 Preface to An Essay on Man by Alexander Pope. The Design Having proposed to write some pieces of human life and manners, such as to use my Lord Bacon's expression, come home to men's business and bosoms, I thought it more satisfactory to begin with considering man in the abstract, his nature and his state, since to prove any moral duty, to enforce any moral precept, or to examine the perfection or imperfection of any creature whatsoever, it is necessary first to know what condition and relation it is placed in, and what is the proper end and purpose of its being. The science of human nature is, like all other sciences, reduced to a few clear points. There are not many certain truths in this world. It is therefore in the anatomy of the mind, as in that of the body, more good will accrue to mankind by attending to the large, open and perceptible parts, than by studying too much such finer nerves and vessels, the conformations and uses of which will forever escape our observation. The disputes are all upon these last, and I will venture to say they have less sharpened the wits than the hearts of men against each other, and have diminished the practice more than advanced the theory of morality. If I could flatter myself that this essay has any merit, it is in steering between the extremes of doctrines seemingly opposite, in passing over terms utterly unintelligible, and in forming a temperate yet not inconsistent, and a short yet not imperfect system of ethics. This I might have done in prose, but I chose verse, and even rhyme, for two reasons. The one will appear obvious, that principles, maxims or precepts so written, both strike the reader more strongly at first, and are more easily retained by him afterwards. The other may seem odd, but it is true. I found I could express them more shortly this way than in prose itself, and nothing is more certain than that much of the force as well as the grace of arguments or instructions depends on their conciseness. I was unable to treat this part of my subject more in detail without becoming dry and tedious, or more poetically without sacrificing perspicuity to ornament, without wandering from the precision or breaking the chain of reasoning. If any man can unite all these without diminution of any of them, I freely confess he will compass a thing above my capacity. What is now published is only to be considered as a general map of man, marking out no more than the greater parts, their extent, their limits, and their connection, and leaving the particular to be more fully delineated in the charts which are to follow. Consequently these epistles in their progress, if I have health and leisure to make any progress, will be less dry and more susceptible of poetical ornament. I am here only opening the fountains and clearing the passage, to deduce the rivers, to follow them in their course and to observe their effects, may be a task more agreeable. P. End of Preface. Recording by Martin Giesen in Hazelmere Surrey. Epistle 1 of an Essay on Man. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Martin Giesen. An Essay on Man by Alexander Pope. Epistle 1 of the Nature and State of Man with Respect to the Universe. Awake, my singian, leave all meaner things to low ambition and the pride of kings. Let us, since life can little more supply than just to look about us and to die, Expatiate free, or all this scene of man, A mighty maze, but not without a plan, A wild where weeds and flowers promiscuous shoot, Or garden tempting with forbidden fruit. Together let us beat this ample field, Try what's the open, what's the covered yield. The latent tracks, the giddy heights, Explore of all who blindly creep or sightless soar, Eye-nature's walks shoot folly as it flies, And catch the manor's living as they rise, Laugh where we must, be candid where we can, But vindicate the ways of God to man. Say first, of God above or man below, What can we reason but from what we know? Of man, what see we but his station here, From which to reason or to which refer? Through worlds unnumbered though the God be known, Desires to trace him only in our own. He who through vast immensity can pierce See worlds on worlds compose one universe, Observe how system into system runs, What are the planets circle other suns, What varied being peoples every star May tell why heaven has made us as we are. And of this frame, the bearings and the ties, The strong connections, nice dependencies, Gradations just, has thy pervading soul looked through, Or can a part contain the whole? Is the great chain that draws all to agree, And drawn supports, upheld by God or thee? Exumptuous man, the reason wouldst thou find, Why formed so weak, so little, and so blind? First, if thou canst, the harder reason guess, Why formed no weaker, blinder, and no less. Ask of thy mother earth, why oaks are made taller or stronger than the weeds they shade, Or ask of yonder argent fields above, Why jove satellites are less than jove. Of systems possible, if tis confessed That wisdom infinite must form the best, Where all must full or not coherent be, And all that rises rise in due degree. And in the scale of reasoning life, Tis plain there must be somewhere such a rank as man. And all the question, wrangle ere so long, Is only this, if God has placed him wrong. Respecting man, whatever wrong we call, May must be right as relative to all. In human works, though laboured on with pain, A thousand movements scarce one purpose gain. In God's one single can its end produce, Yet serves to second to some other use. So man, who here seems principal alone, Perhaps acts second to some sphere unknown, Watches some wheel or verges to some goal, Tis but a part we see and not a whole. When the proud steed Shall know why man restrains his fiery course, Or drives him o'er the plains, When the dull ox, why now he breaks the clod, Is now a victim, and now Egypt's God, Then shall man's pride and dullness Comprehend his actions, passions, beings, use, and end, Why doing, suffering, checked, impelled, And why this hour a slave, the next a deity. Then say not man's imperfect, heaven in fault, Say rather man's as perfect as he ought, His knowledge measured to his state and place, His time a moment, and a point his space. If to be perfect in a certain sphere, What matter soon or late or here or there. The blessed to-day is as completely so, As who began a thousand years ago. Man from all creatures hides the book of fate, All but the page prescribed, their present state. From brutes what men, from men what spirits know, Or who could suffer being here below? The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day, Had he thy reason would he skip and play? Raised to the last, he crops the flowery food, And licks the hand just raised to shed his blood. O blindness to the future, kindly given, That each may fill the circle marked by heaven, Who sees with equal eye as God of all, A hero perish or a sparrow fall, Atoms or systems into ruin hurled, And now a bubble burst, and now a world. Hope humbly then, with trembling pinions saw, Wait the great teacher death, and God adore. What future bliss he gives not thee to know, But gives that hope to be thy blessing now. Hope springs eternal in the human breast, Man never is, but always to be blessed. The soul, uneasy and confined from home, Rests and expatiates in a life to come. Lo, the poor Indian, whose untutored mind Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind, His soul, proud science, never taught to stray far as the solar walk or milky way. Yet simple nature, to his hope, Has given behind the cloud-topped hill, And humbler heaven, some safer world In depths of woods embraced, Some happier island in the watery waste, Where slaves once more their native land Behold. No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold. To be, contents his natural desire, He asks no angel's wing, no seraph's fire, But thinks admitted to that equal sky, His faithful dog shall bear him company. Go, wiser thou, and in thy scale of sense, Weigh thy opinion against providence. Call imperfection what thou fanciest such, Say, here he gives too little, there too much. Destroy all creatures for thy sport or gust, Yet cry, if man's unhappy, God's unjust. If man alone in gross not heaven's high care, Alone made perfect here, immortal there, Snatch from his hand the balance and the rod, Rejudge his justice, be the God of God. In pride, in reasoning pride, Our error lies, All quit their sphere and rush into the skies, Pride still is aiming at the blessed abodes, Men would be angels, angels would be gods, Aspiring to be gods if angels fell, Aspiring to be angels, men rebel, And who but wishes to invert the laws of order, Sins against the eternal cause. Ask for what end the heavenly bodies shine, Earth for whose use? Pride answers, it is for mine, For me kind nature wakes her genial power, Suckles each herb and spreads out every flower, Annual for me the grape, The rose renew the juice nectarius, And the barmy dew, For me the mine a thousand treasures brings, For me health gushes from a thousand springs, Sees roll to waft me, suns to light me rise, My footstool earth, my canopy the skies. But urs not nature from this gracious end, From burning suns when livid deaths descend, When earthquakes swallow, Or when tempests sweep towns to one grave, Whole nations to the deep. No, tis replied, The first almighty cause acts not by partial, But by general laws. The exceptions few, Some change since all began, And what created perfect? Why then man, If the great end be human happiness, Then nature deviates, And can man do less? As much that end a constant course requires Of showers and sunshine as of man's desires, As much eternal springs and cloudless skies, As men for ever temperate, calm and wise. If plagues or earthquakes break not heaven's design, Why then a borger or a catiline? Who knows but he whose hand the lightning forms, Who heaves old ocean and who wings the storms, Paws fierce ambition in a Caesar's mind, Or turns young Ammon loose to scourge mankind? From pride, from pride, Our very reasoning springs, Account for moral as for natural things. Why charge we heaven in those, In these a quit? In both to reason right is to submit. Better for us perhaps it might appear Where they're all harmony, all virtue here, That never air or ocean felt the wind, That never passion discomposed the mind. But all subsists by elemental strife, And passions are the elements of life, The general order since the whole began Is kept in nature and is kept in man. What would this man? Now upward he will soar, And little less than angel would be more. Now looking downwards, Just as grieved appears, To want the strength of bulls, The fur of bears, Made for his use, all creatures, if he call, Say what their use had he the powers of all? Nature to these, without profusion, kind, The proper organs, proper powers assigned, Each seeming want compensated, of course, Here with degrees of swiftness, there a force, All in exact proportion to the state, Nothing to add, and nothing to abate, Each beast, each insect happy in its own. Is heaven unkind to man, and man alone? Shall he alone, whom rational we call, Be pleased with nothing, if not blessed with all? The bliss of man, could pride that blessing find, Is not to act or think beyond mankind, No powers of body or of soul to share, But what his nature and his state can bear. Why has not man a microscopic eye? For this plain reason, man is not a fly. Say what the use where finer optics given To inspect a might, not comprehend the heaven, Or touch, if tremblingly alive all or, To smart and agonize at every paw, Or quicky fluvia darting through the brain, Die of a rose in aromatic pain. If nature thundered in his opening ears, And stunned him with the music of the spheres, How would he wish that heaven had left him still, The whispering zephyr and the pearling rill? Who finds not providence all good and wise, Alike in what it gives and what denies? Far as creation's ample range extends, The scale of sensual mental powers ascends, Mark how it mounts to man's imperial race From the green myriads in the peopled grass. What modes of sight betwixt each wide extreme, The mole's dim curtain and the lynx's beam, Of smell the headlong lioness between, And hound sagacious on the tainted green, Of hearing from the life that fills the flood To that which warbles through the vernal wood. The spider's touch, how exquisitely fine, Feels at each thread and lives along the line. In the nice bee, what sense so subtly true From poisonous herbs extracts the healing dew. How instinct varies in the groveling swine, Compared half-reasoning elephant with dine. Twix that and reason, what a nice barrier, Forever separate yet forever near. Remembrance and reflection how elade, What thin partition scents from thought divide, And middle natures how they long to join, Yet never past the insuperable line. Without this just gradation, Could they be subjected these to those, Or all to thee? The powers of all subdued by thee alone, Is not thy reason all these powers in one. See, through this air, this ocean, and this earth, All matter quick and bursting into birth, Above how high progressive life may go, Around how wide, how deep extend below. Bast chain of being, which from God began, Nature's ethereal, human, angel, man, Beast, bird, fish, insect, What no eye can see, no glass can reach, From infinite to thee, From thee to nothing. On superior powers where we to press, Inferior might on ours, Or in the full creation leave a void, Where one step broken, the great scales destroyed. From nature's chain, whatever link you strike, Tense or ten thousands, Breaks the chain alike. And if each system in gradation roll Alike essential to the amazing whole, The least confusion but in one, Not all that system only, But the whole must fall. Let earth unbalanced from her orbit fly, Planets and suns run lawless through the sky, Let ruling angels from their spheres be hurled, Being on being wrecked, And world on world, Heaven's whole foundations to their center not, And nature tremble to the throne of God. All this dread order break, For whom, for thee, vile worm, O madness, pride, impiety! What if the foot ordained the dust to tread, Or hand to toil, Aspired to be the head? What if the head, the eye or ear, Repined to serve mere engines to the ruling mind, Just as absurd for any part to claim to be another In this general frame? Just as absurd to mourn the tasks or pains, The great directing mind of all ordains. All are but parts of one stupendous whole, Whose body, nature is, and God the soul, That changed through all, and yet in all the same, Great in the earth as in the ethereal frame, Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze, Glows in the stars and blossoms in the trees, Lives through all life, extends through all extent, Spreads undivided, operates unspent, Breeds in our soul, informs our mortal part, As full as perfect in a hair, as heart, As full as perfect in vile man that mourns, As the wrapped seraph that adores and burns. To him no high, no low, no great, no small, He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all. Cease then, nor order, imperfection, name, Our proper bliss depends on what we blame, Know thy own point, this kind, this due degree of blindness, Weakness, heaven bestows on thee. Submit, in this or any other sphere, secure to be as Blessed as thou canst bear, safe in the hand of one disposing power, Or in the natal or the mortal hour. All nature is but art, unknown to thee, All chance, direction, which thou canst not see, All discord, harmony, not understood, All partial evil, universal good, And spite of pride in erring reasons spite, One truth is clear, whatever is, is right. End of Epistle 1 Recording by Martin Giesen in Hazelmeyer Surrey Epistle 2 of An Essay on Man This Librivox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Martin Giesen An Essay on Man by Alexander Pope Epistle 2 of the nature and state of man with respect to himself as an individual. Know then thyself, presume not God to scan. The proper study of mankind is man. Placed on this isthmus of a middle state, A being darkly wise and rudely great, With too much knowledge for the sceptic side, With too much weakness for the stoic's pride he hangs between. In doubt to act or rest, In doubt to deem himself a God or beast, In doubt his mind or body to prefer, Born but to die, and reasoning but to err, Alike in ignorance his reason such, Whether he thinks too little or too much. Chaos of thought and passion, all confused, Still by himself abused or disabused, Created half to rise and half to fall, Great Lord of all things, yet a prey to all. Soul-judge of truth in endless error hurled, The glory, jest, and riddle of the world. Go wondrous creature, mount where science guides, Go measure earth, weigh air, and state the tides, Instruct the planets in what orbs to run, Correct old time, and regulate the sun. Go saw with Plato to the imperial sphere, To the first good, first perfect, and first fair, Or tread the mazy round his followers trod, And quitting sense, call imitating God, As eastern priests in giddy circles run, And turn their heads to imitate the sun. Go teach eternal wisdom how to rule, Then drop into thyself, and be a fool. Superior beings, when of late they saw a mortal man unfold all nature's law, Admired such wisdom in an earthly shape, And showed a newton, as we show an ape. Could he, whose rules the rapid comet bind, Describe or fix one movement of his mind? Who saw its fires here rise and there descend, Explain his own beginning or his end? Alas! what wonder! Man's superior part unchecked May rise and climb from art to art. But when his own great work is but begun, What reason weaves by passion is undone. Trace science, then, with modesty thy guide. First strip off all her equipage of pride. Deduct what is but vanity or dress, All learning's luxury or idleness, Or tricks to show the stretch of human brain, Mere curious pleasure or ingenious pain. Expunge the whole, or lop the excrescent parts Of all our vices have created arts. Then see how little the remaining sum Which served the past and must the times to come. Two principles in human nature reign, Self-love to urge and reason to restrain, Nor this a good nor that a bad we call, Each works its end to move or govern all, And to their proper operation still, Ascribe all good to their improper ill. Self-love, the spring of motion, Acts the soul, reasons comparing balance rules the whole. Man but for that no action could attend, And but for this were active to no end. Fixed like a plant on his peculiar spot To draw nutrition, propagate and rot, Or meteor-like flame lawless through the void, Destroying others by himself destroyed. Most strength the moving principle requires. Active its task, it prompts, impels, inspires. Sedate and quiet the comparing lies, Formed but to check, deliberate and advise. Self-love still stronger as its objects nigh, Reasons at distance and in prospect lie. That sees immediate good by present sense, Reason the future and the consequence. Thicker than arguments, temptations throng, At best more watchful this, but that more strong. The action of the stronger to suspend, Reason still use, to reason still attend. Attention, habit and experience gains, Each strengthens reason, and self-love restrains. Let subtle schoolmen teach these friends to fight, More studious to divide than to unite, And grace and virtue, sense and reason, Split with all the rash dexterity of wit. Wits, just like fools, At war about a name, Have full as oft no meaning all the same. Self-love and reason to one end aspire, Pain their aversion, pleasure their desire, But greedy that its object would devour, This taste the honey, and not wound the flower. Pleasure or wrong or rightly understood, Our greatest evil or our greatest good. Modes of self-love, the passions we may call, Tis real good or seeming moves them all, But since not every good we can divide, And reason bids us for our own provide. Passions though selfish, if their means be fair, List under reason, and deserve her care. Those that imparted caught a nobler aim, Exalt their kind, and take some virtue's name. In lazy apathy let stoics boast their virtue fixed, Tis fixed as in a frost, Contracted all, retiring to the breast, But strength of mind is exercise not rest, The rising tempest puts in act the soul, Parts it may ravage, but preserves the whole. On life's vast ocean diversely we sail, Reason the card, but passion is the gale. Nor God alone in the still calm we find, He mounts the storm and walks upon the wind. Passions like elements, though born to fight, Yet mixed and softened, in his work unite. These Tis enough to temper and employ, But what composes man can man destroy? Suffice that reason keep to nature's road, Subject compound them, follow her and God. Love, hope and joy, Fair pleasures smiling train, Hate, fear and grief, The family of pain. These mixed with art and to due bounce confined, Make and maintain the balance of the mind. The lights and shades, Whose well accorded strife, Gives all the strength and colour of our life. Pleasures are ever in our hands or eyes, And when in act they cease, in prospect rise, Present to grasp, and future still to find, The whole employ of body and of mind. All spread their charms, But charm not all alike, On different senses different objects strike, Hence different passions, more or less in flame, As strong or weak the organs of the frame, And hence one master passion in the breast, Like air and serpent, swallows up the rest. As man, perhaps the moment of his breath, Receives the lurking principle of death, The young disease that must subdue at length, Grows with his growth, And strengthens with his strength. So cast and mingled with his very frame, The mind's disease, its ruling passion came. Each vital humour which should feed the whole, Soon flows to this, in body and in soul. Whatever warms the heart, Or fills the head, As the mind opens and its functions spread, Imagination plies her dangerous art, And pours it all upon the peckant part. Nature its mother, habit is its nurse, Wit, spirit, faculties, but make it worse, Reason itself but gives it edge and power, As heaven's blessed beam turns vinegar more sour. We wretched subjects, though to lawful sway, In this weak queen some favourite still obey. Ah, if she lend not arms, as well as rules, What can she more than tell us we are fools? Teachers to mourn our nature, not to mend, A sharp accuser, but a helpless friend. Or from a judge turn pleader, To persuade the choice we make, or justify it made. Proud of an easy conquest all along, She but removes weak passions for the strong. So when small humours gather to a gout, The doctor fancies he has driven them out. Yes, nature's road must ever be preferred. Reason is here no guide, but still a guard. Dishers to rectify, not overthrow, And treat this passion more as friend than foe. A mightier power the strong direction sends, And several men impels to several ends. Like varying winds by other passions tossed, This drives them constant to a certain coast. Let power or knowledge, gold or glory please, Or, often more strong than all, the love of ease. Through life is followed, even at life's expense, The merchants toil, the sages indolence, The monks' humility, the heroes' pride, All, all alike find reason on their side. The eternal art, inducing good from ill, Graffits on this passion our best principle. It is thus the mercury of man is fixed, Strong grows the virtue with his nature mixed. The dross cements what else were to refined, And in one interest body acts with mind. As fruits ungrateful to the planter's care, On savage stocks inserted learn to bear, The surest virtues thus from passions shoot, Wild nature's vigor working at the root. What crops of wit and honesty appear From spleen, from obstinacy, hate or fear. See anger, zeal and fortitude supply, Even avarice prudence, sloth, philosophy. Lust, through some certain strainers well refined, Is gentle love and charms all womankind. Envy, to which the ignoble mind's a slave, Is emulation in the learned or brave. Nor virtue, male or female, can we name, But what will grow on pride or grow on shame. Thus nature gives us, let it check our pride, The virtue nearest to our vice allied. Reason the bias turns to good from ill, And nero reigns a Titus, if he will. The fiery soul abhorred in Catiline, In desious charms, in courteous is divine. The same ambition can destroy or save, And makes a patriot as it makes a nave. This light and darkness in our chaos joined, What shall divide, the God within the mind. Extremes in nature equal ends produce, In man they join to some mysterious use. Though each by turns the others bound invade, As in some well wrought picture light and shade, And oft so mix, the difference is too nice, Where ends the virtue or begins the vice. Fools, who from hence into the notion fall, That vice or virtue there is none at all. If white and black blend, Soften and unite a thousand ways, Is there no black or white? Ask your own heart, and nothing is so plain, Tis to mistake them costs the time and pain. Vice is a monster of so frightful mean, As to be hated needs but to be seen. Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face, We first endure, then pity, then embrace. But where the extreme of vice was near agreed, Ask where's the north? At York, Tis on the tweed, In Scotland, at the Orcades, And there at Greenland, Zembler, Or the Lord knows where. No creature owns it in the first degree, But thinks his neighbour farther gone than he. Even those who dwell beneath its very zone, Or never feel the rage, or never own. What happier nations shrink at with a fright, The hard inhabitant contends is right. Virtuous and vicious every man must be, Few in the extreme, but all in the degree. The rogue and fool by Fitz is fair and wise, And even the best by Fitz what they despise. Tis but by parts we follow good or ill, For vice or virtue self directs it still. Each individual seeks a several goal, But heaven's great view is one, And that the whole. That counter-works each folly and caprice, That disappoints the effect of every vice, That happy frailties to all ranks applied, Shame to the virgin, to the matron pride, Fear to the statesman, rashness to the chief, To king's presumption, and to crowd's belief, That virtues ends from vanity can raise, Which seeks no interest, no reward but praise, And build on wants and on defects of mind, The joy, the peace, the glory of mankind. Heaven forming each on other to depend, A master or a servant or a friend, Bids each on other for assistance call, Till one man's weakness grows the strength of all. Once frailties, passions, Closer still ally the common interest, Or endear the tie. To these we owe true friendship, Love sincere, each home-felt joy That life inherits here. Yet from the same we learn, in its decline, Those joys, those loves, those interests, to resign, Talked half by reason, half by mere decay, To welcome death, and calmly pass away. What ere the passion, knowledge, fame, or pelf, Not one will change his neighbour with himself. The learned is happy nature to explore. The fool is happy that he knows no more. The rich is happy and the plenty given. The poor contents him with the care of heaven. See the blind beggar dance, the cripple sing, The sought a hero, lunatic, a king. The starving chemist in his golden views Supremely blessed, the poet in his muse. See some strange comfort every state attend, And pride bestowed on all a common friend. See some fit passion every age supply. Hope travels through, nor quits us when we die. Behold the child by nature's kindly law, Pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw. Some livelier plaything gives his youth delight, A little louder, but as empty quiet. Scarves, garters, gold amuse his riper stage, And beads and prayer books are the toys of age. Pleased with this bauble still as that before, Till tired he sleeps, and life's poor play is o'er. Meanwhile opinion guilds with varying rays, Those painted clouds that beautify our days. Each want of happiness by hope supplied, And each vacuity of sense by pride. These build as fast as knowledge can destroy. In folly's cup still laughs the bauble joy. One prospect lost, another still we gain, And not a vanity is given in vain. Even mean self-love becomes, by force divine, The scale to measure others' wants by thine. See and confess, one comfort still must rise, Tis this, though man's a fool, yet God is wise. End of Epistle 2 Recording by Martin Geeson in Hazelmere Surrey. Epistle 3 of An Essay on Man This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Martin Geeson. An Essay on Man by Alexander Pope. Epistle 3 of the nature and state of man with respect to society. Here then we rest. The universal cause acts to one end, but acts by various laws. In all the madness of superfluous health, The trim of pride, the impudence of wealth, Let this great truth be present night and day, But most be present if we preach or pray. Look round our world, Behold the chain of love combining all below and all above. See plastic nature working to this end, The single atoms each to other tend, Attract, attracted to the next in place, Formed and impelled its neighbour to embrace. See matter next, with various life endued, Press to one centre still, the general good. See dying vegetables life sustain, See life dissolving, vegetate again. All forms that perish, other forms supply, By turns we catch the vital breath and die. Like bubbles on the sea of matter borne, They rise, they break, and to that sea return. Nothing is foreign, parts relate to whole, One, all extending, all preserving soul, Connects each being, greatest with the least, Made beast in aid of man, and man of beast. All served, all serving, Nothing stands alone. The chain holds on, and where it ends unknown. Has God, thou fool, worked solely for thy good, Thy joy, thy pastime, thy attire, thy food? Who for thy table feeds the wanton fawn, For him has kindly spread the flowery lawn? Is it for thee the lark ascends and sings? Joy tunes his voice, joy elevates his wings. Is it for thee the linnet pours his throat, Loves of his own, and raptures swell the note? The bounding steed you pompously bestride, Shares with his Lord the pleasure and the pride. Is thine alone the seed that strews the plain? The birds of heaven shall vindicate their grain. Thine the full harvest of the golden year, Part pays, and justly, the deserving steer. The hog that plows not, nor obeys thy call, Lives on the labours of this Lord of all. No, nature's children all divide her care, The fur that warms a monarch warmed a bear. While man exclaims, See all things for my use, See man for mine, replies a pampered goose, And just as short of reason he must fall, Who thinks all made for one, not one for all. Grant that the powerful still the weak control, Be man the wit and tyrant of the whole, Nature that tyrant checks, He only knows, and helps, Another creature's wants and woes. Say, will the falcon, stooping from above, Smit with her varying plumage, spare the dove? Admires the jay the insect's gilded wings, Or hears the hawk when Philomela sings. Man cares for all. To birds he gives his woods, To beasts his pastures, and to fish his floods. For some his interest prompts him to provide, For more his pleasure, yet for more his pride. All feed on one vain patron, And enjoy the extensive blessing of his luxury. That very life his learned hunger craves, He saves from famine, from the savage saves. Nay, feasts the animal he dooms his feast, And till he ends the being makes it blessed, Which sees no more the stroke or feels the pain Than favoured man by touch ethereal slain. The creature had his feast of life before, Thou too must perish when thy feast is o'er. To each unthinking being heaven a friend Gives not the useless knowledge of its end. To man imparts it, But with such a view as, while he dreads it, makes him hope it too. The hour concealed, and so remote the fear, Death still draws nearer, never seeming near. Great standing miracle, that heaven assigned its only thinking thing, this turn of mind. Whether with reason or with instinct blessed, Know all enjoy that power which suits them best. To bliss alike by that direction tend, And find the means proportioned to their end. Say, where full instinct is the unerring guide, What pope or council can they need beside? Reason, however able, cool at best, Cares not for service, or but serves when pressed, Stays till we call, and then not often near. But honest instinct comes of volunteer, Sure never to or shoot, but just to hit, While still too wide or short is human wit. Sure by quick nature happiness to gain, Which heavier reason labours at in vain, This too serves always reason never long, One must go right, the other may go wrong. See then the acting and comparing powers, One in their nature, which are two in ours, And reason raise or instinct as you can, In this is God directs, in that is man. Who taught the nations of the field and wood To shun their poison, and to choose their food? Preciant the tides or tempests to withstand, Build on the wave or arch beneath the sand, Who made the spider parallels design, Sure as de Moivre, without rule or line. Who did the stork Columbus-like explore heavens not his own, and worlds unknown before? Who calls the council, states the certain day, Who forms the phalanx, and who points the way? God in the nature of each being, Founds its proper bliss, and sets its proper bounds. But as he framed a whole, the whole to bless, On mutual once built mutual happiness, So from the first eternal order ran, And creature linked to creature, man to man. What air of life all quickening ether keeps, Or breathes through air, or shoots beneath the deeps, or pours profuse on earth, One nature feeds the vital flame, and swells the genial seeds. Not man alone, but all that roam the wood, Or wing the sky, or roll along the flood, Each loves itself, but not itself alone, Each sex desires alike, till two are one. Nor ends the pleasure with the fierce embrace. They love themselves a third time in their race. Thus beast and bird their common charge attend, The mother's nurse it, and the sire's defend. The young, dismissed to wander earth or air, Bare stops the instinct, and there ends the care. The link dissolves, each seeks a fresh embrace, Another love succeeds, another race. A longer care man's helpless kind demands, That longer care contracts more lasting bands. Reflection, reason, still the ties improve, At once extend the interest and the love, With choice we fix, with sympathy we burn, Each virtue in each passion takes its turn, And still new needs, new helps, new habits rise, That graft benevolence on charities. Still as one brewed, and as another rose, These natural love maintained, habitual those. The last scarce ripened into perfect man, Saw helpless him from whom their life began. Memory and forecast just returns engage, That pointed back to youth, this on to age. While pleasure, gratitude, and hope combined, Still spread the interest, and preserved the kind. Nor think in nature's state they blindly trod, The state of nature was the reign of God. Self-love and social at her birth began, Unioned the bond of all things and of man. Pride then was not, nor arts that pride to aid. Man walked with beast, joint tenant of the shade. The same his table, and the same his bed. No murder clothed him, and no murder fared. In the same temple, the resounding wood, All vocal beings hymned their equal God. The shrine with gore unstained, with gold undressed. Unbribed, unbloody, Stood the blameless priest. Heaven's attribute was universal care, And man's prerogative to rule but spare. Ah, how unlike the man of times to come, Of half that live the butcher and the tomb! Who, foe to nature, hears the general groan, Murders their species, and betrays his own. But just disease to luxury succeeds, And every death its own avenger breeds. The fury passions from that blood began, And turned on man a fiercer savage. Man! See him from nature rising slow to art. To copy instinct then was reason's part. Thus then to man the voice of nature spake. Go from the creatures thy instructions take. Learn from the birds what food the thickets yield. Learn from the beasts the physics of the field. Thy arts of building from the bee receive. Learn of the mole to plow, the worm to weave. Learn of the little nautilus to sail, spread the thin oar, and catch the driving gale. Here too all forms of social union find. And hence let reason late instruct mankind. Here subterranean works and cities see. There towns are aerial on the waving tree. Learn each small people's genius, policies, the ant's republic, and the realm of bees. How those in common all their wealth bestow, and anarchy without confusion though. And these for ever though a monarch reign, their separate cells and properties maintain. Mark what unvaried laws preserve each state. Laws wise as nature, and as fixed as fate. In vain thy reason finer webs shall draw. Entangle justice in her net of law, and right too rigid harden into wrong. Still for the strong too weak, the weak too strong. Yet go, and thus aught all the creatures sway. Thus let the wiser make the rest obey. And for those arts mere instinct could afford, be crowned as monarchs, or as gods adored. Great nature spoke. Observant men obeyed. Cities were built, societies were made. Heroes won little state. Another near grew by like means, and joined through love or fear. Did hear the trees with ruddy aburdens bend, and there the streams in purer rills descend. What war could ravish commerce could bestow, and he returned a friend who came a foe. Converses and love mankind might strongly draw when love was liberty and nature law. Thus states were formed. The name of king unknown, till common interest placed the sway in one. It was virtue only, or in arts or arms, defusing blessings or averting harms, the same which in assire the sons obeyed. A prince the father of a people made. Till then by nature crowned each patriarch's saint, king, priest, and parent of his growing state. On him their second providence, they hung, their law his eye, their oracle his tongue. He from the wandering furrow called the food, taught to command the fire, control the flood, draw forth the monsters of the abyss profound, or fetch the ireal eagle to the ground. Till drooping, sickening, dying, they began whom they revered as God to mourn as man. Then, looking up from sire to sire, explored one great first father, and that first adored. Or plain tradition that this all begun, conveyed unbroken faith from sire to son. The worker from the work distinct was known, and simple reason never sought but one. Air wit oblique had broke that steady light, man like his maker saw that all was right, to vert you in the paths of pleasure trod, and owned a father when he owned a God. Love all the faith and all the allegiance then, for nature knew no right divine in men, no ill could fear in God, and understood a sovereign being but a sovereign good. True faith, true policy united ran, this was but love of God, and this of man. Who first taught souls enslaved, and realms undone, the enormous faith of many made for one, that proud exception to all nature's laws, to invert the world, and counter work its cause. Force first made conquest, and that conquest law, till superstition taught the tyrant awe, then shared the tyranny, then lent it aid, and gods of conquerors, slaves of subjects made. She midst the lightning's blaze and thunder's sound, when rocked the mountains, and when groaned the ground, she taught the weak to bend, the proud to pray, to power unseen, and mightier far than they. She, from the rending earth and bursting skies, saw gods descend, and fiends infernal rise. Here fixed the dreadful, they're the blessed abodes. Fear made her devils, and weak hope her gods. Gods partial, changeful, passionate, unjust, whose attributes were rage, revenge, or lust, such as the souls of cowards might conceive, and formed like tyrants, tyrants would believe. Zeal, then, not charity, became the guide, and hell was built on spite, and heaven on pride. Then sacred seemed the ethereal vault no more. Alters grew marble, then, and reeked with gore. Then first the flamen tasted living food, next his grim idle smeared with human blood, with heaven's own thunders shook the world below, and played the god an engine on his foe. So drives self-love through just and through unjust, to one man's power, ambition, lucre, lust. The same self-love in all becomes the cause of what restrains him, government and laws. For what one likes, if others like as well, what serves one will, when many wills rebel? How shall he keep, what sleeping or awake, a weaker may surprise, a stronger take? His safety must his liberty restrain. All join to guard what each desires to gain. Forced into virtue thus by self-defense, even kings learned justice and benevolence. Self-love forsook the path it first pursued, and found the private in the public good. Twas then the studious head or generous mind, follower of God, or friend of humankind, poet or patriot, rose but to restore the faith and moral nature gave before. Relumed her ancient light, not kindled new. If not God's image, yet his shadow drew. Taught powers due use to people and to kings. Taught nor to slack, nor strain its tender strings. The less or greater set so justly true that touching one must strike the other, too. Till jarring interests of themselves create the according music of a well-mixed state. Such is the world's great harmony that springs from order, union, full consent of things, where small and great, where weak and mighty, made to serve, not suffer, strengthen, not invade. More powerful each as needful to the rest, and in proportion as it blesses, blessed. Draw to one point, and to one centre bring beast, man or angel, servant, lord or king. For forms of government let fools contest. What heir is best administered is best. For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight. His can't be wrong whose life is in the right. In faith and hope the world will disagree, but all mankind's concern is charity. All must be false that thwart this one great end, and all of God that bless mankind or mend. Man, like the generous vine, supported lives. The strength he gains is from the embrace he gives. On their own axis as the planets run, yet make at once their circle round the sun. So two consistent motions act the soul, and one regards itself, and one the whole. Thus God and nature linked the general frame, and bade self-love and social be the same. End of Epistle 3 Recording by Martin Giesen in Hazelmayer Surrey Epistle 4 of an Essay on Man This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Martin Giesen An Essay on Man by Alexander Pope Epistle 4 of the nature and state of man with respect to happiness Oh happiness, our being's end and aim! Good, pleasure, ease, content, what ere thy name? That something still which prompts the eternal sigh, for which we bear to live or dare to die, which still so near us yet beyond us lies, or looked seen double by the fool and wise. Plant of celestial seed, if dropped below, say in what mortal soil thou dainst to grow. Fair opening to some court's propitious shine, or deep with diamonds in the flaming mine. Twined with the wreaths, par nasi and laurels yield, or reaped in iron harvests of the field. Where grows, where grows it not? If vain our toil, we ought to blame the culture, not the soil. Fixed to no spot is happiness sincere. It is nowhere to be found, or everywhere. It is never to be bought, but always free. And fled from monarch's singin' dwells with thee. Ask of the learned the way, the learned are blind. This bids to serve, and that to shun mankind. Some place the bliss in action, some in ease. Those call it pleasure, and contentment these. Some sunk to beasts, find pleasure end in pain. Some swelled to gods, confess even virtue vain. Or indolent to each extreme they fall, to trust in everything, or doubt of all. Who thus define it, say they more or less than this, that happiness is happiness. Take nature's path, and mad opinions leave. All states can reach it, and all heads conceive. Obvious her goods, in no extreme they dwell. Their needs but thinking right, and meaning well. And more on our various portions, as we please, equal is common sense, and common ease. Remember, man, the universal cause acts not by partial, but by general laws. And makes what happiness we justly call subsist not in the good of one, but all. There's not a blessing individuals find, but some way leans and hearkens to the kind. No bandit fears, no tyrant mad with pride. No caverned hermit rests self-satisfied. Who most to shun or hate mankind pretend, seek an admirer, or would fix a friend. Abstract what others feel, what others think. All pleasures sicken, and all glories sink. Each has his share, and who would more obtain, shall find the pleasure pays not half the pain. Order is heaven's first law, and this confessed, some are, and must be, greater than the rest, more rich, more wise. But who in firsts from hence, that such are happier, shocks all common sense. Heaven to mankind impartial, we confess, if all are equal in their happiness. But mutual wants, this happiness increase. All nature's difference keeps all nature's peace. Condition, circumstance is not the thing. Bliss is the same in subject or in king. In who obtain defence, or who defend? In him who is, or him who finds a friend? Heaven breathes through every member of the whole one common blessing, as one common soul. But fortune's gifts, if each alike possessed, and each were equal, must not all contest. If then to all men happiness was meant, God in externals could not place content. Fortune her gifts may variously dispose, and these be happy called, unhappy those. But heaven's just balance equal will appear, while those are placed in hope, and these in fear. Nor present good or ill, the joy or curse, but future views of better or of worse. O sons of earth, attempt ye still to rise, by mountains piled on mountains to the skies. Heaven still with laughter the vain toil surveys, and berries madmen in the heaps they raise. Know all the good that individuals find, or God and nature meant to mere mankind. Reason's whole pleasure, all the joys of sense, lie in three words, health, peace, and competence. But health consists with temperance alone, and peace, O virtue, peace is all thy own. The good or bad the gifts of fortune gain, but these less taste them as they were subtane. Say in pursuit of profit or delight, who risk the most that take wrong means or right? Of vice or virtue, whether blessed or cursed, which meets contempt, or which compassion first? Count all the advantage prosperous vice attains, disbut what virtue flies from and disdains, and grant the bad what happiness they would, one they must want, which is to pass for good. Oh, blind to truth, and God's whole scheme below, who fancy bliss to vice, to virtue woe, who sees and follows that great scheme the best, best knows the blessing and will most be blessed. But fools the good alone unhappy call, for ills or accidents the chance to all. See, Falkland dies, the virtuous and the just. See, God, like Turin, prostrate on the dust. See, Sidney bleeds amid the martial strife. Was this their virtue or contempt of life? Say, was it virtue, more though heaven ne'er gave, lamented Digby sunk thee to the grave? Tell me, if virtue made the sun expire, why full of days and honour lives the sire? Why drew Marcel's good bishop pure a breath, when nature sickened, and each gale was death? Or why so long, in life if long can be, lent heaven apparent to the poor and me? See, what makes all physical or moral ill? There deviates nature, and here wanders will. God sends not ill. If rightly understood, or partial ill is universal good, or change admits, or nature lets it fall, short and but rare till man improved it all. We just as wisely might of heaven complain that righteous Abel was destroyed by Cain, as that the virtuous son is ill at ease when his lewd father gave the dire disease. Think we, like some weak prince, the eternal cause, prone for his favourites to reverse his laws. Shall burning Etna, if a sage requires, forget to thunder and recall her fires? On air or sea new motions be impressed, O blameless Bethel, to relieve thy breast. When the loose mountain trembles from on high, shall gravitation cease if you go by? Or some old temple nodding to its fall, for Chartres' head reserves the hanging wall. But still this world, so fitted for the nave, contents us not. A better shall we have. A kingdom of the just then let it be. But first consider how those just agree. The good must merit God's peculiar care. But who but God can tell us who they are? One thinks on Calvin's heaven's own spirit fell. Another deems him instrument of hell. If Calvin feel heaven's blessing or its rod, this cries there is, and that there is no God. What shocks one part will edify the rest, nor with one system can they all be blessed. The very best will variously incline, and what rewards your virtue punish mine? Whatever is is right. This world is true was made for Caesar, but for Titus too, and which more blessed, who chained his country, say, or he whose virtue sighed to lose a day. But sometimes virtue starves while vice is fed. What then is the reward of virtue bred? That vice may merit, it is the price of toil. The nave deserves it when he tills the soil. The nave deserves it when he tempts the main, where folly fights for kings or dives for gain. The good man may be weak, be indolent, nor is his claim to plenty, but content. But grant him riches, your demand is all. No, shall the good want health, the good want power. Add health and power, and every earthly thing. Why bounded power? Why private? Why no king? Nay, why external for internal given? Why is not man a God, and earth a heaven? Who ask and reason thus? Will scarce conceive? God gives enough, while he has more to give. Immense the power, immense where the demand. Say, at what part of nature will they stand? What nothing earthly gives, or can destroy? The soul's calm sunshine, and the heartfelt joy is virtue's prize. A better would you fix? Then give humility, a coach and six, justice a conqueror's sword, or truth a gown, or public spirit its great cure, a crown. Weak, foolish man, will heaven reward us there with the same trash mad mortals wish for here. The boy and man an individual makes, yet siest thou now for apples and for cakes. Go like the Indian in another life, expect thy dog, thy bottle, and thy wife, as well as dream such trifles are assigned as toys and empires for a godlike mind. Rewards that either would to virtue bring no joy, or be destructive of the thing. How oft by these at sixty are undone the virtues of a saint at twenty-one! To whom can riches give repute, or trust, content, or pleasure, but the good and just? Judges and senates have been bought for gold, esteem and love were never to be sold. O fool, to think God hates the worthy mind, the lover and the love of humankind, whose life is healthful, and whose conscience clear, because he wants a thousand pounds a year. Honour and shame from no condition rise. Act well your part, there all the honour lies. Fortune in men has some small difference made. One flaunts in rags, one flutters in brocade. The cobbler apron and the parson gowned. The friar hooded and the monarch crowned. What differ more, you cry, than crown and cowl? I'll tell you, friend, a wise man and a fool. You'll find if once the monarch acts the monk, or cobbler like the parson will be drunk. Worth makes the man, and want of it the feller. The rest is all but leather or prunella. Stuck o'er with titles, and hung round with strings, That thou mayest be by kings or whores of kings. Boast the pure blood of an illustrious race, In quiet flow from Lucris to Lucris. But by your father's worth, if yours you rate, Count me those only who were good and great. Go, if your ancient but ignoble blood Has crept through scoundrels ever since the flood, Go and pretend your family is young, Nor own your fathers have been fools so long. What can in noble sots, or slaves, or cowards? Alas, not all the blood of all the howards. Look next on greatness. Say where greatness lies. Where but among the heroes and the wise? Heroes are much the same, the points agreed, From Macedonia's madman to the swede. The whole strange purpose of their lives To find or make an enemy of all mankind. Not one looks backward, Onward still he goes, Yet ne'er looks forward farther than his nose. No lesser like the politic and wise, All sly, slow things with circumspective eyes. Men in their loose, unguarded hours they take. Not that themselves are wise, but others weak. But grant that those can conquer, these can cheat. Tis phrase absurd to call a villain great. Who wickedly his wise, or madly brave, Is but the more a fool, the more a nave. Who noble ends by noble means obtains, Or failing smiles in exile or in chains, Like good Aurelius let him reign, Or bleed like Socrates, that man is great indeed. What's fame? A fancied life in others' breath. A thing beyond us, even before our death. Just what you hear you have, And what's unknown the same, my lord, If tullies or your own. All that we feel of it Begins and ends in the small Circle of our foes or friends. To all beside, as much an empty shade, A new gene living as a Caesar dead. A like or when or where they shone or shine, Or on the Rubicon or on the Rhine. A wits, a feather, and a chief, a rod. An honest man's the noblest work of God. Fame but from death a villain's name can save, As justice tears his body from the grave. When what the oblivion better were resigned Is hung on high to poison half mankind. All fame is foreign, but of true dessert. Plays round the head, but comes not to the heart. One self-approving hour, Whole years out ways of stupid starrers and of loud hazzars, And more true joy Marcellus exiled feels than Caesar with a senate at his heels. In part superior what advantage lies. Tell, for you can, what is it to be wise? Disbut to know how little can be known. To see all others faults and feel our own. Condemned in business or in arts to drudge without a second or without a judge. Truths would you teach or save a sinking land. All fear none aid you and few understand. Painful preeminence, yourself to view above life's weakness and its comforts too. Bring, then, these blessings to a strict account. Make fair deductions, see to what they mount. How much of other each is sure to cost. How each for other oft is wholly lost. How inconsistent greater goods with these. How sometimes life is risked and always ease. Think, and if still the things thy envy call, Say, wouldst thou be the man to whom they fall. To sigh for ribbons, if thou art so silly, Mark how they grace Lord Umbra or Sir Billy. Is yellow dirt the passion of thy life? Look but on Grypus or on Grypus wife. If parts, allure thee, think how bacon shined. The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind. Or ravished with the whistling of a name, See Cromwell, damned to everlasting fame. If all united thy ambition call, From ancient story learn to scorn them all. There in the rich, the honoured, famed, and great, See the false scale of happiness complete. In hearts of kings or arms of queens who lay, How happy those to ruin these betray. Mark by what wretched steps their glory grows, From dirt and seaweed as proud Venice rose. In each how guilt and greatness equal ran, And all that raised the hero sunk the man. Now Europe's laurels on their brows behold, But stained with blood or ill-exchanged for gold. Then see them broke with toils or sunk with ease, Or infamous for plundered provinces. O wealth ill-fated, which no act of fame, Air taught to shine, or sanctified from shame. What greater bliss attends their close of life. Some greedy minion or imperious wife. The trophied arches storied halls invade, And haunt their slumbers in the pompous shade. Alas, not dazzled with their noontide ray, Compute the morn and evening to the day. The whole amount of that enormous fame, A tale that blends their glory with their shame. Know, then, this truth, enough for man to know, Virtue alone is happiness below. The only point where human bliss stands still, And tastes the good without the fall to ill, Where only merit constant pay receives, Is blessed in what it takes and what it gives. The joy unequaled if its end it gain, And if its loose attended with no pain. Without satiety, though air so blessed, And but more relished as the more distressed. The broadest mirth unfeeling folly wears, Less pleasing far than virtue's very tears. Good from each object, from each place acquired, For ever exercised, yet never tired. Never related, while one man's oppressed, Never dejected, while another's blessed. And where no wants, no wishes can remain, Since but to wish more virtue is to gain. See, the sole bliss heaven could on all bestow, Which who but feels can taste, but thinks can know. Yet poor with fortune, and with learning blind, The bad must miss, the good untaught will find. Slave to no sect, who takes no private road, But looks through nature, Up to nature's God, pursues that chain Which links the immense design, Joins heaven and earth, and mortal and divine, Sees that no being any bliss can know, But touches some above, and some below, Learns from this union of the rising whole, The first, last purpose of the human soul, And knows where faith, law, morals all began, All end in love of God, and love of man. For him alone, hope leads from goal to goal, And opens still, and opens on his soul, Till lengthened on to faith and unconfined, It pours the bliss that fills up all the mind. He sees why nature plants in man alone Hope of known bliss, and faith in bliss unknown. Nature, who dictates to no other kind Are given in vain, but what they seek they find. Wise is her present, she connects in this His greatest virtue with his greatest bliss, At once his own bright prospect to be blessed, And strongest motive to assist the rest. Self-love, thus pushed to social, to divine, Gives thee to make thy neighbour's blessing thine. Is this too little for the boundless heart? Extend it, let thy enemies have part. Grasp the whole worlds of reason, life and sense, In one close system of benevolence, Happier as kinder, in what air degree, And height of bliss, but height of charity. God loves from whole to parts, But human soul must rise from individual to the whole. Self-love, but serves the virtuous mind to wake, As the small pebble stirs the peaceful lake. The centre moved, a circle straight succeeds, Another still, and still another spreads. Friend, parent, neighbour, first it will embrace, His country next, and next all human race. Wide and more wide, the offlowings of the mind Take every creature in of every kind. Earth smiles around, with boundless bounty blessed, And heaven beholds its image in his breast. Come then, my friend, my genius, come along, O master of the poet and the song. And while the muse now stoops, or now ascends To man's low passions, or their glorious ends, Teach me like thee, in various nature wise, To fall with dignity, with temper rise, Formed by thy converse, happily to steer From grave to gay, from lively to severe, Correct with spirit, eloquent with ease, Intent to reason, or polite to please. Oh, while along the stream of time Thy name expanded flies, and gathers all its fame, Say, shall my little bark a tendon sail, Pursue the triumph, and partake the gale. When statesmen, heroes, kings in dust repose, Whose sons shall blush their fathers with thy foes, Shall then this verse to future age pretend Thou worked my guide, philosopher and friend, That urged by thee I turned the tuneful art From sounds to things, from fancy to the heart, From wits false mirror held up nature's light, Showed earring pride, whatever is is right. That reason, passion answer one great aim, That true self-love and social are the same, That virtue only makes our bliss below, And all our knowledge is Our selves to know. End of Epistle 4. Recording by Martin Geeson in Hazelmere Surrey. End of An Essay on Man by Alexander Pope.