I. 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, | 5 |
| 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 reas’ning but to err; | 10 |
| 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; | 15 |
| Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all; | |
| Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurl’d; | |
| The glory, jest, and riddle of the world! | |
| Go, wondrous creature! mount where Science guides; | |
| Go measure earth, weigh air, and state the tides; | 20 |
| Instruct the planets in what orbs to run, | |
| Correct old Time, and regulate the sun; | |
| Go, soar with Plato to th’ empyreal sphere, | |
| To the first good, first perfect, and first fair; | |
| Or tread the mazy round his followers trod, | 25 |
| 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! | 30 |
| Superior beings, when of late they saw | |
| A mortal man unfold all Nature’s law, | |
| Admired such wisdom in an earthly shape, | |
| And show’d a NEWTON as we show an ape. | |
| Could he, whose rules the rapid comet bind, | 35 |
| 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 | |
| Uncheck’d may rise, and climb from art to art; | 40 |
| 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, | 45 |
| Or 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 th’ excrescent parts; | |
| Of all our vices have created arts; | 50 |
| Then see how little the remaining sum, | |
| Which serv’d the past, and must the times to come! | |
| II. Two principles in Human Nature reign, | |
| Self-love to urge, and Reason to restrain; | |
| Nor this a good, nor that a bad we call; | 55 |
| 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; | |
| Reason’s comparing balance rules the whole. | 60 |
| Man but for that no action could attend, | |
| And but for this were active to no end: | |
| Fix’d like a plant on his peculiar spot, | |
| To draw nutrition, propagate, and rot; | |
| Or meteor-like, flame lawless thro’ the void, | 65 |
| Destroying others, by himself destroy’d. | |
| Most strength the moving principle requires; | |
| Active its task, it prompts, impels, inspires: | |
| Sedate and quiet the comparing lies, | |
| Form’d but to check, delib’rate, and advise. | 70 |
| Self-love still stronger, as its objects nigh; | |
| Reason’s at distance and in prospect lie: | |
| That sees immediate good by present sense; | |
| Reason, the future and the consequence. | |
| Thicker than arguments, temptations throng; | 75 |
| 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. | 80 |
| 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, | 85 |
| Have full as oft no meaning, or 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: | 90 |
| Pleasure, or wrong or rightly understood, | |
| Our greatest evil or our greatest good. | |
| III. Modes of Self-love the passions we may call; | |
| ’T is real good or seeming moves them all: | |
| But since not every good we can divide, | 95 |
| And Reason bids us for our own provide, | |
| Passions, tho’ selfish, if their means be fair, | |
| List under Reason, and deserve her care; | |
| Those that imparted court a nobler aim, | |
| Exalt their kind, and take some virtue’s name. | 100 |
| In lazy apathy let Stoics boast | |
| Their virtue fix’d; ’t is fix’d 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, | 105 |
| 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. | 110 |
| Passions, like elements, tho’ born to fight, | |
| Yet, mix’d and soften’d, in his work unite: | |
| These ’t is enough to temper and employ; | |
| But what composes man can man destroy? | |
| Suffice that Reason keep to Nature’s road; | 115 |
| Subject, compound them, follow her and God. | |
| Love, Hope, and Joy, fair Pleasure’s smiling train, | |
| Hate, Fear, and Grief, the family of Pain, | |
| These mix’d with art, and to due bounds confin’d, | |
| Make and maintain the balance of the mind; | 120 |
| 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, | 125 |
| The whole employ of body and of mind. | |
| All spread their charms, but charm not all alike; | |
| On diff’rent senses diff’rent objects strike; | |
| Hence diff’rent passions more or less inflame, | |
| As strong or weak the organs of the frame; | 130 |
| And hence one Master-passion in the breast, | |
| Like Aaron’s 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, | 135 |
| 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; | 140 |
| 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 peccant part. | |
| Nature its mother, Habit is its nurse; | 145 |
| Wit, spirit, faculties, but make it worse; | |
| Reason itself but gives it edge and power, | |
| As Heav’n’s bless’d beam turns vinegar more sour. | |
| We, wretched subjects, tho’ to lawful sway, | |
| In this weak queen some fav’rite still obey: | 150 |
| Ah! if she lend not arms as well as rules, | |
| What can she more than tell us we are fools? | |
| Teach us to mourn our nature, not to mend, | |
| A sharp accuser, but a helpless friend! | |
| Or from a judge turn pleader, to persuade | 155 |
| 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 driv’n them out. | 160 |
| Yes, Nature’s road must ever be preferr’d; | |
| Reason is here no guide, but still a guard; | |
| ’T is hers to rectify, not overthrow, | |
| And treat this passion more as friend than foe: | |
| A mightier Power the strong direction sends, | 165 |
| And sev’ral men impels to sev’ral ends: | |
| Like varying winds, by other passions toss’d, | |
| This drives them constant to a certain coast. | |
| Let Power or Knowledge, Gold or Glory, please, | |
| Or (oft more strong than all) the love of ease; | 170 |
| Thro’ life ’t is follow’d, ev’n at life’s expense; | |
| The merchant’s toil, the sage’s indolence, | |
| The monk’s humility, the hero’s pride, | |
| All, all alike, find Reason on their side. | |
| Th’ Eternal Art educing good from ill, | 175 |
| Grafts on this passion our best principle: | |
| ’T is thus the mercury of man is fix’d, | |
| Strong grows the virtue with his nature mix’d; | |
| The dross cements what else were too refin’d, | |
| And in one int’rest body acts with mind. | 180 |
| 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 vigour working at the root. | |
| What crops of wit and honesty appear | 185 |
| From spleen, from obstinacy, hate, or fear! | |
| See anger, zeal, and fortitude supply; | |
| Ev’n av’rice prudence, sloth philosophy; | |
| Lust, thro’ some certain strainers well refin’d, | |
| Is gentle love, and charms all womankind; | 190 |
| Envy, to which th’ ignoble mind ’s a slave, | |
| Is emulation in the learn’d 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) | 195 |
| 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 abhorr’d in Catiline, | |
| In Decius charms, in Curtius is divine: | 200 |
| The same ambition can destroy or save, | |
| And makes a patriot as it makes a knave. | |
| IV. This light and darkness in our chaos join’d, | |
| What shall divide?—the God within the mind. | |
| Extremes in Nature equal ends produce; | 205 |
| In Man they join to some mysterious use; | |
| Tho’ each by turns the other’s bounds invade, | |
| As in some well-wrought picture light and shade; | |
| And oft so mix, the diff’rence is too nice | |
| Where ends the Virtue or begins the Vice. | 210 |
| 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; | 215 |
| ’T is to mistake them costs the time and pain. | |
| V. Vice is a monster of so frightful mien, | |
| As to be hated needs but to be seen; | |
| Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face, | |
| We first endure, then pity, then embrace. | 220 |
| But where th’ extreme of Vice was ne’er agreed: | |
| Ask where ’s the north?—at York ’t is on the Tweed; | |
| In Scotland at the Orcades; and there | |
| At Greenland, Zembla, or the Lord knows where. | |
| No creature owns it in the first degree, | 225 |
| But thinks his neighbour farther gone than he; | |
| Ev’n those who dwell beneath its very zone, | |
| Or never feel the rage or never own; | |
| What happier natures shrink at with affright, | |
| The hard inhabitant contends is right. | 230 |
| Virtuous and vicious ev’ry man must be, | |
| Few in th’ extreme, but all in the degree: | |
| The rogue and fool by fits is fair and wise, | |
| And ev’n the best by fits what they despise. | |
| ’T is but by parts we follow good or ill; | 235 |
| For Vice or Virtue, Self directs it still; | |
| Each individual seeks a sev’ral goal; | |
| But Heav’n’s great view is one, and that the Whole. | |
| That counterworks each folly and caprice; | |
| That disappoints th’ effect of every vice; | 240 |
| That, happy frailties to all ranks applied, | |
| Shame to the virgin, to the matron pride, | |
| Fear to the statesman, rashness to the chief, | |
| To kings presumption, and to crowds belief: | |
| That, virtue’s ends from vanity can raise, | 245 |
| Which seeks no int’rest, no reward but praise; | |
| And build on wants, and on defects of mind, | |
| The joy, the peace, the glory of mankind. | |
| Heav’n forming each on other to depend, | |
| A master, or a servant, or a friend, | 250 |
| Bids each on other for assistance call, | |
| Till one man’s weakness grows the strength of all. | |
| Wants, frailties, passions, closer still ally | |
| The common int’rest, or endear the tie. | |
| To these we owe true friendship, love sincere, | 255 |
| Each home-felt joy that life inherits here; | |
| Yet from the same we learn, in its decline, | |
| Those joys, those loves, those int’rests to resign; | |
| Taught, half by Reason, half by mere decay, | |
| To welcome Death, and calmly pass away. | 260 |
| Whate’er the passion—knowledge, fame or pelf— | |
| Not one will change his neighbour with himself. | |
| The learn’d is happy Nature to explore, | |
| The fool is happy that he knows no more; | |
| The rich is happy in the plenty giv’n, | 265 |
| The poor contents him with the care of Heav’n. | |
| See the blind beggar dance, the cripple sing, | |
| The sot a hero, lunatic a king, | |
| The starving chymist in his golden views | |
| Supremely bless’d, the poet in his Muse. | 270 |
| See some strange comfort ev’ry state attend, | |
| And Pride bestow’d on all, a common friend: | |
| See some fit passion every age supply; | |
| Hope travels thro’, nor quits us when we die. | |
| Behold the child, by Nature’s kindly law, | 275 |
| Pleas’d with a rattle, tickled with a straw: | |
| Some livelier plaything gives his youth delight, | |
| A little louder, but as empty quite: | |
| Scarfs, garters, gold, amuse his riper stage, | |
| And beads and prayer-books are the toys of age: | 280 |
| Pleas’d with this bauble still, as that before, | |
| Till tired he sleeps, and life’s poor play is o’er. | |
| Meanwhile opinion gilds with varying rays | |
| Those painted clouds that beautify our days; | |
| Each want of happiness by Hope supplied, | 285 |
| And each vacuity of sense by Pride: | |
| These build as fast as Knowledge can destroy; | |
| In Folly’s cup still laughs the bubble joy; | |
| One prospect lost, another still we gain, | |
| And not a vanity is giv’n in vain: | 290 |
| Ev’n mean Self-love becomes, by force divine, | |
| The scale to measure others’ wants by thine. | |
| See! and confess one comfort still must rise; | |
| ’T is this, Though Man ’s a fool, yet God is wise. | |
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