From
the Essay on Man 1.5
Ask
for what end the heavenly bodies shine,
Earth
for whose use? Pride answers, " 'Tis 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 nectareous, and the balmy dew;
For
me, the mine a thousand treasures brings;
For
me, health gushes from a thousand springs;
Seas
roll to waft me, suns to light me rise;
My
footstool earth, my canopy the skies."
But errs 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 forever temperate, calm, and wise.
If
plagues or earthquakes break not Heaven's design,
Why
then a Borgia, or a Catiline?
Who
knows but he whose hand the lightning forms,
Who
heaves old ocean, and who wings the storms,
Pours
a 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 acquit?
In
both, to reason right is to submit.
Better for us, perhaps, it
might appear,
Were
there 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.