the rod;

And laugh to scorn the fear of God.

Nor only, mov'd when danger's nigh,

Our fears awake the gen'ral cry;

Imaginary scenes, alike,

The dastard soul with terrour strike;

While to the coward's opticks seem

Light straws, as each a giant's beam.

In honour thus of God above,

So weakly draw the cords of love;

While nature's groans, or fancy's fears,

Drive, headlong, down the vale of tears.

Lorenzo, wouldst thou freely trace

Whence grows a cowardice so base?

At th' early dawn of moral sense

Th' infatuation did commence;

And, propagated since by art,

We all have more or less a part.

Ere hermit bald or pilgrim grey

Had worn the solitary way;

Ere yet the monk had told his beads;

Ere yet credulity or creeds;

To school, with sober Reason sent,

Young Genius to Experience went.

The latter, tho', as yet, 'tis true,

No wiser than the former two,

In charge the tender pupils took,

And with them read in nature's book.

So pedagogues unletter'd use

No class of blockheads to refuse;

But gravely undertake t' explain

The arts themselves must first attain;

Sufficient if the master goes

Before his blund'ring pupil's nose.

Careful his vacant hours t'employ,

Now Reason prov'd a hopeful boy.

But Genius, insolent and wild,

By nature an assuming child,

A treach'rous memory his lot,

The little that he learn'd forgot;

Nor gave himself a moment's pain

To con his lessons o'er again:

But, trusting to his forward parts,

Debauch'd with wit the sister-arts;

Who, yet unsettled, young and frail,

Enamour'd, listen'd to his tale;

And, since the cause of dire disputes,

Turn'd out abandon'd prostitutes:

By priest and prophet, once enjoy'd,

To basest purposes employ'd;

For ages past, their only use

To vitiate reason or traduce.

For this, Tradition foremost came,

Instruction was her maiden name,

Now grown a smooth-tongu'd slipp'ry jade,

An arrant mistress of her trade.

She told the stories, o'er and o'er,

That genius told the arts before,

Repeating lies, as liars do,

Till in the end they think them true;

And when detected in her lie,

"Myst'ry"—the biter's arch reply.

By this fine dame our mothers taught,

Their scheme of education wrought;

So train'd us early to deceit,

To look on reason as a cheat;

To lies first tun'd the op'ning ear;

Awoke our earliest sense to fear;

With monsters and chimeras vain,

Fill'd the soft head and turn'd the brain;

Till the fond fools, to top their part,

Fix'd the rank coward at the heart.

Nor with our growing years releas'd;

The nurse but moulds us for the priest;

Who, lest his ward, grown sly or stout,

Should find the knavish secret out,

The bugbear from his reach removes,

And all th' old woman's tale improves,

Passions more riotous to quell,

Chang'd the dark hole for darker hell;

The truant damn'd for naughty play,

Black monday now the judgment day;

Gay hopes for promis'd toys are given,

And endless holidays in Heav'n.

The groundless fear and vain desire,

Which hence mankind in youth acquire;

How deeply rooted do we find,

How fix'd th' impressions on the mind;

The weakness of those childish fears,

Too oft increasing with our years;

While ev'ry infant joy and strife,

Improv'd, is carried into life.

For see the idiot and the wise,

Each from his own fond shadow flies;

Like curs that run till nature fails,

A bladder fasten'd to their tails.

With idle fears the world t' abuse,

Assistant here th' inventive muse:

The tale of wonder early taught;

When playful, young and void of thought,

By stroling Fancy led astray,

The vagrant, troul'd the jovial lay.

Alas of mirth and pleasure cur'd,

To horrour's brownest shade inur'd;

By love of wonder since betray'd,

To lend fantastick Spleen her aid:

For whom her numbers, sad and slow,

In dismal melancholy flow;

Condemn'd to murmur all the day,

To sigh and groan the midnight lay;

The skull, the spade, the shroud, the herse,

The doleful implements of verse;

Or doom'd prepost'rous tales to tell,

By brain-sick Fiction brought from hell.

For know th' unwary muse was caught

While Fiction yet her friend was thought;

A hag, by Ignorance badly nurs'd,

With craving appetite accurs'd,

To Spleen's embrace, while yet a maid,

The dire chlorosis had betray'd.

Since when, the wretch has roam'd abroad,

Her sullen tyrant's willing bawd;

A vile procuress, to supply

The love of wonder with a lie.

Hence bards, that reason less than rail,

Affect to tell the woful tale;

Or vent their moralizing rage;

As bugbears of a fearful age;

To truth pretending to be led

by megrims in the sick-man's head;

As if with zeal prophetick burn'd

The wretch whose blister'd head was turn'd;

The fittest those the truth to teach,

By fevers half-depriv'd of speech;

Whose fault'ring tongues most loud complain,

When death or doctors shake the brain.

Nor seldom, by transition led

From dying moralists to dead,

Tristful, in hypocondres vex'd,

The musing parson chews his text;

Some solemn scene of dullness sought,

To aid his rectitude of thought;

The murky vaults, the haunted cells,

Where moping melancholy dwells,

And fear, that kneels in piteous plight,

Her straggling hair all bolt upright.

Fit comrades these as e'er could chuse

The splenetick or maudlin muse;

Her doleful ditties proud to sing

Where sadness spreads her dusky wing;

Where croaks the syren of the lake

The light-of-heart from ease to wake;

And solemn owls, in concert grave,

Join hoot the worldly-wise to save.

'Twas thus enthusiastick Young;

'Twas thus affected Hervey sung; [c]

Whose motley muse, in florid strain,

With owls did to the moon complain;

Clear'd at the morn her raven throat,

To sound the glibber magpye's note.

Mean-while religion gravely smil'd

To see grown piety a child;

In leading-strings to find her led,

By those her fost'ring hand had bred.

For why confin'd the moral muse,

To blasted oaks or baleful yews:

O'er graves to make fantastick moan,

And deepen horrour's dismal groan?

Say, hath alone the mould'ring tomb

For pious meditation room?

Ah! wont with meek-eyed peace to rove,

Through church-way path or silent grove;

Her grateful influence round her shed,

Where groan the sick, or sleep the dead;

With truth and soberness serene,

Enliv'ning ev'ry solemn scene;

Disarming terrour of it's pow'r,

To wander at the midnight hour;

Sweet philomel, harmonious spright,

The only spectre of the night.

Can love of truth impose the task,

To lurk beneath a gorgon mask;

To stalk, in garb terrifick clad,

And scoul the weak and wicked mad;

Or drive the wretch, o'erwhelm'd with care,

In godly frenzy, to despair?

Is folly vice, fear makes it worse;

Reflection is the coward's curse:

Unless remorse in mercy given,

To damn self-murderers to heaven.

Why, then, is sought the midnight shade

From vice or falsehood to dissuade?

Is night less vicious than the day?

Doth errour guide the solar ray?

Or is exhal'd, like morning dew,

The moral object or the true?

O, most ridiculous the scene,

Where super stition feeds the spleen;

Where the gray spectre stalks to view,

As burns th' expirin taper blue;

Or dances o'er the dizzy sight

The form of many a dreadful spright:

Mean-while a victim to his fears

The moon-struck moralist appears.

For when the brain wild fancy fires;

Reason most prudently retires.

As sober men from drunkards part,

For such companions griev'd at heart.

Awes, then, with tremulous restraint

The painted urn or plaster saint?

Humbles the mutilated bust

The rotten sinner to the dust?

Lorenzo, here, no errour make,

Nor cowardice for conscience take

Alas, repentance, void of root,

May blossom fair yet fail of fruit:

Attrition vain and insincere

Mere weakness all, unmanly fear.

In the dark grove what horrour reigns

To chill the blood in Chiron's [d] veins,

When th' ignis fatuus glares, by night,

Terrifick witchcraft to his sight;

Or, animated by his fears,

Alive the fresh-lopp'd elm appears;

A giant ghost the nestling thrush,

That shakes the formidable bush;

Securely perching on whose breast,

The anxious black-bird builds its nest;

Or, on its arm-extending spray,

The nightingale repeats her lay:

Th' heroick titmouse or the wren

Less fearful than the sons of men;

Who yet to conscience give the lie,

And dare the pow'r of truth defy.

For know, no tremour can impart

Conviction to the skeptick's heart:

Nor takes, like agues, in a fright,

Trembling impiety its flight.

Behold the tyrant's iron hand,

That holds in chains a captive land;

In whose firm grasp imprison'd lies

Bold freedom, struggling as it dies;

Crush'd by whose weight, the monarch bleeds

And sceptres break like blighted reeds:

See this strong hand let fall the rod,

And tremble if the bulrush nod;

Belshazzar's like, enervate fall,

If laid a finger on the wall:

The wretch, of God nor man afraid,

Yet trembling at an empty shade.

Nor only fear th' immoral crew;

The coward pious tremble too:

Philosophy herself a fool,

Attended by her nurse to school.

Such dupes to fear, at times, we find

The best, the wisest of mankind!

For Oh! what antidote so strong

As poison, that has work'd so long!

What drug eradicates the pest,

Suck'd from the mother's tainted breast?

In vain the doctor we may try:

No doctor's fee our cure can buy:

Tho', tamp'ring with the dire disease,

Licentiates mock with present ease;

And emp'ricks, salving ev'ry sore,

With nostrums make, it rage the more.

Sayst thou, "in, policy, afraid

"To spoil the priest's and lawyer's trade,

"The statesman, topping the divine,

"Supports with pow'r the same design;

"To keep th' inquisitive in awe,

"Smacking his long-tail'd whip, the law;

"Or thund'ring in the vulgar ear

"Implicit faith and groundless fear:

"The nostrums these of church and state;

"To make a nation good and great."

Thus forfeit patriots that pretence

They make, as men, to common-sense?

Can ignorance be understood

As needful to the publick good;

That free inquiry such decry;

And boast their salutary lie?

Or, are they here by habit led,

And innovation's tumult dread?

So sacred held the stated rules

Of custom, lawgiver to fools!

Yet custom's rules caprice hath broke,

And turn'd her statutes into joke;

Nor boast her laws, however old,

Resistance to the pow'r of gold.

Shall science, then, still drag her chain,

And sigh for liberty in vain?

Forbid it Heav'n! that thus the mind,

By tyrant policy confin'd,

Should bow while falsehood bears the sway,

And give the cause of truth away.

Is this, Lorenzo, to be free?

Are these the sweets of liberty?

That glorious priv'lege yours and mine,

In our own sties, like sensual swine,

At will, to grumble, eat and drink;

But ah, prohibited to think!

Our, nobler appetites denied

Their proper feasts, and damn'd for pride;

Forbad our reason to employ;

Depriv'd of each sublimer joy;

Robb'd of the privilege to know,

Man's chief prerogative below!

May Britons boast, of all mankind,

The nobler fortitude of mind;

To set blind prejudice apart;

To rend th' old woman from the heart;

To laugh at blind tradition's rules,

The mother and the nurse of fools?

Have they with blood so dearly bought

Their boasted privilege of thought;

To throw like school-boys, tir'd with play,

The long disputed prize away?

Ah! had not custom often fail'd,

What barbarism had still prevail'd?

Deaf to the call of truth and grace,

Denying reformation place,

What lengths still stubborn faith had run,

To end what madd'ning zeal begun?

In honour still of Moloch's name,

Our children might have pass'd the flame;

By persecution's faggot rais'd;

Religious fires in Smithfield blaz'd;

Or now, as in a Stuart's reign,

Been dy'd with blood Iërne's plain.

Nay still how prepossess'd we find

With pious falsehoods half mankind.

Think from the stake how late repriev'd

Wretches, no charity, reliev'd:

Oh horrour! to the slaughter led,

For wearing rags and wanting bread;

Doom'd by inhuman, legal rage,

Martyrs to poverty and age. [e]

See still th' enthusiastick band

Cant, whine and madden o'er the land;

By scripture-craz'd fanaticks led,

Westley, or partners at their head.

See ev'n the learning of our schools

Perverted to bewilder fools;

The words of plainness to disguise,

And baffle reason with surprize;

While truth and nature plead in vain

Against the comment of Romaine. [f]

Ah! think how fatal, soon or late,

Such crazy members to the state:

How dang'rous to the publick weal

Blind ignorance and foolish zeal.

Reflect in what a dreadful hour

Nonsense usurp'd the hand of power;

When puritans the land o'er-run,

And sacrilege was pious fun:

While wretches, for their country's good,

Dipt their vile hands in royal blood.

Is ignorance the curse of God? [g]

Avert good Heav'n th' impending rod!

O leave, ye patriots, leave the mind

In search of knowledge unconfin'd:

Lest truth your cunning should despise,

Returning to its native skies. [h]

Good policy to truth's allied;

By science guided not the guide.

Cease too, ye bards, so wond'rous wise,

T'instruct by means you should despise.

In sober sadness, much too long

Mankind have listen'd to your song;

Have strain'd the mental eye, to see

Your false, fantastick imag'ry;

With gaudy colours glaring bright,

To captivate the vulgar sight;

The gaping idiot's grin of praise,

Or stare of ignorance to raise.

Nay, tho' approv'd your moral ends,

Ye still are truth's mistaken friends,

Ah! full as dang'rous to her cause

As even those who spurn her laws.

No visionary fears intrude

Where triumphs moral rectitude.

Truth all the artifice disdains

Of dungeons deep, and clanking chains;

Skulks not in life's sequester'd way;

But walks abroad in open day.

'Tis Falsehood, her grim face to hide,

Shuffles on nature's darkest side;

Baffling, in terrour's murky den,

The scrutiny of honest men.

Notes

a
Monsieur de Voltaire, remarkable for his regard to truth; and the profundity of his philosophical speculations.
↵

b
Mr. Hume.
↵

c
As I have profess'd to proceed on the Horatian principle, ‘Nullius addictus jurare in verba magistri,’ it may be observ'd, that in this work, no scruple is made of treating some respectab1e names with that freedom which becomes an advocate for the truth: the mention of which is conceiv'd a sufficient apology, if any be necessary, for such occasional strictures, as the subject led me to make on cotemporary writers.
↵

d
A modern Centaur—See the preface to a book entitled the Centaur not fabulous.
↵

e
The unhappy victims to an act of parliament, not long since repeal'd, by virtue of which many hundreds of poor wretches were formerly hang'd, or burnt, for witchcraft.
↵

f
A famous Hutchinsonian divine, of the church of England.
↵

g
Shakespear.
↵

h
If men were not to declare their opinions in spite of establishments, either in church or state, truth would be soon banish'd the earth. Ded. to Essay on Spirit.
↵

EPISTLE THE FOURTH.

ARGUMENT.

On the weakness of the human understanding. —The abstract existence of the Deity. —The incomprehensibility of the divine nature, and the incongruity of pretended atheism.

SUMMARY.

AS it is necessary to our success in scientifick researches that the mind should be divested of its prejudices, in favour of tradition and custom; so, however extensive be the freedom of enquiry, it is equally necessary that the object of investigation be adapted to the limits of the understanding: mankind always falling into errour and confusion, in their attempts to discover the knowledge of things beyond their capacity. However true, therefore, may be many of our discoveries in the system of Nature; God, the authour of that system, is abstracted from it and above our comprehension. — Hence our pretensions to describe, or define, the Deity, are palpably absurd and ridiculous. For, tho' a created Being may ascribe to its creator the most respectable of all known perfections, yet, as all its ideas of perfection are relative to itself, the attributes human beings ascribe to God are necessarily the superior qualities of humanity. —Notwithstanding, however, the Deity is so far removed from our enquiries, and thereby confessedly no object of philosophical knowledge, yet the actual disbelief of the existence of a God is denied: the arguments for and against atheists composing, in fact, a very ridiculous dispute: as the impossibility of denying the being of a first cause is evident; and the rest of the controversy a mere cavil about words, of no determinate meaning.

EPISTLE THE FOURTH.

RUL'D by no giant hopes or fears,

Whose stature grows with length of years,

In search of truth expect to find

The labour suited to the mind;

With genius, nature bearing part,

The strict, yet gentle, nurse of art.

Then aim not thou a point to hit,

Above the reach of human wit;

As if mankind could judge of aught

Beyond th' ability of thought.

Join not, Lorenzo, blindly those.

Who first would nature's God disclose;

Their moral and religious schemes

Building on theologick dreams;

Deduc'd the principles they own

From others equally unknown.

For, say the voice of reason true;

Be ours a just abstracted view:

Be it the privilege of man,

To trace exactly nature's plan;

The scale of beings in his hands,

To know the point at which he stands,

Compar'd with all he boasts to know,

As well above him as below:

Yet, if, of human logick vain,

He link to Heav'n a kindred chain,

Conclusions idle soon he draws;

And Heav'n prescribes by human laws.

Imagine thou in what degree

A seraph stands 'tween God and thee;

The neck how lowly dost thou bend

Before thy bright seraphick friend?

But place thyself a mite unseen

And being infinite between;

In this comparison, says pride,

A seraph thou, to God allied.

Thy pride, Lorenzo, disbelieve;

Let Locke nor Addison deceive;

For tho' creation's varied plan

Assigns degrees respecting man,

Yet, bigot, know, and learn to fear,

God is beyond thy proper sphere.

Created beings, all his care,

Doth he with them creation share?

Ah no! the system all our own,

God, the creator, stands alone:

At equal distance all his plan,

The mite, the seraph, or the man.

Is it not so, the passive clay

Of yon Corinthian column gay,

That gilt entablature or base,

Or marble of yon shining vase,

Resemble more the artist's mind

Than if to meaner use consign'd.

Absurd! is Jones's genius known

By the great model or the stone?

The pile, erect to Trajan's name,

Affected not by empty fame,

The cross rever'd, the honour'd bust,

And trodden floor are kindred dust:

For all in one degree respect

Their sov'reign lord, the architect.

How justly then soe'er we plead

That reason nature's book doth read,

As by its known establish'd laws

Of each effect we trace the cause,

Those laws can ne'er, themselves, confine

The legislative power divine:

Whose will those very laws decreed

And bad th' effect the cause succeed:

Agent, in some superior scheme,

Of which in this we can but dream.

Bear Atticus the critick's rod

In vain we, then, define a God;

In vain we attributes bestow;

Or reason, here, from what we know.

Tho' science teach, religion warm,

What wild ideas still we form?

Imperfect embrios of the brain,

That strive to scale the Heav'ns in vain.

Too short to reach beyond the sky

The focus of the mental eye;

Too cold our most transporting zeal

To paint what heav'ns and light conceal.

Yet will the skeptick ask me why?

Go, rise and to the dog-star fly.

Thou canst not: nor the cause unknown.

Central attraction holds thee down;

A pow'r occult, which, ere thy birth,

Fast bound thee to thy native earth:

From which thou ne'er canst hope to rise

To lunar plains or solar skies.

Nor less, within it's sphere, confin'd

The subtile essence of the mind.

What tho' it boast the pow'r to rove

In freedom through the plains above;

Tho' wing'd it's active feet to run,

With Merc'ry round the central sun;

Giv'n it far distant worlds t' explore;

And seas of space without a shore:

Yet, still, within creation's round,

Within our narrow system bound;

Of what's above or what without

We harbour universal doubt.

Say light prevails, no contrast shade

Outlines the void we would prevade:

If darkness reign no chearing ray

Delineates blind inquiry's way.

Hence, mortal man, must ever be

Thy authour, God, unknown to thee;

Destin'd thy erring way to trace

Through nature's parti-colour'd space.

Let ign'rance, then, her idol dress

In justice, love, and happiness;

Adorn with mercy's golden chain,

With all the virtues grace its train;

And then adore in humble plight,

Calling those fopp'ries infinite.

The pagan thus, despis'd as blind,

Creates his idol to his mind;

Thinking his deity express'd

By bird or beast he likes the best;

Then bows before the painted shrine;

And calls his wooden God divine.

Cast the presumptuous thought aside:

'Tis not humility but pride;

Unless that truly humble we,

T' adore the God humanity.

And such it is: for whence arise

Our virtues but from moral ties;

Whose known relations thus define

That essence mortals call divine.

Lorenzo, ready for reply,

Lay not thy prompt objection by.

Thou sayst "thy friend himself deceives,

"Nor God adores nor God believes:

"For tho' the mind the pow'r descry,

"If left its essence in the sky,

"If none imagin'd or display'd,

"To nothing adoration paid:

"In me no certain faith is found;

"My deity an empty found."

Not so: for, granting, I confess,

Thy attributes a God express;

Thou sayst thyself "still undefin'd

"The perfect, by th' imperfect, mind."

And to thy attributes must join

Thy infinite or thy divine.

As jugglers, who, t' enhance deceit,

To sacred science give their cheat,

While, with the curtain, still they hide

The slight of hand too closely eyed:

So sly theologues here impart

The hocus pocus of their art;

Holding religion's sacred veil,

Where slights of understanding fail.

For know, alas, their wisest plan

Displays but a superiour man,

Whom infinite the conjurer's rod,

Presto, converts into a God.

Till, then, they solve our problem right,

And tell us what is infinite,

They still must be reduc'd to own

Their compound deity unknown:

To all, or reasoning or inspir'd,

This infinite a term requir'd.

Differs Lorenzo, then, with me?

In terms alone we disagree:

Perfection infinite is thine,

Indefinite perfection mine.

Condemn not, then, half understood.

I not deny that perfect, good,

All-gracious, merciful, and wife,

God reigns, supreme, beyond the skies, [a]

Neither, 'tis true, my terms imply;

But, granting none, I none deny:

Requiring but to acquiesce

That thou thy infinite express.

Idly doth Bolingbroke refine;

Granting that wisdom is divine,

While, as absurdly, he denies

Justice and goodness to the skies.

Ideas, equally our own,

Our goodness as our wisdom's known;

To both as hard to reconcile

Or nature's frown or nature's smile.

Alas! no attributes of thine

Can e'er the deity define;

Impossible to judge, or know,

Of God above from man below: [b]

Reserv'd the prospect of the skies

To gratify immortal eyes.

Lorenzo, let us reason right.

No finite spans an infinite;

Unless, with Matho, vers'd in arts,

We hold th' infinity of parts.

But none th' absurdity will plan,

That God can be contain'd in man;

Tho', as absurdly, they suppose

Our partial gifts the God disclose.

Joinst thou, with Florio, the dispute,

T' enhance each moral attribute?

Pretending "these, however crude,

"Divine perfection doth include:

"As species in a genus they,

"Or parts, which, join'd, the whole display."

So, with the grandeur all t'inspire

Of the gay mansion of his fire,

An idiot heir, his mother's fool,

Taught his synecdoché at school,

Conceiv'd by part the whole was shown;

And took a sample of the stone.

Convinc'd, doth Polydore, with me,

That God's indefinite agree,

Yet argue "that our partial view

"May still be relatively true:

"For, if no abstract lights we gain,

"'Tis just our best to entertain;

"Our God to call that wond'rous cause,

"In nature trac'd, by nature's laws."

Mistake not here nor God dethrone:

The first mechanick cause be known;

'Tis of some prior cause th' effect;

Which no known similars respect.

The God we, then, by this define

Nor self-existent nor divine.

Be known creation's various ties,

Whence physical relations rise;

Of each effect the various cause;

Attraction and repulsion's laws;

That primum mobilé be found

That drove Des Cartes' whirlpools round;

Let matter, motion, ether, join,

To form thy attributes divine;

Striving if possible to rise

To the first agent in the skies:

Be next explain'd to mortal sense,

The wond'rous scheme of providence;

Down from those great important springs,

On which rebounds the fate of kings,

To those, so exquisitely small,

Destin'd to let the sparrow fall:

Sayst thou the knowledge hence deriv'd

Of him those systems hath contriv'd?

Alas! from hence we only trace

The features of creation's face;

The front it bears to human kind;

But not its self-existing mind.

Should we, presuming to display

The spirit of the golden day,

Thus, call its essence its result,

Attraction, fire, alike occult;

Or say 'tis vegetation green;

Who'd think it is the sun we mean?

So here t' absurdity we fall

Nor thus define a God at all.

Yet while, to thee I freely own,

I reverence a God unknown;

Think not, through ignorance or pride,

A God was ever yet denied.

No atheist [c] e'er was known on earth

Till fiery zealots gave him birth,

For controversy's sake, their trade,

And damn'd the heretick they made.

Doth Clody, impudent and vain,

Deny a God, in skeptick strain,

And yet in ignorance advance

That nature is the work of chance?

Theologists, absurdly wise,

With their anathemas despise;

For well may Clody these inflame,

Whose God exists but in a name;

A technick term, devis'd at school,

I pity Clody as a fool.

To Epicurus' strains belong

The censures of an idle song.

For say "united worlds might join

"By accident, and not design;

"Atoms might luckily contrive,

"And strangely find themselves alive;

"Or, by some other scheme as wild,

"The world be fortune's fav'rite child."

Explain the terms—say what is meant

By atoms, fortune, accident.

What meanst thou but th' efficient cause

Of nature's works and nature's laws?

O, think not, then, th' eternal mind

To term or epithet confin'd;

But take away or change the name;

And Clody's God and mine's the same.

Sayst thou "in chance a pow'r defin'd,

"Fortuitous, absurd, and blind,

"Unworthy that stupendous plan,

"Which nature's scenes display to man;

"Where grace, with harmony allied,

"And wisdom strike, on ev'ry side."

Alas! to Clody these unknown:

For wond'rous wisdom's all his own.

In nature nothing he surveys;

That actuates his soul to praise:

In vain the planets ran their course,

Obedient to impulsive force;

Th' excentrick comets, far and wide,

Pursue the same unerring guide;

In vain describes their varied race,

In equal times, an equal space:

In vain through microscopick eyes,

Innumerable wonders rise;

On the green leaf whole nations crawl,

And myriads perish in its fall.

Ah me! what bears the barren mind!

What beauty can affect the blind!

Should Clody then his chance disclaim,

And own a deity, by name,

The blund'ring deist would advance

A God, no wiser than his chance.

Boasts nature, therefore, no design?

Say whence, Lorenzo, yours and mine.

Did wisdom's sons themselves create?

Their birth 'tis own'd they owe to fate;

To fate capricious blind and dull;

Design lock'd up in th' atheist's skull.

But say, my friend, how came it there?

Lit chance upon occasion fair,

From odds and ends of matter join'd,

To form an intellectual mind?

Egregious blunder! gross surmize!

"Nature's a fool yet man is wise."

Is there a mortal, sound of brain,

Who such a tenet can maintain?

O, no—for words let fools contest,

Atheism's a mere, tho' impious, jest.

How obvious is the truth! and yet,

What learned volumes have been writ;

How scholiasts labour to refute,

Where none do actually dispute!

Of the first-cause, or fools or wise,

The pure existence none denies;

But in it's essence [e] disagree:

For who defines infinity!

Blush not, Lorenzo, then, to own,

Th' eternal God a God unknown;

Whose face, to mortal eye denied,

Can never gratify thy pride.

To him your votive altars raise,

As Athens did in ancient days;

Nor dare pollute his sacred shrine

With human sacrifice divine;

But humble adoration bring,

And silent praise; fit offering!

So the Peruvian, pure in heart,

Strange to the guile, or guilt of art,

Unaw'd by tenet, text, or tale,

Erects his temple in the vale,

Sacred to th' universal mind,

The God and guide of human kind.

No firstlings here affront the skies,

Nor clouds of smoking incense rise:

No hypocrite with acid face;

No convert tortur'd into grace;

No solid skull, in wisdom's cowl;

No hooded hawk, nor solemn owl,

Nor blind, nor ominous invade

This spotless consecrated shade:

But, as the native of the spray,

Man hails his maker, with the day;

By nature taught, Heav'n asks no more,

In spirit and in truth t'adore.

Notes

a
For, to deny that the moral perfections, ascrib'd to God, are, in no degree or affinity whatever, his proper attributes, would be as unphilosophical as to assert, on the other hand, that our ideas of goodness, justice, mercy, &c. are strictly applicable to the deity.
↵

b
At least so far as to judge of his providential designs or ultimate determinations, from our suppos'd knowledge of his attributes: for how shall we know what may be consistent or inconsistent with God's justice and goodness, when even moral goodness and justice between man and man, are points in dispute.
↵

c
By an atheist is meant simply one that denies the existence of a God—Divines indeed give that name to skepticks and deists indifferenty. Dr. South, if I remember right, seems to have thought it more easy to be a speculative than a practical atheist: though, in the strict sense of the word, whatever we conclude concerning the latter, the former appears to me impossible.
↵

e
Essential attributes.
↵

EPISTLE THE FIFTH.

ARGUMENT.

On happiness. —The apparent incapacity of mankind for its enjoyment. —The comparative pain and pleasure of human sensations; and their relation to our physical and moral constitution.

SUMMARY.

NEXT to the absurdity of puzzling ourselves in the investigation of matters beyond our capacity, and equally an obstacle to our inquiries after truth, is the folly of our constant pursuit, and in spite of as constant disappointments, our expectations of happiness—The term is certainly left vague and ill-defin'd even by those philosophers who, pretending it to be attainable, affect to teach us how happiness may be acquir'd—Its meaning is, nevertheless, obvious; and is determined from the tenour of its acceptation with the generality of mankind. In which sense, it is shown to be hitherto unattain'd; and that, not only from the impossibility of externals to confer happiness, but, from the evident incapacity of human beings to be made happy—It is hence, also, declar'd unattainable; and even the most laudable means whereby it is pursued, as those of knowledge, religion, and virtue are experimentally, and logically, shown to be incapable of conferring happiness. —In fact, ev'ry state, age and condition of life having its several distinct anxieties and consolations, it appears that a continued sense of either happiness or misery is incompatible with our nature; as well as with the very essence of pleasure and pain in general: our sensations of both which are merely comparative and reciprocally necessary to that of each other. Whence happiness and misery are evidently relative to, and dependant on, the constitution of the human frame; with which abstract pain and pleasure are totally inconsistent.

EPISTLE THE FIFTH.

BEyond the science of mankind,

In nature's fane our God enshrin'd;

Content, Lorenzo, let us trace

The lines, the shaddow, of his face;

In humble boldness seek to know

Our heav'n on earth; our God below.

To face the sun, to beat the sky

Demand an eagle's wing and eye.

Ah! let not, then, mere birds of night,

Whose wings, whose opticks check their flight,

Encourag'd by the morning ray

To risk the sun-shine of the day,

Their feeble pow'rs too highly rate,

And rush absurdly on their fate;

As in the noon-tide beams they gaze

Struck blind by Heav'ns meridian blaze,

For ever after to their cost

To grope; in endless errour lost.

Adapted, then, inquiry's plan

To truths as relative to man,

Wouldst thou, Lorenzo, comprehend

Man's physical and moral end,

To future, to immortal views

Conducted by the faithful muse?

Secure while yet in reason's sight,

For thee she takes her daring flight;

Born up on scientifick wing,

Attempts her boldest note to sing;

For thee those winding tracts t'explore;

Where seldom muse hath dar'd to soar.

But, here, as truth we hope to find,

Be left each vain desire behind.

Be thrown those obstacles aside

Which expectation builds on pride;

While busy hope and bustling care

Erect their castles in the air;

Our fertile wishes safe to hold,

Fertile in pleasure, fame or gold,

A treasure valued at no less

Than man's consummate happiness.

For know, if bliss thy end and aim,

Truth but invalidates thy claim:

Th' exclusive privilege to know

The all we taste of Heav'n below.

Is this a maxim wits profess?

"That man was born to happiness:

"Tho' tow'rs of hope he fondly raise,

"Their structure lasts him all his days:

"In expectation ev'n possessing

"The better half of ev'ry blessing,

"His bliss for ever in his view,

"Whene'er he pleases to pursue."

My friend, with care such maxims weigh:

Nor run with giddy wits astray.

In search of truth may genius roam;

But bliss, if found, is found at home;

To region, clime nor soil confin'd

This boasted seed of Heav'nly kind.

Ah! vainly boasted, if below

The plant celestial cannot grow!

Say sophists neither more nor less

Than happiness is happiness;

Yet will they boast this state unknown,

This bliss indefinite, their own?

The diff'rence plain 'twixt bliss and woe,

Whate'er we feel we surely know:

What state can, then, be ever thine

Which sense nor science can define.

That man, by others is't confess'd,

Ne'er is but always to be blest?

Yet would they teach, in moral strain,

How all may happiness attain?

As well who ne'er was bless'd with light

May boast the happiness of sight,

The splendour of the solar ray;

Or teach his comrades blind their way;

As such to thee make ever known

A state of being ne'er their own.

Dost thou to prove my judgment wrong

In answer quote thy fav'rite song?

True bliss, thy Pope if we believe,

All hands can reach, all heads conceive:[a]

The happiness of each confin'd,

In truth, to that of all our kind.

Know terms so gen'ral naught define.

The bliss of all nor yours nor mine:

As yet distinctly understood

The publick and the private good.

Nor doth it prove this maxim right

To say that both in one unite;

Unless their union be so plain

That, seeking one, we both obtain:

Since th'individual, for himself,

Applies to riot, fame or pelf:

In spite of all the wise can say,

We seek our bliss a sep'rate way;

Just as the present maggots bite,

Take our own measures for the right;

Or, having no peculiar whim,

Along the tide of custom swim.

Mean-while, of bliss tho' all dispute,

None leave their darling substitute.

How short of happiness is gold!

The miser cries; yet keeps his hold.

In women, sighs the batter'd rake,

What solid comfort can we take!

Ah! what in wine? Silenus asks.

Yet cart the whore; go, stave the casks;

"How shall the sons of Comus live,

"If wine nor women life doth give!"

Thus publick happiness our care

But for our own peculiar share:

While sons their father's schemes traduce;

And here all patriotism abuse.

However then the specious face

Of wit may countenance the case,

Bliss inconsistently we call

The happiness of one and all.

Nor is it yet precisely meant

By good, ease, pleasure or content.

Good might we variously explain.

Ease is deliv'rance but from pain.

Pleasure is actual joy confess'd:

And mere content but patient rest;

A neutral state, at best and worst,

But negatively blest or curst:

That which our happiness we call,

Tho' that nor this, the sum of all.

The world's plain meaning plainly this,

Some constant state of actual bliss.

No matter whether in degree

Alike bestow'd on you or me:

Enough, if, void of fear or pain,

No motive lead us to complain:

Enough, whate'er the mode of joy,

If such that it can never cloy.

Look round the world, and tell me true.

Where is such happiness in view?

From monarchs fled, as sings the bard,

His patron's virtue to reward,

Tell me, in truth, was St. John blest? [b]

Or did the bitter bard but jest;

Dipping his pen in worse than gall,

An outed statesman bless'd to call?

With equal truth the muse might paint

My Lord of Bolingbroke a saint;

Run riot o'er his dubious fame,

And dub him with a patriot's name:

So worthy of his country's pràise!

So meek! so holy all his ways!

Nor, tho' to him, to him alone

A state of perfect bliss unknown,

Of each complexion, age, degree,

Mankind as far remov'd as he.

Go, ask, my friend, from door to door,

The high, the low, the rich, the poor;

In court, or cot, if here, or there,

Reside the mortal free from care.

You ask in vain, for joy and strife

Diversify all states of life.

To wield the scythe with sweaty brow,

With wearied arm to guide the plough,

To sow in hope, to reap in joy,

Thine, labour, is the sweet employ.

A life of rest with pain t'endure,

To seek in health disease's cure,

To eat the grape, unprun'd the vine,

Laborious idleness is thine.

Yet idleness of care complains

And labour quarrels with its pains.

Nor only found, or made, distress;

Because externals fail to bless:

Lodg'd in ourselves the taste, and will,

That make externals good or ill;

No earthly blessing, hence, we find

An equal good to all mankind.

Belmore, the sober'st thing on earth,

Dreads the broad laugh, and roar of mirth:

While Clerrio, with a length of chin,

Protracted by perpetual grin,

Tho'Socrates himself pass by,

Must laugh in ridicule or die.

How elegant, how high refin'd

The palate of Cardella's mind!

How low, how vulgar Cotta's soul,

That feels no rapture in a vole!

See thousands, as in love with strife,

Pursue it, fretting, all their life;

And darken, with the clouds of spleen,

The sky of providence serene:

Wretched to find another eas'd,

And most unhappy when they're pleas'd.

How strange! while some, with patient toil,

Raise comfort on a barren soil

Or pleasure strike, by native dint,

From cruel fortune's hardest flint;

The patriarch like, whose rod, we're told,

Earth's stubborn fetters burst, of old;

When gush'd the stream from Horeb's rock,

To water Israel's thirsty flock.

Hence not on earth a blessing sent

Gives universally content.

For while so varied is our taste,

Manna itself were show'r'd to waste.

With reason, therefore, we profess

God meant not here our happiness:

Else in the various blessings given

Sure various minds might find their heaven. [c]

But know, as different we find

Each individual's turn of mind,

As little with ourselves we see

Ourselves, at various times, agree.

So oft our views, our tempers change,

As through life's varied scenes we range.

At times, so diff'rent from himself,

The prodigal will hoard his pelf;

Spend greedily the night at play,

To throw next morn his gains away.

At times ev'n misers rob their store,

And give their sixpence to the poor.

At times ev'n trembling cowards fight,

And, desp'rate, put the bold to flight:

While, sick of fighting and of fame,

The brave, like belgick lions, tame.

How oft, my friend, in private life,

We love the maid we hate a wife.

How oft the scene, that gives delight

At morn, offends the eye at night.

'Tis not the want of that or this:

Possession is the bane of bliss:

And hence of happiness we see

On earth th' impossibility.

Yet, with an interested view,

Doth still Lorenzo truth pursue?

Dost thou suppose th'enlighten'd mind

In truth's researches bliss may find?

That science fancy may restrain,

And fix that weather-cock the brain?

Alas, deceive thy self no more;

But give thy vain pretensions o'er.

For, as a world of fruitless cost

In vain inquiries hath been lost;

A world of labour spent t'attain

To knowledge man may never gain:

So millions all their lives have spent,

Searching for bliss in discontent:

For bliss, which but a little thought

Had told them never could be taught.

Yet still they ask; yet still they run

A race that never can be won.

Thus sought, of yore, projecting fools

The summum bonum of the schools;

And wiser heads than those of old

The stone converting all to gold;

Or vain adepts, much wiser still,

To wrest from nature's hand, at will,

Promethean theft, celestial fire;

To animate their wood and wire:

Madmen, that not Monro could cure

Of circles and their quadrature,

Of thinking drunken nature reels,

Like a slung coach, on springs and wheels!

Dost thou, instructed in thy youth

To place consummate bliss in truth,

Conceive it somewhere hidden lies,

Among the learned and the wise;

That hence our bliss or misery flow,

The truth to know or not to know?

In vain the learn'd, in science deep,

In search of bliss, their vigils keep;

In vain the universe explore,

Swift as their search, it flies before,

Through ev'ry clime, on ev'ry wind,

And leaves the panting wish behind.

O, tell me, what connection ties

So close the happy and the wise.

Did e'er the sage in wisdom find

The artless infant's peace of mind?

Proud, knowledge, e'er, or boastful art,

Restore to joy the broken heart?

Ah! what avails the truth to know,

When truth's the frequent source of woe;

While gilded fiction's dazzling rays

With sun-shine beautify our days,

Or, mildly shed, its silver beams,

Reflected, light our nightly dreams;

While pleasure and its laughing train

Dance, by the moon-shine of the brain.

For what is knowledge, but to know

How ignorant our state below?

The more we learn, the more to find,

Beyond our learning, still behind:

Our fruitless wishes to increase,

Whene'er our mental prospects cease?

So far from happiness, my friend,

Is science, in its means, or end.

Sayst thou that bliss the world affect

The smile of God on his elect;

Confin'd to Abr'am's faithful seed;

And made dependant on our creed?

Go, ask the saints, to whom are given

The best assurances of Heaven,

The few distinguish'd here on earth

As children of a spiritual birth,

"How gloomy oft a state of grace;

"How often hid their Maker's face;

"How oft, by satan and by sin,

"Sore buffeted the man within."

These all confess beyond the sky

Their blissful heritage doth lie.

Say, is repos'd this Heav'nly trust

Within the bosom of the just,

While virtue, in itself, you call

The happiness of one and all?

Pretending still, "tho' yours and mine

"No partial mode of bliss define;

"Yet that our diff'rent tastes unite

"In meaning well and thinking right:

"An universal moral this,

"Conducting all mankind to bliss!"

Alas, what sophistry to tell

Of "thinking right, and meaning well:" [d]

Unless this rectitude of thought

With perspicuity be taught;

This honest meaning plainly shown;

So oft admir'd! so little known!

At virtue if we're left to guess,

What is't to say 'tis happiness?

The way to virtue as to bliss;

If dubious that as doubtful this.

How fruitless therefore but to know

"Virtue is happiness below!"

Sayst thou, mankind are all agreed

That happiness is virtue's meed?

The service of the work inquire,

And by the labour rate the hire.

Now virtue some to fact confine,

While others place it in design.

These blest but for the good they do;

And those for all they have in view.

But, if by virtue understood

The mere intent of doing good,

Those fully virtuous may be held,

Who ne'er one lawless passion quell'd;

Whom ne'er temptation led astray,

Beyond the tenour of their way;

A sober path by stoicks trod;

Nor friends to man, nor foes to God.

Consistent with a state of rest,

If virtue's centred in the breast,

As happy those may surely live

Who nothing give nor have to give,

As those who taste, in ey'ry sense,

Th' exertion of benevolence.

Some seeming diff'rence yet we find.

What pangs affect the tender mind?

What exquisite sensations rise,

To hear the orphan's piteous cries;

To feel the widow's piercing woe;

When no relief our wants bestow?

Doth virtue here rejoice the heart

As when the gen'rous ease impart,

When purest transports warm the breast,

That glows to succour the distress'd?

And yet, my friend, 'twere wond'rous hard,

If bliss the virtuous rich reward,

In poverty that virtue's zeal

Should double all the pangs we feel;

Each gen'rous sigh, each social tear,

But render want the more severe.

To virtue, therefore, if the deed

Our best designs must yet succeed,

Granting that happy ev'ry mind

In such proportion as its kind,

Here in externals do we place

The happiness of human race:

Enabled to relieve distress

As wealth, or pow'r, ourselves possess;

For bliss capacitated more

As blest with fortune's worldly store.

Fix'd, by this scheme, the blissful state,

Exclusive, to the rich and great:

The virtuous poor, but innocent,

Claim, at th' utmost, bare content.

Besides, if individuals blest

As sharers only with the rest,

True happiness with thee to call

Not merely that of one but all,

What is inactive virtue's use?

Can it to social good conduce?

Can it, thus fruitless and confin'd,

Be call'd a blessing to mankind?

If then we judge so much amiss

Of virtue, and of virtuous bliss,

If faith, tho' crown'd with alms and pray'rs,

Hath all its pangs, hath all its cares,

While, ev'n from knowledge, prospects rise,

That make us miserably wise,

His perfect happiness to reach,

No morals mortal man can teach:

Still Heav'n's best vot'ries must confess

No blessings here compleatly bless:

A compound strange of bliss and woe

Man's variable state below.

Some absent something ours to crave,

Ev'n from the cradle to the grave!

How idly, then, employ'd the mind

In search of that we cannot find.

For human bliss stands never still;

Our good insep'rable from ill; [e]

Whilst all of pain and pleasure share,

Their hour of joy, their hour of care,

Adapted to each sev'ral state;

Fix'd and determinate as fate.

The world my friend, an ample field,

Of such examples store doth yield.

How throbs the infant's little breast,

Beneath a load of care oppress'd;

The care that issues with a sigh;

The tear yet standing in the eye;

Or, caught in laughter's dimple sleek,

Dry'd up in stealing down the cheek.

See next, among, the sachel'd crowd,

Bold as a hero and as proud,

The little tyrant of his class;

How happy! till condemn'd to parse,

Or sob beneath the weightier curse

Of scanning Lily's crabbed verse. [f]

In youth how glows the vital fire

'Tween expectation and desire;

Our sanguine hopes our awkard fears,

All suiting unexperienc'd years.

Still riper joys do manhood bless,

When full-blown fortune we possess?

We riot on the joyous store,

Till health and strength can charm no more;

When disappointment and chagrin

Retaliate all our joys with spleen.

Proportion'd next to wasted age,

Insipid joys and peevish rage,

Tho' dim th' exhausted passions burn,

Take, to our latest gasp, their turn.

Thus relative, my friend, we find

The pains and pleasures of mankind:

Adapted all, in due degree,

To human sensibility.

For see, no more alive to smart

Than dead to joy the hard-of-heart:

As far from rapture as despair

The fretful family of care.

Not sickness, pain, nor death itself

Avarus dreads like loss of pelf:

While Lavish offers an estate

To staunch a cut, ere yet too late,

Dispel the head-ach, or remove

Th' effects of his intemp'rate love.

Was ever yet the child of mirth

Intensely blest, or curst, on earth?

Ah no! how lightly feel a pain

The light-of-heart, or light-of-brain!

The man, so happy as to think,

Life's bitter potion born to drink!

Behold the foolish, weak and blind

The sprightliest, merriest of mankind;

While suffers oft superior sense,

Ev'n from its own pre-eminence:

Those follies that the wise: annoy

The destitute-of-wisdom's joy.

The blockhead naturally free

From cares thy knowledge brings on thee,

While Heav'n your daily toil to seek,

Poor Ralpho works but once a week:

When left his plough and worldly cares,

He plies his sunday's task at pray'rs.

Nor puzzled he in truth's research,

Laid all his burthen on the church;

The friendly church, by Heav'n design'd

To help the weak, to lead the blind,

To check the rash, to warm the cold,

T'engage the young, t'amuse the old,

Th' unthinking from themselves to save,

And bring them calmly to the grave.

Blest ignorance! from care so free,

Hath it, Lorenzo, charms for thee?

Wouldst thou to science, empty name

If void of bliss resign thy claim?

Be like the ass, that plodding goes,

Nor looks beyond his bridled nose?

For me—O, rather should I ask

Life's most laborious, abject task.

Would ev'n the meanest lot sustain;

Bear ev'ry tolerable pain:

To emp'ricks would intrust my cure;

Ev'n to be pitied might endure:

Nay, plague me, Heav'n, in ev'ry sense,

Ere take my share of reason hence;

Of science ere my soul deprive,

My little portion, whilst alive.

Yet dost thou ignorance despise?

The joys of knowledge hence arise.

So strange so little understood

The varied source of mortals' good!

To Heav'n my grateful vows be paid

That man in human frailty's made;

That grief and ignorance my lot;

In joy and science since forgot;

Or best remember'd in the taste

They give improvement's rich repast.

O say, industrious querist, say,

What raptures court you on the way;

What views delight, from time, to time,

As the steep hills of art you climb.

Such transports ne'er had fir'd my breast,

If born of sciences possess'd,

As when, by want of knowledge fir'd,

To nature's lore I late aspir'd;

By slow degrees enlighten'd grew,

Her volume op'ning to my view;

To the weak mind as knowledge given;

Knowledge, that wings the soul for Heaven.

Lorenzo, is this doctrine strange?

Seest thou not, while the seasons change,

How much, as each in contrast felt,

We freeze with cold, by heat we melt.

Thus exquisite our sense of woe

As more refin'd our pleasures grow:

Pleasure and pain, as light and shade,

By one the other still display'd.

Didst never want? to thee denied

The bliss of being satisfied;

In constant fulness but enjoye'd

Th' insipid good of which we're cloy'd.

Say, plenty gives thee bread more white,

It blunts the edge of appetite;

Or, giving wine, malignly first

Robs thee, distasteful, of thy thirst.

How sunk, and terrible, to thee

The hollow, eye of poverty!

While Villius meets her with, a smile,

And sings, or whistles all the while.

Tho' worn his hands, perplex'd, his head,

He relishes the sweets of bread;

Nay patient sees, in want itself,

His crustless cupboard's vacant shelf:

Full many a time, in pleasant rue,

Dancing for joy without a shoe.

Is Fortunatus rich and gay?

Curst with the modish itch of play;

Bubbled at White's, through lust of gain;

Or jockey'd round New-Market plain;

See with his barb his manors fly;

His leaseholds totter with the die;

Braving the storm of many a cast,

His oaks a bet malignant blast,

His card-built villas, one and all,

Like infant architecture, fall.

From sharpers, creditors and duns,

Not half the peril Villius runs;

Whom all the world to trust refuse;

Who nothing owns he dreads to lose.

Ah me! what threat'ning danger nigh?

Why swells the tear in Delia's eye?

Eclips'd the fairest of the fair

By sad misfortune's drooping air;

Delia on whom kind Nature smil'd,

Ev'n at the birth her fav'rite child,

When, all the graces to combine,

She cloath'd them in one form divine;

Bestowing grandeur, wit and wealth,

And fortune's best of bounties, health:

Nay, adding, in her gen'rous fit,

Good-nature even to her wit.

With all these blessings yet unblest,

Ah, tell me, fair one, why distress'd.

Alas! alas! the belle's reply

"Of Brilliante's birth-day suit I die.

You smile at misery like this.

Match it with Delia's sense of bliss.

In rapture ever, with the gay,

To shine at concert, masque or play;

Her greatest happiness to boast

Her name the fopling's reigning toast:

The all in life her wish regards

Summ'd up in fashions, routs and cards.

Ah, then, how pow'rful to distress

Th' important article of dress!

So deeply some may cares affect,

Those trifling cares that you neglect,

Half the solicitude we see

Ridiculous to you and me?

Others there are as lightly hold

Dangers, at which our blood runs cold.

Lo where, beneath th' impending cliff

The Norway fowler moors his skiff;

Or, desp'rate, fifty fathoms high

Suspended, seems himself to fly;

While thus, from rock to rock, he swings;

And, blythe, his summer's ditty sings.

As blythe the sea-boy furls the sail,

Regardless of the blust'ring gale;

Nor winds, nor waves, disturb his sleep,

Amid the horrours of the deep.

The cordial draught, the downy bed

Had ne'er reviv'd the drooping head,

Had sickness pale, and fainting grief

Ne'er wish'd for wearied nerves relief.

See Belmont on the sofa laid;

What racking pains his limbs invade!

Take half his gout, the respite given

He calls a blissful taste of heaven.

Give but a youth, dispersing wealth,

Who riots on the bloom of health,

That blissful part, which yet remains;

And his a mortal's bitter'st pains.

Pains which no aggravation know!

Yet, so comparative our woe,

Inflict them when Cleora's kiss,

Kind earnest of approaching bliss,

Hath rais'd the glowing lover's fire

To flaming raptures of desire;

Lo, disappointment joins the curse,

And turns this worst affliction worse.

Correct ideas let us gain.

Our sense of joy we owe to pain;

So strange a paradox is this!

And mis'ry to our sense of bliss;

While such our varying state below,

Ev'n joy degen'rates into woe;

And pains, in sufferance, by degrees,

On their own pangs engender ease;

Their antidote, like scorpions, bring,

T' expel the poison of their sting.

The tension of th' extended nerve,

Say Phisiologists, may serve,

The means of pleasure and of pain,

This seeming paradox t' explain.

As strung the harp with trembling wire,

So brac'd with nerves the human lyre,

While such in tune, these sages say,

The smiling hours in concert play:

But if, in change, too lax or tense;

Health strikes no more the keys of sense:

But, tremblingly alive all o'er,

The tortur'd strings in discord roar:

While sickness, with her harpy claws,

Stranger to each harmonious cause,

Labours, benumb'd, the jarring strain,

That stuns our ear with deaf'ning pain.

Nor yet can health too oft repeat

Its musick, howsoever sweet;

While, by degrees, lo, ev'ry string,

Depriv'd of its elastick spring,

In gen'ral lassitude, full soon

The whole machine grows out of tune.

Should, also, passion, sense or art

Wind up too high the nervous part;

With noise the notes tumultuous tire;

Or breaking strings unman the lyre.

Of pain or pleasure on our frame

Th' effects, hence, frequently the same;

Thus, full of gladness or of grief,

In tears we find the same relief;

Alike the feeble nerve destroy

Exquisite pain, extatick joy.

The bandit, stretch'd upon the wheel,

Th' extreme of torture ne'er can feel;

But, cruelty disarming, lies

Or dead to sense, or really dies.

So, rapture never meant to bless,

Ev'n joy grows pain when in excess.

Indulg'd to print the burning kiss

On Chloe's lips, how fierce the bliss!

How keen the torture of her charms,

Caress'd, to pant within her arms,

Melting in fulness of desire,

Stretch'd on the rack of bliss, t'expire!

Thus constitutional, below,

Is all our bliss, is all our woe:

Each holding, intimately join'd,

Alternate empire o'er the mind.

Like Persian monarchs, hardly known

Ere tumbled headlong from the throne,

Precarious and as short its sway,

Depos'd and sceptred in a day,

Pleasure begins its fickle reign,

And tyrannizes into pain:

When, as to cruel pain we bow,

Its rod grows light we know not how.

Ah, cruel blow to human pride!

Is pain and pleasure thus allied,

That all the sweets of life grow sour

Within the transitory hour!

Complains, Lorenzo? darts behind

No ray of comfort on his mind?

If thus with varied joy and strife

Diversified all states of life;

If human being cannot know

A constant state of bliss or woe;

Worn by sharp mis'ry to the bones,

While grief with intermission groans,

And meagre want, half fed, the while,

Grins forth her grateful, ghastly smile;

Tho' vain our hopes of bliss, as vain

Our fears of unremitting pain:

Absurd the mischief-making care

That leads us blindly to despair.

Notes

a
See Pope's essay on man.
↵

b
See essay on man, Ep. 4.
↵

c
If, says Mr. Pope,

— To all men happiness was meant,

God in externals could not place content.

To me, I must confess, the various conditions of humanlife seem so admirably adapted to the several dispositions ofindividuals, that, if our happiness in this life were intended, the unequal distribution of the gifts of fortune affords themost plausible means to effect it.
↵

d
Pope
↵

e
Virtue, says Mr. Pope, is the

—Point where human bliss stands still,

And tastes the good without the fall to ill.

↵

f
However puerile this example may seem, there has been more than one instance of a school-boy's having actually been guilty of suicide; in order to avoid the discipline of the rod, or the ferula.
↵

EPISTLE THE SIXTH.

ARGUMENT.

On abstract good and evil—The physical perfection of the material universe, and the moral harmony observable in the dispensations of Providience.

SUMMARY

THE inquiries, of philosophers into the abstract cause of evil have hitherto been attended with little success. Indeed, no such abstract evil exists. For, whatever calamities human life be subject to, their evil depends merely on our own s;ensibility. Even physical evils, which are the least controvertible, are evidently relative to their effects on the sufferings, or enjoyments, of mankind. Whence they must not be accounted abstract evils, or real defects in the general system of things: of which we have at present but a partial view; and therefore cannot tell how far apparent imperfections may conduce to the perfection of the whole. That human life is subject, nevertheless, to palpable evils cannot be denied: but it should be consider'd that, as such evils are but temporary, and are evil but in proportion to the pleasure, or good, by which they are contrasted, we are not sensible of any abstracted evil, unless a state of humanity, on the whole, be attended with a greater portion, of pain than pleasure. This is asserted by many; but is experimentally false. Indeed, on a fair and impartial estimate, our sufferings and enjoyments seem to stand on an equal ballance. Hence, also, if there be no abstract physical evil in the universe, there is as little reason for us to hold the existence of physical good; or to maintain that happiness is the privilege of human life. That "whatever is is right," with respect to the whole, is allow'd; but that it is therefore good is another consideration: goodness being a term relative to the happiness of mankind, and not applicable to that general system. The famous principle of the BEST is therefore futile and frivolous—As to moral good and evil: we owe a sense of them purely to physical: for had mankind felt neither pain nor pleasure, they would never, from the light of nature, have acquir'd the ideas of moral good or ill. Those actions, therefore, are morally good which give rise to more pleasure than pain; and morally bad, vice versa: Innocence being, strictly speaking, neither good nor evil; and indeed inconsistent with a state of action. Moral evil appears, hence, to be, also, merely relative to man; and can by no means be consider'd as a defect in the designs of Providence; unless we can be so absurd as to suppose it in the power of created beings to counterwork the intentions of their supreme creator. On the other hand, moral good is equally relative, and can have no effect on the happiness of the first cause, or plead any abstract merit with the Deity. Moral good and evil, however, in the agent, is necessarily attended with temporary happiness and misery; in the distribution of which, also, agreeable to relative merit, it is not improbable that impartial justice is done, even in this life, in the perfect dispensations of Providence. Our hopes or apprehensions, nevertheless, of a future state are not hereby cut off. On the contrary, this life may only be preparatory to a future; where the virtuous and vicious may be very differently dispos'd of in the scale of existence. But, whatever be our lot hereafter, it rests on the good pleasure of our creator: into whose hands philosophy calmly resigns the hidden concerns of futurity.

EPISTLE THE SIXTH.

IS there who teach that human woe

Must from a source abstracted flow;

Existing in creation's plan,

Some active ill the curse of man;

Some imperfection, or offence,

In physicks or in providence?

The question old unanswer'd lies.

"Whence did the curse of evil rise?"

By Wolfius left and twenty more,

As puzzling as 'twas left before,

To God or devil still assign'd

The cause of ill by human-kind.

In disobedience to his God,

Did man himself call down the rod?

Or did th' arch-fiend, from Heav'n that fell,

Inspire the mischief to rebel?

Yet, sure, if pow'r preventive given,

No angel e'er had fell from Heaven;

Man had no tempter known to vice;

Serpent, nor Eve, in Paradise.

Lorenzo, in the pride of sense,

Instruction's deem'd impertinence.

She, therefore, daughter of the wise,

Hath long been shelter'd in disguise;

Ent'ring, beneath the mask of sport,

The presence, tho' forbid the court:

So fond with young delight to stray,

And moralize the wanton's play,

That ev'n her precepts still prevail

In ev'ry fav'rite, gossip's tale.

Yet so that those who seek to learn

With ease the naked truth discern;

To genius but a pleasing task

To sport with allegory's mask.

The moral, then, from tales deduct;

And let philosophy instruct.

Angelick truths let angels scan:

Ours is the scrutiny of man.

Ours but in reason's bounded course

Allow'd to try our native force;

Confin'd within life's little space

The fleetest genius at the race,

In vain we urge beyond the goal

Th' ideal coursers of the soul.

Art thou, my friend, so ill at ease

That all thy prospects here displease?

Dost thou, in peevishness or pain,

Of nature's system all complain?

Of blunders there, confusion here,

Too distant Heav'n, and hell too near!

In mood so splenetick, my friend,

Say what those evils that offend:

Thy doubts propose, thy questions ask,

And take omnisciency to task.

Giv'n thy sagacity offence

By all thou seest of providence,

The constitution prone to blame

Of nature's universal frame,

Dost thou Heav'n's boasted care deny

When tempests sweep along the sky;

Thy feather'd geese when whirlwinds bear

Aloft, and scatter, wide in air;

Or from the hills impetuous rains

Descend and strip th' autumnal plains?

Concluding the machin'ry vile

When earthquakes shake our stable isle,

When Etna and Vesuvius flame;

To nature each a burning shame!

Finds thy philosophy as soon

Faulty th' attraction of the moon,

When death resistless, roaring rides

In triumph o'er the swelling tides,

Or, bathing in destruction, drowns

Flocks, herds and men and helpless towns;

Or bears them off some mountain steep

All headlong down, to glut the deep?

Or is thy wiser censure bent

Against some comet's dire event?

In time to come, time out of mind,

To fall into the sun design'd;

Suspicious that, if planets turn

To comets, ours at length may burn;

And we be doom'd, some sultry day,

To his devouring flames a prey!

Lorenzo, is this strain admir'd,

Here mayst thou rail till sense be tir'd.

But judge not thou, as sophists vain,

Of gen'ral good by partial gain:

Thinking when cross'd our stubborn will

Such is a providential ill.

For know, no abstract cause exists

And battles in creation's lists,

A formal enemy to man,

Since nature's tournaments began,

Inflam'd with enmity and power

God's human likeness to devour.

No—'tis impossible a cause

Should counteract creation's laws,

The hand of providence arrest,

Or IIcav'n's determin'd pow'r contest:

As one or other must prevail,

And one, or both together, fail.

But nature knows no real strife,

However jarring human life,

From evil and from errour free;

These only relative to thee.

In icy chains let winter bind

The glebe untrod by human-kind,

Fierce light'nings flash, and thunders roll

Their horrours only round the pole;

Let Malstrooms roar, and Heclas blaze

Where fools nor cowards stand to gaze:

Let islands drown; let mountains melt;

These are no evils till they're felt.

'Mid southern seas and lands unknown

Should agonizing nature groan,

There only ease her future th•oes,

And harmless horrours. round disclose;

Earthquakes would lose their evil name,

And Heav'n no longer bear the blame;

Tho' evils now we loudly call

Lima's, and Ulysippo's, [a] fall.

Lorenzo, of creation's plan

But parts are visible to man;

Whence, ign'rant of their sep'rate use,

We think them subject to abuse:

Tho' all with art consummate join,

Conducive to Heav'n's main design.

As parts to complex engines prove,

Inspir'd by mechanism to move,

This retrograde, and that direct,

In diff'rent modes to one effect,

So, howsoe'er they clash to sense,

The sev'ral springs of providence,

In concert, at their Maker's will,

Their ends harmoniously fulfil:

Upheld the weight, let fall the rod,

As urges the first mover, God.

How blind are, then, the smatt'ring fools,

Just taught their geometrick rules,

The simple use of rule and line,

To these who nature would confine;

Its laws who else capricious call,

Or say "it acts by none at all;

"The macrocosm's vast engine made

"By one that knew not half his trade;

"Its bungling engineer at hand,

"To help it forward, at a stand."

Impious! like Marli's, doth it take

The pains to mend it did to make,

Requiring endless cost and care

To hold in tenable repair?

Ah! no, howe'er to us it seem,

Creation is a perfect scheme.

Lorenzo, let not words deceive.

All imperfection's relative;

Since from conceiv'd amendments came

The patch-work we perfection name;

A term for something understood

Productive still of mortals' good.

But, of perfection absolute

All nature is, beyond dispute.

For all from God is here deriv'd,

And all is perfect God contriv'd.

"Man surely perfect then" you cry.

As man, most perfect, I reply.

The creature of his Maker's will,

Form'd his good pleasure to fulfill,

Destin'd in th' universal plan

To fill his space, and act, as man.

What tho' on earth the human mind

Involv'd in ignorance we find,

Impassion'd, fickle, giv'n to pride,

Nor resting e'er self-satisfied,

Doth pow'r comparative t'improve

Perfection positive remove?

As well imperfect might we say

The rising sun at early day,

Since with superior heat and light

It blazes in meridian height.

Form'd with progressive pow'rs to rise

From out the dust to tread the skies,

Perfect as such humanity

However lowly in degree.

How ignorant and weak are those

Who nature's authour, then, suppose

In providence remains a spy,

To guard his work with, watchful eye;

From fallen angels' base intent

The direful outrage to prevent;

To rescue, or preserve, his plan

From that prodigious creature, man.

Like the young steed, that scours the plain,

Its nature wild and needs a rein?

Or halts it like a founder'd jade;

Lame by her frequent stumbling made?

Perhaps, Lorenzo, some mistake

Concerning providence we make;

The pow'rs of nature to divide

From its imaginary guide:

For, if creation has, in fact,

Been long ago a finish'd act,

What end doth lab'ring time pursue?

Or what hath providence in view?

For sure thou wilt not take the side

Of those, whose ignorance and pride

Maintain the universe design'd

Merely to gratify mankind:

A stage, as on a stroler's cart,

Where drolls itin'rant play their part,

In grinning mirth, or brawling strife:

The tragi-comedy of life!

Was, then, heav'n's wond'rous pow'r display'd;

This system in perfection made,

Only to wear itself away?

Stupendous frame! for mere decay!

Its worlds to wander through the void,

Destroying till themselves destroy'd;

Or, in some future, fabled, days,

To take imaginary blaze

At flames, that all to ruin turn,

Annihilating as they burn?

Risk'd, then, the censure of my wit,

I hold the world unfinish'd yet:

Time building what Heav'n's wisdom plann'd,

Creation's work ev'n yet in hand.

Through nature's scenes in order range;

See all things in continual change;

All to some point progressive run,

To do, as well as be undone.

Existing for so short a space,

Thousands we know but by their place,

Which chang'd, by changing form, we say

The things themselves are pass'd away.

No proofs of being objects bring,

Whose essence ever on the wing,

Flown from their forms, ere yet defin'd,

Leaves no identity behind.

But waving this, yet see we here

No abstract cause of ill, to fear:

Since on the feelings of mankind

Depends the ev'ry ill we find:

Whence, tho' our suff'rings ill we call,

They're no abstracted cause at all:

For, stript creation of mankind,

No evil would be left behind.

To this will cavillers reply?

"We ask not where those causes lie;

"If in externals be th'offence,

"Or in the pravity of sense:

"That real ill exists is plain,

"While man is sensible of pain."

In answer, my Lorenzo, here,

No vaunting stoicism fear:

Nor think thy friend so madly wise

T'affect his mis'ries to despise.

I ne'er presume that point to teach,

Nor 'gainst the voice of nature preach:

None feel more tenderly than I:

Mine the soft heart and wat'ry eye,

The sanguine hopes, the groundless fears;

Still unsubdued by sense or years;

Ah, too susceptible of pain

When vice, or folly, but complain!

Yet, ev'n while tears of anguish flow,

I hold no abstract ill we know.

'Tis true, my friend, no man alive

Could, in his senses, gravely strive

The wretch in torture to persuade

Of evil not to be afraid;

The murd'rer, mangled on the wheel;

To smile at harmless rope and steel;

Or that the blows, that loitering kill,

Cannot be physically ill.

Absurd the argument and vain!

Since all we know of ill is pain.

And yet, as, neither griev'd nor pain'd,

Of evil man had ne'er complain'd,

If, relative, our bliss and woe

Reciprocally ebb and flow,

'Tis palpable that joy and strife

Are but the modes of human life;

Which varied with consummate skill

Proves, on the whole, nor good nor ill.

Sayst thou the learned are agreed

The ills of life the good exceed?

Lorenzo, peevish, sick, or vain,

How nat'ral is it to complain!

But sure experience here denies

This thread-bare maxim of the wife.

Behold the weak, the blind, the lame,

The sons of poverty and shame,

The wretch, expiring by degrees

By amputations or disease;

Such whose vile lot, the world their foe,

Contempt and beggary below:

Shouldst thou to this, or that, propose

In death a cure for all their woes;

Tell 'em, "oppress'd with human strife,

"Wide stand the num'rous doors of life,

"With open arms, the wretch to save,

"Rest welcomes mis'ry to the grave."

How few your recipé will try;

Tho' dying piece-meal loth to dye.

Nor merely from the fear of worse,

Tenacious of a present curse.

For say annihilation here

The all poor mortals have to fear:

How few would yet their ills incline

Their sense of being to resign;

To part, on terms like these, with pain,

With pleasure ne'er to meet again;

Ev'n nature shudd'ring at the thought,

To sink inconscious into naught.

In mere existence sure mankind

Must then intrinsick pleasure find;

Some good equivalent must feel

To such suppos'd excess of ill;

Since thus, by death, so loth to part

An aching head and bleeding heart.

May not, at least, all human woe

Be ballanc'd with our joys below.

Dost thou, Lorenzo, doubt of this?

How dost thou measure earthly bliss?

'Tis not by extasy alone

Thy actual share of joy is known:

Duration adds to the degree

As much as its intensity.

Joy for a moment's space how small!

Pain instantaneous, none at all;

Through life continued little less

Ev'n bare content than happiness:

The joyous extasy of bliss

Dilating rarified to this.

Be it on individuals tried;

Each needs but to be satisfied:

The longing wish, the sigh is o'er

When once content; we ask no more.

Thus equal joy we often taste

In short-liv'd pleasures, snatch'd in haste,

As others, or, when raptur'd less,

For years, ev'n we, ourselves, possess.

Hence oft asserted in dispute

That time ideas constitute;

Sense of duration so confin'd

To that which passes in the mind.

Th'expectant lover thinks, in rage,

His Stellia's absent hour an age;

While short and sweet the moments fly.

When love and she sit smiling by:

Nor giv'n their epithets in vain.

To fleeting joy, and lingering pain,

In minutes flown, each joyful day,

Each sad one whiled in hours away.

Nay, tho' of life tenacious all,

Longevity no bliss we call.

In diff'rent animals, at least,

While ev'n the less the greater's feast,

'Tis probable their, joys and strife

Are suited to their term of life.

Whence equal pleasure, equal pain,

May long-liv'd elephants sustain

With young ephemerons, whose flight,

At noon beginning, ends at night:

During which momentary space,

They rise, love, battle and embrace,

Flutt'ring around, till, out of breath,

They drop into the arms of death.

From self-experience dost thou rate

The real hardship of thy fate?

Art thou with ev'ry friend at strife?

Seest thou no gentle joy in life?

Dost thou no fav'rite scheme possess,

To build contemplative success?

Hast thou no hope; no good dost choose,

A good thou wouldst not die to lose?

Thy day, thus clouded at the dawn,

Will brighter shine, its clouds withdrawn:

Or, is thy morn of sun-shine past,

With clouds thy ev'ning's overcast:

Wouldst of its brightness know th'amount?

Bring morn and ev'ning to account.

Stands nature then, so long abus'd,

Of abstract evil thus excus'd;

As little truth is understood

By those, who hold all nature good.

"Whatever is, is right." —it may.

But therefore good we cannot say;

Unless some perfect bliss we see

Arise from partial misery.

In spite of truth, in reason's spite

When vex'd, or pain'd, we all deny't:

Ne'er, till the pain be o'er, confessing

That was, which never is, a blessing,

The term's, then, here misunderstood,

Right's not equivocal to good;

Goodness adapted and confin'd

To th' appetites of human-kind;

The right, unknown to you or me:

Tho' sure what is is fit to be.

Let Plato, then, or Leibnitz prate

Of goodness influencing fate;

Or idle sophisters contest

Their boasted principle the best:

By disputants, on either side,

The partial term is misapplied. [b]

That God is good they know full well;

But what his goodness none can tell;

Unless to man, his kindness shown

Heav'n's good depends upon our own.

Lorenzo, merely to mankind

Thus evil physical confin'd;

Of moral next, a puzzling task,

An explanation dost thou ask?

Sayst thou "Heav'n's care no more extends

"To physical than moral ends:

"The same the providential power,

"That rains the soft, refreshing shower,

"That, in the womb of teeming earth,

"Its atoms quickens into birth,

"Doth in the moral scene connect

"The cause and consequent effect;

"On virtue peace of heart bestows;

"Softens the good man's casual woes;

"Abandons vice to fell despair;

"Or plagues with heart-corroding care:"

Concluding hence "that moral ill,

"Opposing nature's righteous will,

"Aloud for Heav'n's dread vengeance calls,

"The curse that on the guilty falls."

So far Lorenzo, I with thee,

In part most readily agree;

That vice will leave a sting behind,

And virtue its reward shall find.

Yet all, with good St. Paul, confess

"Without a law we can't transgress."

Now nature's law is Heav'n's command,

Whose will no mortal can withstand.

How! lives earth's animated clod

To contravene the will of God?

As well, advent'rous of his neck,

The laws of gravity to break,

Presumptuous man might seek to fly,

A creeping earth-worm, to the sky;

Or don the bishop's winged shoon,

To trip it yarely to the moon. [c]

What curse soe'er then vice provoke,

Creation's laws can ne'er be broke.

But know, by physical alone

Is moral good or evil known;

For, had not vice the pow'r to vex,

Its evil never would perplex.

Each moral thus a partial ill,

Permitted by th'eternal will;

To mortals relative th'offence

And punishments of providence.

Lorenzo, state the matter clear.

Be pain and pleasure strangers here.

Strangers to pleasure and to pain,

Induce what motives to complain?

Suppose we, then, in nature's plan,

T'exist th'automaton of man,

Rising from senseless matter's arms,

Where perfect rest nor grieves, nor charms;

Should Heav'n a consciousness bestow,

Subject to good or ill below;

Not real pain or pleasure give,

But only make the form to live:

As yet from all reflection clear,

Unnerv'd by hope, unaw'd by fear,

Suppose to action thus consign'd

This naked, unaffected mind.

Lorenzo, with precision hence

Let us infer the consequence.

Ere yet existed moral ill,

The first sole agent Was the will:

Reason without the pow'r to act,

To censure or advise a fact;

As from experience naught it knew,

Of good or bad, or false or true:

For reason its conclusion draws

From similar effect and cause;

No instinct, faculty or sense,

Insuring actual innocence,

That bids us virtue's steps pursue,

Or points to bliss it never knew:

Else giving reason here had Heaven

No less than actual pleasure given:

This not suppos'd—hence reason's use

Some known effect must introduce.

Now, as innate if we maintain

A love of bliss and hate of pain,

Directed as the passions fir'd,

The will to pleasure first aspir'd;

The moral agent bound to chuse

From pleasure's most immediate views.

But, prone to censure and complain,

Suppose our first sensation pain;

Let pain or pleasure be attain'd,

Of both an equal sense was gain'd,

As the first tree of knowledge bore

Of good and evil equal store;

For when the mind one pleasure knew,

Its neutral state of rest withdrew:

Pleasure and pain, by contrast known,

Criteria of each other grown.

Hence felt th'initiated mind

The sting which pleasure left behind,

And reason did to act commence

On th'information of the sense;

Seeing the passions ebb and flow,

Now swoln with bliss, now sunk in woe,

Trac'd out the bounds, extremes between,

Of innocence that golden mean.

But ah, the fluctuating tide

Of passion doth this mean deride:

Consistent only, 'tis confess'd,

With nature in a state of rest.

Here then from moral action came

The necessary ill, we blame:

Running self-love, in full career,

Reason her guide not always near,

Her satisfaction oft pursuing,

Tho' at her own and others' ruin.

Pronounce we, hence, a moral ill

Th'indulgence of the human will,

Whene'er from such indulgence flows

More pain than pleasure it bestows.

In guilt original involv'd,

Here see the wond'rous myst'ry solv'd.

To the first man no more confin'd

Than passions found in ev'ry mind,

Is, the plain cause of moral woe,

Sin, human frailty here below.

Lorenzo, evil understood,

The die's reverse is moral good:

Whate'er more pleasure yields than pain [d]

The name of goodness doth obtain.

Unsatisfied, Lorenzo, yet,

Dost thou lost happiness regret?

Doth, from our plan of morals, seem

Yet providence no perfect scheme,

Because, perplex'd with fear or pain,

Ev'n virtue covets bliss in vain?

Dost thou against the cause object?

"'Tis disproportion'd to th' effect,

"Thus in th'intemp'rance of the will

"To place the source of moral ill:

"Our passions but a nat'ral cause,

"Obedient to creation's laws,

"Here palpably too innocent

"The cause of mis'ry to be meant."

Must I repeat it o'er again?

From pleasure flows our sense of pain.

Through life, each other's contrast made,

Dependant these as light and shade.

Whence, tho' to moderation join'd

Content's serenity of mind,

While vice but sports with higher glee

To sink as low in misery,

Proportion'd to the guilty joy

The pangs intemperance annoy,

Yet, on the whole, no abstract ill

Doth here confront th'eternal will;

Of evil all th'effected strife

But relative to human life.

Sayst thou indeed "if man confin'd

"To fill the place by Heav'n assign'd,

"But partially to rise, or fall,

"Why feels he misery at all?"

Another question answers this.

What title have mankind to bliss?

During thy life if, man and boy,

Thy share of both thou mayst enjoy;

If perfect rest the certain mean

Our pleasures and our pains between;

Null'd the momentum of our pain;

Who shall of providence complain?

Seest thou incumbering the ground,

The barren fig-trees flourish round;

While virtue stands the brunt of vice,

And knaves possess fools' paradise?

'Tis here indeed our errour lies.

Our virtue we too highly prize;

And adequate rewards to find,

Create them fondly to our mind:

Not satisfied on Heav'n to trust,

Or think its dispensations just,

Unless his conduct God submit

To our investigating wit;

Here toiling, as an humble drudge,

For man, his critick, lord and judge.

What merit in thy Maker's eye

That thou vain man art six foot high?

To Heav'n must all, with shame, agree

Unprofitable servants we;

Unworthy of celestial dress

The rags of human righteousness:

The all that virtue has to boast

Claiming the world's regard, at most.

As virtue here so vice depends.

Ourselves our guilt alone offends.

For know, proud man, no act of thine

Renders defective God's design:

No pow'r to human frailty given

To injure unpreventing Heaven.

Presume not at so high a price

To rate th' iniquity of vice.

Nor let the vainly-virtuous fool,

Projecting Heav'n by line and rule,

Sore lash'd and wasting to the bone,

The crimes of health and ease t'atone,

Conceive by want of rest and meat

Th' eternal purpose to defeat.

Presume not at so vile a rate

To hold th' omnipotence of fate.

Yet who shall say that guilt is free,

Or promise vice impunity?

Since 'tis so plain the sting of woe

To joy inordinate doth grow;

And none from virtue's paths would stray

If pleasure did not lead the way.

Can virtue also hence despair?

Since virtue's providence's care;

Compensing pleasure due to pain,

And this nor that bestow'd in vain.

Let fools, when hard their present lot,

Think distant Heav'n has earth forgot;

In discontent aloud complain,

"That all our trust in Heav'n is vain,"

Pretending God the world protects,

And yet its sev'ral parts neglects.

Do thou, Lorenzo, better taught,

Never indulge so wild a thought;

Conceiving th' individual man

No charge on nature's gen'ral plan.

What tho' impossible that we

At once the whole and parts should see;

To single objects here confin'd

Each fix'd attention of the mind;

Yet, shall we blasphemously join

Heav'n's intellect with yours and mine?

Know thou the world's great architect

Its smallest part shall not neglect;

As needful in the stately pile,

As golden roofs th' abutments vile;

Nor, in their kind, more perfect they,

The parian stones, than potter's clay.

How sadly, blund'ring in the dark,

Here St. John miss'd his boasted mark;

When, Heav'n's omnipotence t'enhance,

He almost gave the world to chance:

Supposing God too great to mind

The peccadillos of mankind;

Too insignificant our claim

To deity's immediate aim.

Or rather, from his reasons given,

He thought the task too great for Heaven;

Too puzzling for th' eternal wit

To hold its state and thus submit;

Wherefore, like th'idiot at a loss

To count, Heav'n takes us in the gross.

Lorenzo, probable the scheme,

However strange the doctrine seem,

Whate'er the next world give, in this

That virtue hath its share of blifs;

While all accounts 'tween vice and woe

Are settled and discharg'd below:

No ballance to receive or pay,

Left, shuffling, for a future day.

Go, make an estimate of life;

Compare the sums of joy and strife;

Each in its separate degree,

Duration and intensity.

Perhaps, upon the whole, you'll find

That neither's due to human-kind;

Nor loss nor profit in the trade

Of life's commercial pleasures made.

Mean-time how difficult to guess

At real objects of distress!

How difficult, in fact, to trace

Where real pleasure hath a place!

See, shudd'ring at September's frost,

In clothes of fur, Duke Chilly lost;

Lamenting, with his belly full,

The tinker's half-cloth'd, starving trull:

A jade, that, warmer than his grace,

Laughs at his pity to his face.

Accustom'd to the melting mood,

So, wishing ev'ry mortal good;

Behold Tendrilla drown her eyes

At what the sufferers despise.

How oft, the scene revers'd, again,

Apparent bliss is actual pain!

How oft we hear much-envied state

Groan beneath bulky grandeur's weight;

Of thousands broke their nightly rest

By that for which we call them blest!

Nay, as a God on earth ador'd,

See the dread inquisition's lord,

Rais'd, in the pomp of priestly pride,

How envied, by his monarch's side!

And yet how mis'rable a part

He acts, if not extinct his heart:

How little less, at nature's cost,

If ev'ry social feeling lost.

Mean-while the wretch, for whom we sigh,

In cruel tortures doom'd to die,

To pain superiour, fear or shame,

Exulting, smiles amidst the flame;

Makes his proud judge with malice swell;

And triumphs over death and hell.

Proportion'd to the weight of care,

Gives nature thus the pow'r to bear?

But partial judges we, 'tis plain,

Of others' joy or others' pain.

So vice and virtue could we trace,

Neither is stampt upon the face.

And who to read presumes the art

The secret of another's heart?

Nay, ev'n that art how little known

To open, and peruse our own!

Who then, so much a slave to sense,

Shall here arraign Heav'n's providence:

Thinking "the good the world may leave

"Ere virtue's portion they receive;

"Triumphant that the wicked go,

"Blest, or unpunish'd, here below:

"As if our end a slight event,

"Depending on mere accident."

Is this not atheism in the eye

Of those who atheism most decry?

Who made the world, with equal skill

Can surely guide it, if he will.

Who, then, appearances shall trust,

To tnink that Heav'n's on earth unjust;

When vice and virtue may relate

Solely to man's sublunar state;

And here, for ought we truly know,

Be paid their dues of joy and woe.

Yet think not thou I here deny

That virtuous souls ascend the sky:

Or that the grov'ling sons of vice

Shall be excluded paradise.

Prepar'd, my friend, the man, in life,

By varied means of joy and strife,

Or, by redemption's wond'rous grace,

To view his Maker face to face,

In death compleated for the state

Design'd him by the will of fate,

A place of constant rest may find

The portion of the virtuous mind;

A place, comparatively ill,

For those whose god their brutal will:

By Heav'n th' immortal being plac'd,

Consistent with its pow'rs and taste.

Such future scenes may sure be given;

This call'd a hell and that a heaven;

And justly vice and virtue, here,

Have that to hope and this to fear.

Still do I hear the growl of care?

"To be we know not what or where!"

Is it, because we know not why,

So sad a thing for once to die?

Is it so hazardous, my friend,

On God our maker to depend?

That God to whom we being owe,

Our friend and guardian here below;

Who, all along the vale of life,

In ev'ry scene of care and strife,

Affords his providential arm,

To raise beneath, or shield from, harm?

Is it for him so hard to save

Our conscious being from the grave?

Secure, Lorenzo, in the pow'r,

That wak'd me at my natal hour,

To me, and mine, in life so just,

On this in death I mean to trust:

Safe in the hollow of his hand,

Content to fall by whom I stand,

Of whom I kiss the chast'ning rod,

And bless the father in the God.

Notes

a
Lisbon, so called from its suppos'd founder, Ulysses.
↵

b
But should we even suppose the term to be us'd with propriety in this case, it remains to be prov'd that two different systems cannot be equally good, before we subscribe to the doctrine of Leibnitz or Plato, viz. that out of an infinite variety of possible worlds, God hath chosen, or could not but choose, the best.
↵

c
Bishop Wilkins conceiv'd a possibility of our flying up to the moon; and that it would, in time, become as common for a traveller to call for his wings, as it was for his cotemporaries to call for their boots.
↵

d
Not, indeed, solely to the agent, but to mankind, or the moral world in general.
↵

EPISTLE THE SEVENTH.

ARGUMENT.

On moral principles—The respective influence of reason and the passions—The immorality of ignorance and the indispensable duty of seeking knowledge.

SUMMARY.

THE doctrine, by which virtue and vice are confessedly limited to this life, will doubtless excite the clamour of those who pride themselves, or ground their expectations of future happiness, on their own merit. It may also be ask'd, "To what purpose is it that mankind should pursue virtue rather than vice, if all our pains and pleasures depend reciprocally on each other, and our bad deeds neither actually offend, nor our good ones have any real merit with, the Deity." It is answer'd, that, as the merits and demerits of virtue and vice are partial and relative, so also must be conceiv'd their respective rewards and punishments. So that, whatever distinction may be made between the virtuous and vicious in a future state, it must be purely owing to the good pleasure of our creator, and not to the influence of our merit over his final determinations. —It must not be conceiv'd, however, that this doctrine countenances immorality. On the contrary, it proves, that (as we are led to vice solely by the motives of pleasure, apparently attending the gratification of our desires) were a conviction always present to the mind, that such pleasure must necessarily be attended with an equal degree of pain, such conviction might prove an antidote to vice, and preserve us, at least, in innocence; the motive to action being thereby remov'd. As to actual virtue, indecd, it is not pretended that any rational conviction whatever is, of itse'f, a sufficient motive to virtue: the use of reason being only to determine what is true or false, just or unjust; and not to excite us to embrace either. This is the business of the passions; which are, however, in themselves, neither good nor evil: those dispositions of mind which are generally term'd virtuous being the frequent occasion of our falling into vices, which opposite ones, tho' generally disapprov'd or detested, would have secur'd us from. Thus compassion, benevolence and candour are the fertile sources of vice; while hardness-of-heart, selfishness, and distrust are as frequently the means of preserving innocence. Nay the fierce, harden'd and turbulent passions enter sometimes into the most virtuous characters; and a heart unaffccted by the present suff'rings of humanity is, not unfrequently, necessary to preserve the rights and liberties of mankind. —In fact we are much deceiv'd, in the motives as well as in the practice of virtue; it being not only necessary that we should mean to do good and take the best way our reason may direct us to effect it; but that we should previously take those measures which are in our power, to acquire the knowledge of the means of doing such good. Wilful ignorance is declar'd therefore intentionally vicious; not having, tho' innocent in fact, the least claim to merit; to which ev'n virtue itself hath but relative pretensions. Indeed, as physical good in the consequence is the measure of moral good in the action, the very appearance of merit in the agent in a great degree vanistes; our power of doing good depending frequently on accident, and, not very seldom on downright knavery. On all which considerations knowledge is laid dow• as a fundamental and indispensible moral principle; and, hence, the employment of our leisure hours in inquiries after tru•• is presum'd to be not merely entertaining but morally virtuous.

EPISTLE THE SEVENTH.

HARK! my Lorenzo, how they rage,

The pious of our pious age;

Those who think Heav'n an easy fool,

Of wiser mortals made the tool,

Vile counters take for current coin;

Our filthy rags for robes divine:

We made its joint immortal heirs

For penance, paltry alms and prayers!

What racks their disappointed zeal

Dooms the poor, culprit bard to feel;

A thief, whose rhimes the rents have stole,

Long mark'd on their celestial roll!

So angry bees take sudden wing,

Furious the harmless boy to sting,

Who, less in anger than in play,

O'erturn'd their labours in his way.

Have they the poor their farthings lent,

At more than th' usual cent per cent;

Because the promises of Heav'n

For principal and interest given;

Yet, loth to mortgage house or land,

Dealing ev'n these with sparing hand;

Hard times and taxes wont to moan,

T'excuse their adding to the loan;

Spite of hypocrisy, confess'd

The world's security the best?

Vile us'rers! yet you think it hard,

Your virtue should not meet reward!

I think so too—hence, hence, to hell:

With merit there 'mong devils swell.

Do here th' immoral pertly ask,

What profits rise from virtue's task?

Or wherefore vice we should eschew,

If what the muse hath sung be true?

That "vice and virtue, bliss and woe

"Quit scores effectually below;

"While, unaffected, Heav'n surveys

"Its ends fulfill'd in human ways."

Say they "if pain give pleasure birth,

"To joy proportion'd grief, on earth,

"Our suff'rings all comparative,

"What matters how th' ungodly live?

"What can we gain by self-denial,

"Or standing virtue's fiery trial?"

Virtue's clear gain, my friend, 'tis true,

If any, hid from me and you,

Lodg'd in the dark decrees of fate,

A waits us in some future state;

A gift Heav'n pleases to bestow,

Wholly unmerited below.

So, whatsoever diff'rent state

Should vice in future life await,

Hid in the counsels of th' All-wise,

The reprobating secret lies:

Predestination's dreadful plan

Beyond the scrutiny of man.

Can yet Lorenzo weakly dream

That ours is an immoral scheme;

Because we hold that joy and strife

Are ballanc'd probably in life;

Whence equally nor blest nor curst

The lives of th' unjust and the just?

Shines not the sun alike, on earth,

On good and bad of mortal birth?

Falls not the plant-enliv'ning rain

Alike on mountain-heath and plain?

Tho' noxious there vile brambles shoot;

Here sweetest flow'rs and choicest fruit,

To reason's sober call, my friend,

Did the blind passions but attend;

While ever present to the mind

A full conviction we might find,

"That in the lust of mere desire

"No certain pleasure men acquire;

"But what in extasy they gain

"They're sure to lose in future pain."

By truth enlighten'd, hence, to fly

The distant evil as the nigh,

Men were no longer prone to vice,

Now stript of all her charms t'entice;

But, arming in their own defence,

Would stand in neutral innocence.

Through reason let a sensual eye

Th' enchanting form of vice espy:

Equivocal in make and face,

Her left side doth her right disgrace.

As form'd to give, and share, delight,

One blooming cheek doth hearts invite,

While roguish loves in ambush lie,

And dart their arrows from her eye.

A polish'd arm, a taper side,

Her thigh, that scarce her garments hide,

Her snow-white leg, and foot, shod neat,

The half of beauty's form compleat.

But ah, the contrast side appears

Worn out with care and gray with years;

With wrinkled brow and squinting eye,

Scowling most haggardly awry;

While hollow cheek and nostril maim'd,

Notch'd ear, burnt hand, and thigh-bone lam'd,

Display a wretch, from head to tail

Diseas'd with many a desp'rate ail;

A form, which, wrapt in squalid dress,

Compleats the half of ugliness.

Behold the charmer—this is Vice.

Embrace her. —Is thy stomach nice?

Too often passion, single ey'd,

Enamour'd with the fairer side,

The monster clasps; till, turn'd her face,

We starting fly her loath'd embrace:

Through reason's medium only shown

Her real form, in tints her own;

Which thus disgusting to the sense,

Could ne'er beguile our innocence.

Should virtue, then, disown the muse;

At least let innocence excuse:

The strictest moralists content

If mortals were but innocent.

In actual virtue, true, indeed,

I see no hopes we should succeed;

If once by reason grown so tame

That naught our passions could inflame.

For say, desires may not extrude

A sense of moral rectitude:

This only points, to what is right;

But ne'er to virtue can excite.

Reason, indiff'rent to th' event,

Merely bestows its cold assent;

As far as truth's concern'd, in part,

Speaks to the head, but not the heart:

Reason bestow'd, an humble friend,

Not to keep faultless, but to mend;

With hopes to cheer or fears to bind

Self-love, a glutton deaf and blind;

To give our scene of action light;

To check the sensual appetite;

To show us what is good and fair;

And passion's blunders to repair.

To virtue sense of right and wrong

Must of necessity belong;

But from this knowledge who infer

The conscious party, cannot err?

Nay, founded on such sense our claim

To bear of vice the moral blame;

The fool, the mad, do what they will,

Standing excus'd of moral ill.

Say, then, the virtuous must be wise;

Yet not in wisdom virtue lies.

By other motives must the mind

To virtuous action be inclin'd.

"What other motive?" dost thou ask?

Lorenzo, difficult the task

T'unravel here the human mind;

Its moral principles to find.

Sayst thou we all true virtue love;

And virtue that which all approve.

Supposing this, yet is't with you

That very approbation too?

Is this, Lorenzo, what is meant

By virtue sprung from sentiment? [a]

By that ambiguous term of art

The native goodness of the heart?

Pride not yourselves, ye Pharisees,

That acts of kindness give you ease:

Nor think, ye publicans, from Heaven

An evil inclination given.

Know that from diff'rent passions vice

And virtue take not sep'rate rise.

For, tho' deducing moral ill

But from th' indulgence of the will,

No passion, not the love of pelf,

Is really vicious, in itself:

The noblest in the human breast,

Motives to action but confess'd,

Howe'er admir'd, howe'er approv'd,

From actual virtue far remov'd.

For a good heart, as put to use,

Or vice or virtue may produce:

A fertile soil, where, taking root,

Plants good and bad bear equal fruit.

Narcissa boasted once a mind,

The purest sure of human kind,

Till growing passions taught her breast

To feel for all that seem'd distress'd,

To melt in tenderness of grief,

And sigh to give, unask'd, relief.

Ah, since, by cruel arts betray'd,

How low is fall'n the hapless maid!

Too innocent to feel distrust,

Or know how diff'rent love and lust!

Now, by her tempter ev'n accus'd,

See her abandon'd and abus'd;

Her open heart, her gen'rous mind

To prostitution how resign'd!

Of vices glorying in the shame

Her former self had blush'd to name.

Alas, for pity! sec, mean-while,

At lost Narcissa's ruin smile

Gremia, to pity never mov'd,

As little loving as belov'd;

In spite of all vile man could say,

In pious maidenhood grown gray,

Blessing her better stars, that she

Still triumphs in her chastity;

Tho', with the planets, on her side

Ill-nature, ugliness and pride.

See Phormio, stoically cold,

In youth by constitution old,

Who never yet, his heart of stone,

Once made another's cause his own;

But, living for himself, or heirs,

Minds nothing but his own affairs:

Whose word not unbelieving Jews,

For more than Heav'n is worth, refuse:

His credit sacred, east and west

His bills negotiating best;

Safe in whose hands were many a pound;

Too good a man to run a-ground.

O worthy, honest man! we cry;

While bankrupt knaves in dungeons lie:

So vile the rogue, who, scorning pelf,

Lov'd others better than himself!

Thus oft th'inflexible, the just,

The man that never broke his trust,

Indebted to inhuman art,

Or killing coldness in his heart;

While base and mean the quick-of-sense,

From glowings of benevolence.

Lorenzo, feelingly I speak

Of failings where myself am weak;

To whom adversity severe

Hath sold experience much too dear:

Hard hearted prudence far from me,

And narrow-soul'd economy,

To knave and fool too oft a prey,

No match for either in his way,

Till cheated, plunder'd, fill'd with shame,

Lit on my luckless head the blame.

How short, Lorenzo, plainly, hence,

Of virtue is benevolence!

To mere good nature, while you live,

No more that pompous title give:

The milk of kindness in a trice

Yielding the luscious cream of vice. [b]

The dryest eye, the hardest heart,

May act as virtuous a part:

When turn'd, as adders deaf, the ear

From all that others feel or fear;

Thence, vicious sloth, a whining cheat,

Is forc'd to work before it eat;

Misfortune, struggling in its thrall,

Rises more glorious from its fall.

Should to the prodigal the friend,

On whom his spendthrift hopes depend,

When ask'd assistance or advice,

Reply, with looks as cold as ice,

With all the insolence of ease,

"Nay, friend, for me do what you please."

May this not teach the hand profuse

Virtuous discretion's sov'reign use;

And thus a coldness of the heart

A good to too much warmth impart?

How much less vicious oft the mind,

That ne'er, beneficent or kind,

For others broke one moment's rest,

Nor cheer'd with comfort the distress'd,

Than he, whose open hand and heart

Espouse the poor and needy's part,

Plunging in unforeseen distress

Hundreds, in striving one to bless.

Shortsighted, oft benevolence

Proves a sad breach of innocence:

To virtue requisite that first

The virtuous mind be strictly just.

Passions, the springs of joy and strife,

Are but the elements of life;

And, as the streams from mountains flow,

Smooth winding some through vales below,

While others, raging as they come,

Tear up their mother-mountain's womb;

Or, pouring down the hills amain,

Deluge, at once, the humble plain;

So some of these are gently mild,

While others, furious, bold and wild,

Foaming o'er reason's rock-built mounds,

Disdain the check of moral bounds.

But see in pastures streams of use

When art corrects the flood's abuse,

When, their due channels taught to keep,

In shallow brook or river deep,

Smiling through dappled meads they go;

And paint the flow'rs they cause to grow.

Corrected thus, by reason's art,

The bursts, or meltings, of the heart,

In virtue's channels see them glide;

Her flow'rs the blooming margin's pride.

Is the small spring thy fav'rite theme,

That trickles forth a shallow stream,

In murmurs soft, a purling rill?

What wilt thou do to drive the mill?

How wilt thou make to ride at large

Thy timber, or thy loaded barge?

As much as purling rills admir'd

The navigable stream requir'd;

The stream, whose turbulence abides

The roaring of the swelling tides,

Alike whose raging bosom swells,

And back the threat'ning tide repels.

The hero, thus, the hardy brave [c]

How needful half the world to save;

Like Prussia's king, through seas of blood

Wading, for threaten'd Europe's good!

Virtuously useful to mankind

The strongest as the weakest mind,

Thus, one no better than the other,

The warmest heart's the cold one's brother:

And neither this nor that, in fact,

Are virtuous till as such they act.

Yet here, appearances believ'd,

In virtuous actions oft deceiv'd,

How plain in th'hypocritick face

We read the characters of grace;

And falsely to youth's giddy tribe

Designing villainy ascribe;

While time, and circumstance, and place,

Our byass'd judgments here disgrace.

Is there a man, whose tender heart

Takes in another's pains a part,

Who clothes the naked, feeds the poor,

And bribes the orphan to his door;

So kind he cannot bear to see

Another less at ease than he?

Godlike benevolence! you cry;

And praise his virtue to the sky.

But were this virtuous mortal poor,

Oblig'd to beg from door to door;

Could he not eat the bread at rest,

Torn by the law from the distress'd;

Should his weak mind compunction feel,

In honest ways of trade, to steal;

Could not the softness of his heart

Torture the horse, that draws the cart;

Mangle the lamb before it die,

Or draw its heart's blood through its eye:

Who would not cry, "too proud to serve!

"Work, idle wretch, or work or starve:"

To Bridewell's lash the knave consign'd,

For vicious tenderness of mind.

Is there who, worn with vice, begins

To hide his multitude of sins,

Leave of the wicked world doth take

And hermit turns for virtue's sake;

Or, anxious for the souls of men,

Flies to the pulpit or the pen?

Behold another Paul! we cry,

A new apostle from on high!

Are there whom cares nor want exclude,

At little cost, from doing good;

In pious practices that spend

Their fortune and their latter end;

The sick who physick in distress;

And make the trav'ler's burthen less?

To these what virtue will refuse

The praiseful, elegiack muse!

But, say, doth tenderness of heart

Teach the divine's or doctor's art?

Too oft unletter'd preachers rave,

And damn the souls they meant to save:

Too oft, alas, the pious pill

Of charity, like Ward's, doth kill:

While lighten'd more the pedlar's pack

To clothe our own than save his back.

"Whence then is virtue," dost thou cry?

In truth and nature, I reply:

Reason and passion both combin'd

To form true virtue in the mind.

Nor rests it there in mere design;

To go where these may chance t' incline.

'Tis not sufficient to set out,

Tho' meaning well, thy way in doubt;

Needful experience here to use,

That passion reason mayn't abuse;

Cautious in virtue's route to go

No farther than such route we know:

Lest, when, through ign'rance lost our way,

Passion to vice should wildly stray.

'Tis not enough to mean aright,

Unless that meant effect's in sight:

Too apt to wander from the mark,

When blund'ring forward in the dark.

A poor excuse to have it said

The heart had put it in the head,

When mischief done, instead of good,

For want of being understood!

To virtue pitiful our claim

When, at a venture taking aim,

More by good luck than sense or wit,

The mark of moral good we hit!

What virtue's in the madman's dream,

Or fool's impracticable scheme?

Whose, should they ev'n succeed, at best,

Chance-medley morals are confess'd.

Knowledge, my friend, goes, hence 'tis plain,

Foremost in virtue's splendid train;

While reason and the passions, join'd,

Walk closely, hand in hand, behind.

Is't said? "one mere good-natur'd deed

"All worth in science doth exceed." [d]

On this weak maxim dost object

We virtuous merit here neglect;

Thus honest ign'rance to contemn;

And inability condemn?

Sayst thou "here no fore-knowledge given,

Events are in the hands of Heaven;

"And, therefore, virtuous those confess'd

"From what they know who act the best."

Lorenzo, no—unless 'tis shown

That such no better might have known.

'Tis true, as individuals here

Are plac'd in, each his, proper sphere,

Their knowledge more or less compleat

As genius and instruction meet,

Man by no seraph's rapture fir'd,

Virtue's, as knowledge giv'n, requir'd.

But think not thou that bounteous Heav'n

Hath barren understanding given;

Hath talents lent which, unapplied,

'Tis virtuous in the earth to hide.

No—with the pow'r of genius blest,

Improvement's claim'd, as interest.

Is there who turns away his ear,

Instruction's voice averse to hear,

Most obstinately bent to plod

Along the road his father trod,

Old custom never to forsake;

Nor use of eye or ear to make?

Tho' right the wilful wretch we find,

Is his a virtuous turn of mind?

With God above, or man below,

How is't deserving not to know?

Of virtue's merit, folly, hush:

Nor put true wisdom to the blush,

Remember virtue still depends

Both on our motives and our ends.

What merit is't we gladly do

That which our hearts incline us to?

Or what that reason doth submit

To own the truth is right and fit?

For say that by the heart or head

Solely to virtue men were led.

If by the heart, and that alone,

What man e'er call'd his heart his own?

Right oft by impulse forc'd to go,

Whether his reason leads or no:

Apparently against the will,

As oft conducting him to ill.

How meritorious, then, the best

That love or pity warms the breast?

For this, nor that, from vice can save;

Or if they could—'tis God that gave.

Is it from caution, practis'd long,

You seek the right and shun the wrong;

By just experience understood

How much your int'rest to be good?

What merits here the clod of earth

That nature smil'd upon its birth;

And gave it reason's fost'ring aid

To teach it virtue as its trade?

Sayst thou "when head and heart we praise,

"Doth this not virtue's merit raise?

"The man of vicious acts asham'd—"

May yet for spiritual pride be blam'd.

"The elegantly just"—too nice

Perhaps for vulgar scenes of vice.

"The lowly-minded, kind and meek"—

Mean, pitiful, perhaps, and weak.

"The patriot, in his country's cause"—

A gudgeon, greedy of applause.

"The pious, that their God revere,"—

Only, perhaps, of Hell in fear;

Or, not by fears sufficient driven,

Push'd forward by the hopes of Heaven.

So little do we truly know

The cause to which we virtue owe;

To what bad principle or good

Ev'n we ourselves have vice withstood:

Nor can the best of mortals say

From what has yet directed may;

Or in a state he never knew

Tell what his head and heart might do.

Who then their moral worth shall prize?

Shall ev'n the best the worst despise?

Thin the partitions that divide

Ev'n vice itself from virtue's pride;

The virtuous boaster weak and proud;

Like the tall ideot in the crowd,

Who, stalking with exalted tread,

Above his fellows rears his head:

While from his more distinguish'd height

The harm upon his pate doth light.

The pride of virtue hence depress'd,

O learn to pity not detest:

Ev'n looking with a brother's eye

On wretches doom'd by law to die:

To Heav'n that hath the diff'rence made

'Tween thee and them, the honour paid!

The object more of pity, sure,

The vicious mind no leech can cure,

Than such whose mere corporeal part

Diseas'd admits the doctor's art!

Nay, if by virtue understood

The act producing moral good,

And moral good and evil known

By sense of physical alone,

The term of merit thrown aside,

Abash'd at once is virtue's pride:

Since such most virtuous we must call

Who most promote the good of all.

Here virtue see, in fortune's power,

Dependent ev'ry day and hour!

So little rests on good intent,

So much alas, on accident!

See to the publick good conduce

Of wealth and state the simple use: [e]

Such pow'r of doing good a lot

By birth, caprice, or favour got:

A post of virtue oft the gain

Of knavery; honest hearts disdain.

Proportional to ev'ry state

Sayst thou its virtue we must rate;

Those much to blame, tho' doing good,

Who fail to do the must they could?

Most needful, then, how far to know

Our pow'rs of doing good may go:

In ev'ry station, place and time,

Neglectful ignorance a crime.

For say, if e'er preferr'd to place,

Should fortune take us into grace;

Tho' kings should act the donor's part,

They neither give a head or heart.

'Tis true a ribbon, star and garter

May make a flutt'ring fop look smarter;

SIR John sounds big and mighty pretty

Among the plain Johns of the city;

But George himself, of many a knight,

Ne'er dubb'd one sordid cit polite.

Clever indeed could royal grace

Fit ev'ry placeman for his place!

If being voted for with spirit

Supplied our want of real merit,

Conferr'd taste, judgment, observation,

Adapted to th'appointed station!

Title and pow'r give consequence,

But ah! ne'er gave one jot of sense.

Knowledge, Lorenzo, hence confese'd

Of moral principles the best,

Well spent we hope our vacant days

In studious search of wisdom's ways:

On reason while our steps attend,

Reason fair virtue's firmest friend!

Hail sober guide! O teach my youth

To woo thy lovelier sister truth;

For whose embrace my vows I pay,

In ardent sighs, throughout the day;

Nor, when the longest day is o'er,

Cease, by the midnight lamp, to pore

O'er the dull tale, or tedious, page

Of saint or, more laborious, sage:

Happy if saint or sage could tell,

Where I with her might ever dwell:

With her for whom, and whom alone,

My genius for the verse be knwon:

For truth content to lose the bays;

The poet's for her lover's praise.

Notes

a
See Hume, on the general principles of morals.
↵

b
The milk of human kindness hath been not unfrequently us'd, as a florid term, for benevolence. See Fielding and others.
↵

c
It should seem that Mr. Pope suppos'd heroism incompatible with virtue, from the following lines, in his essay on man.

Heroes are much the same, the point's agreed,

From Macedonia's madman to the Swede;

The whole strange purpose of their lives, to find,

Or make, an enemy of all mankind.

I will grant that many heroick actions have been atchiev'd, which have given just room for those, who have no tincture of heroism in themselves, to suppose the hero to be without either head or heart. But, however reprehensible the conduct of heroes may have been in general, history may inform us that many of the distinguishing blessings mankind enjoy, have been effected by those, whom narrow-minded moralists have stigmatiz'd as rogues and madmen.
↵

d

One moral, or a mere well-natur'd deed,

Can all desert in sciences exceed.

Duke of Buckingham;

↵

e
For—hence the poor are cloath'd, the hungry sed, Health to himself and to his infants bread The lab'rer bears.—Pope.
↵

EPISTLE THE EIGHTH.

ARGUMENT.

On the immortality of the soul; and the arguments for, and against, a future state.

SUMMARY.

THE immortality of the soul, or doctrine of a future state, is propos'd as the subject of inquiry. A doctrine, which, however true or false in itself, is both weakly attack'd and lamely supported by the philosophical arguments generally made use of, for, or against, it. Comparisons drawn from the vegetable creation, however striking, are partial and prove nothing. Moral arguments prove as little, unless we could first be made certain that vice and virtue are not duly punish'd and rewarded in this life; or, unless we could entertain adequate ideas of divine justice. With these, the metaphysical refinements, concerning the soul's immateriality, are shown to be equally inconclusive. Our natural desire of existence is expos'd, also, as a weak argument for the justice of our claim to immortality. On the other hand, that intimate connection between body and mind, and their apparent dependance on each other, are shown to afford rather a specious plea in favour of the immortality of the soul, than, as frequently made to do, any argument against it—Setting, however, moral and metaphysical speculations aside, man is consider'd merely in the light of an animal. In which state of humiliation, his pretensions to a future state are, notwithstanding, evidently justified on the plain and reasonable supposition that, the Creator hath given to all animals such pow'rs and faculties as were necessary to the state of being appointed them.—Now the evident pursuits of other animals tend solely to the gratification' of themselves or the mere preservation of their kind. They have no intellectual system that extends beyond the life of the individual; nor doth their experience serve to the improvement of their species. With man it is otherwise: The preservation and gratification of the individual, however powerful their motives, are in him made subservient to more general views: his case, health and life being constantly sacrific'd to pursuits, that are of no use to him merely as an animal; but, on the contrary, serve to promote the intellectual perfection of his species; hence apparently intended for the enjoyment of a state of existence, to which those faculties are adapted. In the powers of imagination and genius may also be trac'd that faint image of the Deity, in which man was confessedly made. So that philosophy alone affords us sufficient reason to believe the certainty of a future state, without our having recourse to contested authorities, the chimerical suppositions of errour, or the absurdities of ignorance.

EPISTLE THE EIGHTH.

O Blind to truth, to science blind,

The sceptick tribe of human-kind!

Who doubt, Lorenzo, if our lot

Be here to die and be forgot,

Or if it prove our future fate

To know an intellectual state,

In death to perish, or to rise,

Immortal, to our native skies. [a]

Allur'd by wit to neither side,

Be reason our impartial guide;

Let us, Lorenzo, fairly weigh

What argument hath here to say.

Hast thou poor Dromio's sophisms got,

Who bids us vegetate and rot;

Man but a rank and useless weed?

Prove them alike and 'tis agreed.

But the analogy of parts

Is all that's prov'd by skeptick arts.

Say that, "of vegetable race,

"We spread the root from place to place;

"The lovely flow'r of beauty blows;

"Twin sister to the province rose,

"Allures at morn the gazing eye,

"That ere the ev'ning sees it die."

Say, "years disrobe the mantled brow,

"As winter strips th' autumnal bough;

"The rough, rude blast to both unkind,

"Both perish by an eastern wind:

"Or, by the axe, untimely blow!

"Are laid their spreading honours low."

Admit, Lorenzo, this be true:

Go on—the parallel pursue.

Say, "the tall elms, you stately row,

"Sweet transports of sensation know.

"When zephyrs kiss the lilly's breast

"The lilly's rapture be confess'd."

Say "the broad oak, when thunders roar,

"Fears till the thunder-storm be o'er;

"Conscious of doubt and dread by turns,

"Stands trembling as the forest burns;

"Alive, awake, to nature's laws,

"From nature's scenes experience draws;

"Throbbing its trunk with hopes and fears,

"Grown old in wisdom as in years!

Is this absurd? absurd indeed!

Lorenzo how unlike a weed!

To moral arguments dost run?

Here shall we end as we begun.

Sayst thou "the virtuous, when they die,

"In their own right ascend the sky;

"The wicked, here unpunish'd, go

"To torment in the world below;

"Heav'n's justice else we should arraign,

"And prove the virtuous good in vain,"

You take, my friend, for granted here,

What none by reason make appear;

That vice at God almighty's hands

Eternal punishment demands;

While endless bliss, beyond the skies,

Justice bestows, as virtue's prize.

Justice! Lorenzo, what, my friend,

By justice dost thou here intend?

Her sword she holds; but, say, what ails

The equilibrium of her scales?

How low the one, tho' empty, lies,

To kick the beam while t'other flies!

Alas, I see by what compell'd;

In diff'rent mediums are they held;

One in material fluids buoy'd;

The other in a perfect void:

Weigh'd in eternity and time,

The punishment against the crime!

Dare the self-righteous tribe to say,

That Heav'n's no more than virtue's pay,

While vice demerits endless woe?

Needs God a friend? fears God a foe?

Holding vindictive rage in store,

For his own sake, on man to pour?

O, no—unhurt th'Almighty cause,

Or kept or broken human laws.

Cease, then, presumption, to contend

That mortals Heav'n itself offend,

Or, at an infinite expence,

Must answer a finite offence:

To pay the fine immortal made;

Which else unable to have paid.

The dying wretch tho' tyrants cure

But tortures longer to endure;

With nature cruelty at strife

When criminals are quit with life;

Can God, whose tender mercies flow

O'er all his varied works below,

Whose loving kindness all confess,

Whose name the distant nations bless;

Say, can this God, of boundless love,

Vengeful as earthly tyrants prove?

O shame, Lorenzo, shame to all

Such cruelty that justice call!

Such argument, beside, is vain,

Unless the premises were plain;

Unless we first could make it clear,

That vice can ne'er be punish'd, here;

That virtue must be ever blest,

For foll'wing but its interest;

Or that we truly could define

That justice mortals call divine.

By metaphysicks dost thou strive

To keep the man in death alive?

Wouldst thou, set moral pleas aside,

The body from the soul divide?

Material that and born to die,

While this a native of the sky;

Objects that none can hear and see

Hence claiming immortality!

But, say, is thy corporeal claim

Laid to the matter or the frame?

Is it the substance of the heart

Or make that is the mortal part?

Doth change of form bring death alone?

Form we must immaterial own.

If to the essence of the clay,

Again, mortality we lay,

Doom'd the loath'd carcass to the worm,

The substance changes but its form:

Through modes of being giv'n to range,

Immortal in perpetual change,

Maiter by all the skeptick crowd

Essentially the same allow'd;

In death, in life, our shame, our pride,

In various forms but modified.

Say, then, the matter or the frame,

Or both, in body have a claim;

Nor mortal, nor immortal, we

From our materiality. [b]

Lorenzo, doth thy bosom beat

To claim in heaven th'immortal seat?

So fond of thy existence here,

Dost thou annihilation fear?

To fall as undistinguish'd clay

To dumb forgetfulness a prey?

The joys of paradise in view,

Sayst thou "thy claim must needs be true,

"Else, wherefore doth thy fond desire

"To immortality aspire," [c]

Whate'er in hope be Heav'n's intent,

This is, my friend, no argument.

I, too, perhaps, so pleas'd to live,

My very means of life might give,

All I am worth, from death to save,

If hope were buried in the grave.

But let Lorenzo never trust

To wish or hope, however just:

Nor let a passionate desire

To reason's sober task aspire.

Wouldst thou false principles defend,

Because they serve a pleasing end?

Who loves the truth will sure despise

Her cause to rest on specious lies.

What merit doth it add to worth

That knaves its virtues babble forth?

What added weight or consequence,

In suff'rage, gives the fool to sense?

Again, is't said "so closely join'd

"In life the body and the mind,

"Reciprocally form'd to bear

"Each other's weight of pain and care,

"Sharing alike the mutual joy,

"Which either wholly may destroy;

"Since thus together both concur,

"We know not either to prefer,

"If both be purposely combin'd,

"In use of body or of mind."

Are there who weakly, hence, suppose

"The soul no sep'rate being knows;

"But, as the body doth decay,

"So wears the mortal mind away."

Yet wherefore might not at our birth,

Lodg'd in this tenement of earth,

Lock'd up for life th'immortal mind,

Its temporary prison find,

Till paid our vital debt should be,

And death should set the captive free?

Mean-while, in hope, in fear, in doubt,

Concerning friends and foes without,

Prone through its prison grates to pry,

It sees Time's scatter'd ruins lie,

In darkness and confusion hurl'd,

The embryo of another world.

Why may not thus, on earth, be join'd

The body and the tenant mind?

Th'inhabitant, with cost and care,

Keeping his mansion in repair,

Us'd to the dungeon where he lies,

And prone his present home to prize,

Unknowing whither doom'd to roam,

If once bereft of house and home.

What wonder, then, for help he calls

When danger threats his tott'ring walls?

Nor strange, if, heedless of their fate,

They tumble on his wareless pate:

Each other's mutual strength and ward

The mansion and the mansion's lord.

What tho' we hold the soul to be

Attach'd to sensibility,

Concludes Lorenzo rashly hence

The soul's as mortal as the sense?

Alleging that "in life we find

"Perception to the organs join'd,

"Poor mortals of sensation void

"As these are damag'd or destroy'd;

"Therefore the soul on sense depends,

"And with the failing organ ends."

Lorenzo, through a darken'd glass

Seest thou but faintly objects pass?

More darken'd yet, dost thou confess

Thy certainty of vision less?

With its transparency thy sight

Decreasing, till obstructed quite.

Suppose it broke or let it fall,

Dost think thou couldst not see at all?

Ridiculous! when objects lie

All open to the naked eye.

Thus, may the soul, to body join'd,

Be deaf, irrational or blind:

But take th'obstructing organs hence,

At liberty its native sense,

By fits no more it hears and sees,

As now by piece-meal and degrees,

In partial modes, adapted here

To organs of the eye and ear;

But, intellect, all ear, all eye,

It reads the wonders of the sky,

At once what nature can disclose

Of scientifick secrets knows:

Now sense and science both combin'd

In each perception of the mind.

But here, Lorenzo, for a while

Lay by the metaphysick foil.

With this, behind our darken'd glass,

Too apt to make a blund'ring pass:

By much more anxious, on the whole,

To guard the body than the soul.

Too nice th' anatomizing art,

To take them dextrously apart,

Let us on both inquiry plan,

And scrutinize their compound, man:

Contented from his present state

To reason of his future fate.

Doth Dromio say, to hold dispute,

"Man, if no plant, is yet a brute;

"A helpless animal in birth,

"His body form'd of kindred earth,

"An animal in his decay,

"His strength and vigour past away;

"Equal the beast's sagacious pow'rs

"Or ev'n superior oft to ours."

The politick, industrious bee

Dost own in wisdom rivals thee?

Oeconomy secures from want

The careful and laborious ant,

While man, with all his boasted sense,

Riots at health's and life's expence,

Luxurious, casts his cares aside,

Or starves through indolence or pride;

Here no preheminence his claim,

Insects! in life and death the same!

Is there no medium in dispute?

Must man be either God or brute?

Must we with burning seraphs join,

Or litter with the grov'ling swine?

Content to bear the slight disgrace

Of mingling with the brutal race;

Agreed—for once, no longer proud,

Be men mere animals allow'd.

Say that, more helpless at his birth

Than ev'n the vilest brute on earth,

Man, if denied the nurse's care,

Might have run wild, a human bear;

Have beat the plains in search of food,

Or sought his shelter in the wood:

Devoid of language and of art,

Apparent brute in head and heart.

Yet still, Lorenzo, as we find

Some little difference, in kind;

Man, as an animal, is known,

By marks peculiarly, his own.

Tho' both, sharp-sighted, grave and fat,

Melinda and her tabby cat,

But a specifick diff'rence seen

'Twixt Pug and Faddle, in the spleen,

The wild, the tame, the great, the small,

Included in one genus all;

We must not hence, my friend, infer

Melinda's only born to purr;

Nor that, because alike in shape,

Faddle by nature's but an ape.

What, if a monkey, taught in France,

A modish minuet could dance;

Or, mischievous, should play his tricks,

Vers'd in Parisian politicks,

Breaking thy china's brittle clay,

Tho' sure to suffer for his play.

Wouldst thou acknowledge, hence, to me,

The pert baboon, un homme d'esprit?

Or own, on this sagacious plan,

A monkey's nat'rally a man?

Let rash polemicks idly prate

Of nature and a nat'ral state,

The arts of social life despise,

And think that brutes are only wise;

Pretending better had it been

If kings and priests we ne'er had seen;

If lawless, ignorant and wild,

Man had been left, while yet a child,

With brutes to share a common fate;

More blest than in his present state:

Go thou, and act a social part

Man's nat'ral state's a state of art [c].

'Twas nature, when the world was young,

Unloos'd our first, great grandsire's tongue;

Taught his wild sons the force of speech,

And gave the human pow'r to teach;

To social converse tun'd the ear,

Gave mutual love and mutual fear,

Inspir'd the hero, warm'd the friend,

And bade the strong the weak defend.

'Twas nature gave religion's rule,

And bade the wise conduct the fool;

In justice gave the law, to save

The weak and honest from the knave.

'Twas nature rais'd our thoughts on high,

In contemplation, to the sky;

Taught us to beat the wilds of space,

And worlds on worlds in ether trace;

Planets and suns unknown explore,

And hence their maker, God, adore.

All this you artificial call,

I heed not empty terms at all.

Call it by whatsoever name,

'Tis human nature's special claim.

Say, from mere phrases to depart,

How differs nature here form art?

Within the solitary wood

Rears the old brock her helpless brood;

For safety, scouring to her den,

At sight, or sound of dogs and men?

'Tis nature warns her not t'expose

Herself, or offspring, to her foes;

But sends her to the safe retreat,

Where both enjoy their rest and meat.

Why rears not man in forest wild,

Or acorn grove, his fav'rite child?

But, lodg'd in towns, and nurs'd with care;

Protects and feeds his fondled heir.

Experter, sure, were human race

If train'd in forests for the chase;

The chase that might our food provide;

And what need animals beside?

Lorenzo, here we plainly find

The characters that mark our kind.

'Twas nature knowledge did impart,

Which time has ripen'd into art:

But call it art, or what you will.

'Tis nature, human nature still.

As natural for us, my friend,

To bid the cloud-capt tow'rs ascend;

To bid the floating castles ride

On moving mountains of the tide;

As for the bird and beast their food

To seek in thicket, plain or wood,

To build the nest, or dig the den,

Far distant from the haunts of men.

Science, disprove it those who can,

Is, therefore, natural to man:

To other animals denied

This best and worst excuse for pride.

There are, 'tis true, who gravely hold

"Grimalkin's no essential scold,

"That men and monkies differ wide,

"As Gods to stocks and stones allied:"

Striving to prove, by various means,

"That brutes are nothing but machines." [f]

But, can we e'er with these suppose

Springs lodg'd within the terrier's nose,

Direct his nimble feet to go

Where the old fox lies earth'd below?

Or that by mere mechanicks tray

Pursues his master's doubtful way?

For me, I frankly must impute

True syllogism to e'en the brute:

A pow'r of reason, spite of pride,

No more to them than man denied.

So much admitting, dost thou say?

"I fairly throw my cause away,

"Unless to brutes Heav'n also give

"In immortality to live."

Lorenzo, no.—Tho' less refin'd,

My pleas are of another kind.

Low as the dust tho' here we lie,

Yet death may raise us to the sky.

Is man a worm? 'tis here his fate

To winter his aurelia state;

In time to burst his cell design'd,

And leave his clay-cold case behind;

Flutt'ring on angel wings, to rise

A bright papilio of the skies!

Distinguish'd from the beasts, my friend,

Experience ev'ry doubt may end;

Granting "by nature all enjoy

"The pow'rs heav'n meant them to employ;

"Passion or instinct ne'er bestow'd

"On man, or beast, a useless load;

"But serving animals, in kind,

"To th' end for which they were design'd."

This once suppos'd, here end disputes.

Look round among our fellow brutes.

See to what point their labours tend;

And how in death their talents end.

Perfect the bird and beast, we find,

Advance not here their sev'ral kind;

From race to race no wiser grow,

No gradual perfection know;

T'increasing knowledge void their claim,

Still their specifick pow'rs the same,

In th'individual centred all,

Tho' generations rise and fall.

Mean-while, by observation wise,

The human genius never dies;

But, in tradition kept alive,

The wreck of kingdoms doth survive;

Or, glowing in th'instructive page,

Improving, lives from age to age;

Ev'n giving those who greatly know

An immortality below.

What idle mourner droops his head?

Is Plato, Locke, or Newton dead?

With Plato still his pupils rove

Along his academick grove;

With Locke we wing the naked soul,

And mount with Newton to the pole.

To animals of ev'ry kind

Are, then, their proper pow'rs assign'd;

To actuate, strengthen or restrain,

Nor sense nor instinct giv'n in vain?

Man, as an animal confess'd,

Distinguish'd plainly from the rest,

Behold his pow'rs, his labours here

Presumptive of a brighter sphere!

Not merely to this life confin'd

The aim, and end, of human-kind!

Say, if our purpose but to live,

What mighty help doth science give?

What needed more the human brute

Than cooling springs and strength'ning fruit?

Or, summer past, the diet spare

Of wholesome roots, his winter fare?

How need our better rest and health

Golconda's or Potosi's wealth,

That sacrific'd that health and rest,

To fetch it home from east and west?

Lorenzo, sure, if human-kind

For this life only were design'd,

As well we ignorant had been

Of luxury, the bawd to sin;

As well those arts had been without

That give, while none can cure, the gout.

Ah! why was speculation given

If not to teach the way to Heav'n?

What need have animals below

The planets' paths above to know?

Or in what curves, meand'ring, rove

Satellites round the orb of Jove?

Lends art its microscopick eye,

In nature's miniature to pry?

To see beneath the civil knife

The butcher'd atoms robb'd of life;

To know that 'scaping from the steel,

Thousands may perish at a meal:

While, conscious ev'ry step we tread,

We trample hosts of beings dead.

Ah, why this knowledge giv'n, to raise

Our wonder to our Maker's praise;

Why hence inspir'd our God t'adore,

If seen, in death, his face no more?

It cannot be.—Of Heav'nly birth,

Science, no offspring of the earth,

To man hath Jacob's ladder giv'n,

Reaching, its foot on earth, to heav'n.

O, seize, with ardour seize the prize;

And claim thy kindred to the skies.

Genius, Lorenzo, yours or mine,

Faint image of the pow'r divine;

Endow'd with ev'n creative pow'r,

To form the beings of an hour,

To people worlds, to light the skies,

To bid a new creation rise;

O'er all to wield the thund'rer's rod,

And act the momentary God!

Ev'n here my friend, in nature's plan

Own'd the divinity of MAN.

A truth that genius feels and knows,

As oft as with the God it glows.

And shall t'oblivion be consign'd

This portion of etherial mind?

O, no.—Come death in any form,

I doubt not to ride out the storm;

The shipwreck'd body to survive;

My thinking part still left alive.

Mean-while, through all the modes of sense,

Bear me, bold Contemplation, hence.

On thy firm wing, O, let me soar;

And idly hope and fear no more.

Bear me to th' ever-blooming groves,

Where genius with fair science roves;

Where, in the cool sequester'd shade,

Sits Resignation, pious maid;

To Heav'n directed by whose eye,

When drooping nature calls to die,

Let this my latest wishes crown,

On her soft lap to lay me down;

Whilst mild content, and gentle peace,

Her handmaids, waiting my release,

Strow, stealing round with softest tread,

Their grateful roses o'er my bed,

No thorn among, to break my rest;

By euthanasian slumbers blest;

Without a sigh, at close of day,

To breathe, becalm'd, my soul away.

Notes

a
By our being immortal is only meant, that the soul doth not perish with the body; we being strangers to any philosophical proof of its abstract, or essential, immortality.
↵

b
This argument might be carried much farther, and the mere potential existence of matter prov'd, to a demonstration; but this would be perhaps, too abstruse to enter into poetical composition.
↵

c
See the famous soliloquy in Addison's CATO; which may pass for logick on the stage, and is perhaps good-enough theatrical reasoning; but will hardly satisfy a philosopher, in his closet: unless, indeed, such a one as prefers the declamation of a Plato to the demonstrations of a Newton.
↵

c
The word natural, as Mr. Hume justly observes, is commonly taken in so many senses, that its signification remains very loose and indeterminate. The ingenious Rousseau of Geneva, after having declaimed heartily against la bonne chere, or, in plain English, displayed the terrible consequences of eating beef and pudding, cries out, Voilà les funestes garands que la plupart de nos maux sont notre propre ouvrage, et que nous les aurions presque tous évités, en conservant la maniére de vivre simple, uniforme, et solitaire qui nous étoit prescrite par la nature. Si elle nous a destinés a etre sains, j'ose presque assurer, que l'etat de réflexion est un etat contre nature, et que l'homme qui medite est un animal dépravé. What use is here made of the word nature! but I would ask, if mankind ever were in this state of solitude, how came it about they are united in a social one? —were they led to it by inclination or necessity? If by inclination, nature evidently prescribed it; if by the necessities peculiar to their species, a state of society was not only prescribed but enforced by nature. Indeed, whoever before doubted of man's being, by nature, a social animal!
↵

f
There are, indeed, also, some pretended philosophers, whose heads, so full of impenetrable matter, have been employ'd to prove MAN a machine too: but with these we will not dispute.
↵

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Epistles philosophical and moral

Kenrick, W. (William), 1725?-1779.

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1106018834

ID [isbn13]

9781106018830

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CW3318356422

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0210901700

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— Epistles philosophical and moral, Kenrick, W. (William), 1725?-1779.. xxiv,336p. : ill. ; 8⁰. London :: printed for T. Wilcox,. 1759.. [Anonymous. By William Kenrick.] [Verse.] [Titlepage in red and black.] [With a half-title.] [Reproduction of original from the British Library.] [Foxon, p.395] [English Short Title Catalog, ESTCT106497.] [Electronic data. Farmington Hills, Mich. : Thomson Gale, 2003. Page image (PNG). Digitized image of the microfilm version produced in Woodbridge, CT by Research Publications, 1982-2002 (later known as Primary Source Microfilm, an imprint of the Gale Group).]

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