That counter-works each folly and caprice Heaven forming each on other to depend, 240 245 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 interest, or endear the tie. To these we owe true friendship, love sincere, 255 Each home-felt joy that life inherits here; Those joys, those loves, those interests to resign; 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 given, 265 The poor contents him with the care of Heaven. See the blind beggar dance, the cripple sing, The starving chemist in his golden views 270 See some strange comfort every state attend, And pride bestow'd on all, a common friend: See some fit passion every age supply, Hope travels through, nor quits us when we die. 275 Pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw: Some livelier plaything gives his youth delight, And beads and prayer-books are the toys of age: 280 Pleased with this bauble still, as that before; 'Tis this, though man's a fool, yet God is wise. 285 290 EPISTLE III. ARGUMENT OF EPISTLE III. OF THE NATURE AND STATE OF MAN WITH RESPECT TO SOCIETY. I. The whole universe one system of society, ver. 7, &c. Nothing made wholly for itself, nor yet wholly for another, ver. 27. The happiness of animals mutual, ver. 49. II. Reason or instinct operate alike to the good of each individual, ver. 79. Reason or instinct operate also to society in all animals, ver. 109. III. How far society carried by instinct, ver. 115. How much farther by reason, ver. 128. IV. Of that which is called the state of nature, ver. 144. Reason instructed by instinct in the invention of arts, ver. 166, and in the forms of society, ver. 176. V. Origin of political societies, ver. 196. Origin of monarchy, ver. 207. Patriarchal govern. ment, ver. 212. VI. Origin of true religion and government, from the same principle of love, 231, &c. Origin of superstition and tyranny, from the same principle of fear, ver. 237, &c. The influence of self-love operating to the social and public good, ver. 266. Restoration of true religion and government on their first principle, ver. 285. Mixed government, ver. 288. Various forms of each, and the true end of all, ver. 300, &c. HEREA then we rest: "The Universal Cause Acts to one end, but acts by various laws." In all the madness of superfluous health, Let this great truth be present night and day; 5 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, 10 Attract, attracted to, the next in place Form'd and impell'd its neighbour to embrace. 15 See dying vegetables life sustain,1 See life dissolving vegetate again : All forms that perish other forms supply, (By turns we catch the vital breath, and die) Know, Nature's children shall divide her care; 1 [Taken from Shaftesbury's Moralist. "The vegetables, by their death, sustain the animals, and the animal bodies, dissolved, enrich the earth, and raise again the vegetable world. The numerous insects are reduced by the superior kind of birds or beasts; and these again are checked by man, who, in his turn, submits to other natures, and resigns his form a sacrifice in common to the rest of things."] 2 ["Taken from Peter Charron; but such a familiar and burlesque image is improperly introduced among such solid and serious reflections."-Warton. In the editions of 1735, the image is continued in the following lines, wisely left out in the subsequent reprints:["What 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; 50 Be man the wit and tyrant of the whole : To each unthinking being, Heaven, a friend, Gives not the useless knowledge of its end: 55 60 65 70 "What care to tend, to lodge, to cram, to treat him! All this he knew; but not that 'twas to eat him. As far as goose could judge, he reason'd right; A passage in one of Gay's Fables may have first suggested the illustration to Pope : "When with huge figs the branches bend, When clusters from the vine depend, The snail looks round on flower and tree, And cries, All these were made for me!'"]. 3 Several of the ancients, and many of the orientals since, esteemed those who were struck by lightning as sacred persons, and the particular favourites of Heaven. |