Essay on Man | Page 7

ascertaining our Virtue, v.177.
IV. Virtue and Vice joined in our mixed Nature; the limits near, yet the things separate and evident: What is the Office of Reason, v.202 to 216.
V. How odious Vice in itself, and how we deceive ourselves into it, v.217.
VI. That, however, the Ends of Providence and general Good are answered in our Passions and Imperfections, v.238, etc. How usefully these are distributed to all Orders of Men, v.241. How useful they are to Society, v.251. And to the Individuals, v.263. In every state, and every age of life, v.273, etc.
EPISTLE II.
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,?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;?Sole 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, soar with Plato to th' empyreal 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,?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;?Then see how little the remaining sum,?Which served 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,?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.?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;?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.?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, 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:?Pleasure, or wrong or rightly understood,?Our greatest evil, or our greatest good.
III. 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, court 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