Say, what the use, were finer optics given,
To inspect a mite, not comprehend the heaven?
Or touch, if tremblingly alive all o'er,
To smart and agonise at every pore ?

Or quick effluvia darting through the brain,
Die of a rose in aromatic pain?

If Nature thunder'd in his opening ears,

195

200

And stunn'd him with the music of the spheres,
How would he wish that Heaven had left him still
The whispering zephyr and the purling rill!
Who finds not Providence all good and wise, 205
Alike in what it gives and what denies?

VII. 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: 210
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:

215

nature, the love of mental exertion would be lost with its necessity, and he must relapse into the savage.

213 The headlong lioness. The note by Pope himself is a curious error: The manner of the lions hunting their prey in the deserts of Africa is this: at their first going out in the night time, they set up a loud roar, and then listen to the noise made by the beasts in their flight, pursuing them by the ear and not by the nostril.' On the contrary, the lion hunts but little, is sluggish, and instead of pursuing by the ear, lurks, and springs on his prey by surprise.

219

225

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 thine!
"Twixt that and reason what a nice barrier!
For ever separate, yet for ever near!
Remembrance and reflection, how allied!
What thin partitions sense from thought divide!
And middle natures, how they long to join,
Yet never pass 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?
VIII. 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!
Vast chain of being! which from God began,
Natures 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
Were we to press, inferior might on ours;
Or in the full creation leave a void,

230

235

240

Where, one step broken, the great scale's destroy'd:

223 'Twixt that and reason what a nice barrier! So nice, that it is undiscoverable. The elephant and all the lower animals give evident signs of reasoning, and act generally as man would do in similar situations. Their reasoning faculty may be less vivid; but this is the only difference that we can discover. The essential distinction between man and brutes is the moral sense, the faculty of discerning between vice and virtue.

250

From nature's chain whatever link you strike,
Tenth or ten thousandth, 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 stars run lawless through the sky;
Let ruling angels from their spheres be hurl'd,
Being on being wreck'd, and world on world;
Heaven's whole foundations to their centre nod,
And nature trembles to the throne of God. 256
All this dread Order break-for whom? for thee?
Vile worm!-O, madness! pride! impiety!

Ix. What if the foot, ordain'd 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;

260

265

259 What if the foot. The idea is adopted from St. Paul, 1st Corinthians, cap. xii. who used it to reconcile the early converts to the diversity of the miraculous gifts; virtually equalising all, by showing that all were important to the general body of the church, and that man was responsible only according to what had been entrusted to him.

268 Whose body nature is, and God the soul. This unfortunate expression, taken in its literal sense, is Spinozism. Warburton, in defiance of the common meaning of language, denies that such is the purport of the words, while he admits that they are 'the words' of both Spinoza and his follower Toland: he

270

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 ;

Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part; 275
As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart;

As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns,
As the rapt seraph that adores and burns:
To Him no high, no low, no great, no small;
He fills, He bounds, connects, and equals all. 280
x. 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 bless'd 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;

285

All chance, direction, which thou canst not see; All discord, harmony not understood;

All partial evil, universal good:

And, spite of pride, in erring reason's spite,
One truth is clear;-whatever is, is right.

291

even goes the length of saying that they are the expression of St. Paul; and attempts to sustain this extravagant position, by the daring blunder of interpreting, 'In him we live, and move, and have our being,' into, we are parts of him! What Pope probably meant as no more than a general illustration of the divine energy, Warburton with unconscious profaneness erects into a doctrine of Scripture.

ARGUMENT OF EPISTLE II.

OF THE NATURE AND STATE OF MAN, WITH RESPECT TO HIMSELF AS AN INDIVIDUAL.

I. The business of man not to pry into God, but to study himself. His middle nature; his powers and frailties, v. 1 to 19. The limits of his capacity, v. 19, &c.-II. The two principles of man, self-love and reason, both necessary, v. 53, &c. Self-love the stronger, and why, v. 67, &c. Their end the same, v. 81, &c.-III. The passions, and their use, v. 93 to 130. The predominant passion, and its force, v. 132 to 160. Its necessity, in directing men to different purposes, v. 165, &c. Its providential use, in fixing our principle and 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 in it, v. 217.—VI. That, however, the ends of providence and general good are answered in our passions and imperfections, v. 238, &c. How usefully these are distributed to all orders of men, v. 241. How useful they are to society, v. 251. And to individuals, v. 263. In every state and every age of life, v. 273, &c.