An Essay on Man; Moral Essays and Satires

V.
Great Nature spoke; observant men obeyed;
Cities were built, societies were made: #200
Here rose one little state: another near
Grew by like means, and joined, through love or fear.
Did here the trees with ruddier burdens bend,
And there the streams in purer rills descend?
What war could ravish, commerce could bestow, #205
And he returned a friend, who came a foe.
Converse and love mankind might strongly draw,
When love was liberty, and Nature law.
Thus States were formed; the name of king unknown,
’Till common interest placed the sway in one. #210
’Twas virtue only (or in arts or arms,
Diffusing blessings, or averting harms)
The same which in a sire the sons obeyed,
A prince the father of a people made.

VI.
Till then, by Nature crowned, each patriarch sate, #215
King, priest, and parent of his growing state;
On him, their second providence, they hung,
Their law his eye, their oracle his tongue.
He from the wondering furrow called the food,
Taught to command the fire, control the flood, #220
Draw forth the monsters of the abyss profound,
Or fetch the aërial eagle to the ground.
Till drooping, sickening, dying they began
Whom they revered as God to mourn as man:
Then, looking up, from sire to sire, explored #225
One great first Father, and that first adored.
Or plain tradition that this all begun,
Conveyed unbroken faith from sire to son;
The worker from the work distinct was known,
And simple reason never sought but one: #230
Ere wit oblique had broke that steady light,
Man, like his Maker, saw that all was right;
To virtue, in the paths of pleasure, trod,
And owned a Father when he owned a God.
Love all the faith, and all the allegiance then; #235
For Nature knew no right divine in men,
No ill could fear in God; and understood
A sovereign being but a sovereign good.
True faith, true policy, united ran,
This was but love of God, and this of man. #240
   Who first taught souls enslaved, and realms undone,
The enormous faith of many made for one;
That proud exception to all Nature’s laws,
To invert the world, and counter-work its cause?
Force first made conquest, and that conquest, law; #245
Till superstition taught the tyrant awe,
Then shared the tyranny, then lent it aid,
And gods of conquerors, slaves of subjects made:
She, ’midst the lightning’s blaze, and thunder’s sound,
When rocked the mountains, and when groaned the ground, #250
She taught the weak to bend, the proud to pray,
To power unseen, and mightier far than they:
She, from the rending earth and bursting skies,
Saw gods descend, and fiends infernal rise:
Here fixed the dreadful, there the blest abodes; #255
Fear made her devils, and weak hope her gods;
Gods partial, changeful, passionate, unjust,
Whose attributes were rage, revenge, or lust;
Such as the souls of cowards might conceive,
And, formed like tyrants, tyrants would believe. #260
Zeal then, not charity, became the guide;
And hell was built on spite, and heaven on pride,
Then sacred seemed the ethereal vault no more;
Altars grew marble then, and reeked with gore;
Then first the flamen tasted living food; #265
Next his grim idol smeared with human blood;
With heaven’s own thunders shook the world below,
And played the god an engine on his foe.
   So drives self-love, through just and through unjust,
To one man’s power, ambition, lucre, lust: #270
The same self-love, in all, becomes the cause
Of what restrains him, government and laws.
For, what one likes if others like as well,
What serves one will when many wills rebel?
How shall he keep, what, sleeping or awake, #275
A weaker may surprise, a stronger take?
His safety must his liberty restrain:
All join to guard what each desires to gain.
Forced into virtue thus by self-defence,
Even kings learned justice and benevolence: #280
Self-love forsook the path it first pursued,
And found the private in the public good.
   ’Twas then, the studious head or generous mind,
Follower of God, or friend of human-kind,
Poet or patriot, rose but to restore #285
The faith and moral Nature gave before;
Re-lumed her ancient light, not kindled new;
If not God’s image, yet His shadow drew:
Taught power’s due use to people and to kings,
Taught nor to slack, nor strain its tender strings, #290
The less, or greater, set so justly true,
That touching one must strike the other too;
Till jarring interests, of themselves create
The according music of a well-mixed state.
Such is the world’s great harmony, that springs #295
From order, union, full consent of things:
Where small and great, where weak and mighty, made
To serve, not suffer, strengthen, not invade;
More powerful each as needful to the rest,
And, in proportion as it blesses, blest; #300
Draw to one point, and to one centre bring
Beast, man, or angel, servant, lord, or king.
   For forms of government let fools contest;
Whate’er is best administered is best:
For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight; #305
His can’t be wrong whose life is in the right:
In faith and hope the world will disagree,
But all mankind’s concern is charity:
All must be false that thwart this one great end;
And all of God, that bless mankind or mend. #310
   Man, like the generous vine, supported lives;
The strength he gains is from the embrace he gives.
On their own axis as the planets run,
Yet make at once their circle round the sun;
So two consistent motions act the soul; #315
And one regards itself, and one the whole.
   Thus God and Nature linked the general frame,
And bade self-love and social be the same.