All serv'd, all serving: nothing stands alone;

The chain holds on, and where it ends, unknown.

25

Has God, thou fool! work'd solely for thy good,
Thy joy, thy pastime, thy attire, thy food?
Who for thy table feeds the wanton fawn,

For him as kindly spread the flow'ry lawn:
Is it for thee the lark ascends and sings?
Joy tunes his voice, joy elevates his wings.
Is it for thee the linnet pours his throat?
Loves of his own and raptures swell the note.
The bounding steed you pompously bestride,
Shares with his lord the pleasure and the pride.
Is thine alone the seed that strews the plain?
The birds of Heav'n shall vindicate their grain.
Thine the full harvest of the golden year?
Part pays, and justly, the deserving steer:
The hog, that ploughs not, nor obeys thy call,
Lives on the labours of this Lord of all.

Know, Nature's children all divide her care;
The fur that warms a monarch, warm'd a bear.

30

35

40

NOTES.

son; which made an old schoolman say with great elegance, "Deus est anima brutorum:"

"In this 'tis God directs"

W.

Ver. 43. Know, Nature's children all] The poetry of these lines is as beautiful as the philosophy is solid. "They who imagine that all things in this world were made for the immediate use of Man alone, run themselves into inextricable difficulties. Man, indeed, is the head of this lower part of the creation; and perhaps it was designed to be absolutely under his command. But that all things here tend directly to his own use, is, I think, neither easy nor necessary to be proved. Some manifestly serve for the food and support of others, whose souls may be necessary to prepare and their bodies for that purpose, and may at the

preserve

While Man exclaims, "See all, things for my use!" "See man for mine!" replies a pamper'd goose: 46 And just as short of reason he must fall,

Who thinks all made for one, not one for all.

Grant that the pow'rful still the weak control; Be Man the Wit and Tyrant of the whole :

VARIATIONS.

After Ver. 46, in the former Editions,

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;
But as to Man, mistook the matter quite.

50

NOTES.

same time be happy in a consciousness of their own existence. It is probable they are intended to promote each other's good reciprocally: nay, Man himself contributes to the happiness, and betters the condition, of the brutes in several respects, by cultivating and improving the ground; by watching the seasons; by protecting and providing for them, when they are unable to protect and provide for themselves." These are the words of Dr. Law, in his learned Commentary on King's Origin of Evil, first published in Latin, 1701, a work of penetration and close reasoning; which, it is remarkable, Bayle had never read, but only some extracts from it, when he first wrote his famous article of the Paulicians, in his Dictionary.

Ver. 45. See all things for my use!] On the contrary, the wise man hath said, The Lord hath made all things for himself. Prov. xvi. 4. W.

Ver. 46. Replies a pamper'd goose:] Taken from Peter Charron; but such a familiar and burlesque image is improperly introduced among such solid and serious reflections.

Ver. 50. Be Man the Wit and Tyrant of the whole :] Alluding to the witty system of that Philosopher, which made animals mere Machines, insensible of pain or pleasure; and so encouraged Men in the exercise of that Tyranny over their fellow-creatures, consequent on such a principle. W.

55

Nature that Tyrant checks; He only knows,
And helps, another creature's wants and woes.
Say, will the falcon, stooping from above,
Smit with her varying plumage, spare the dove?
Admires the jay the insect's gilded wings?
Or hears the hawk when Philomela sings?
Man cares for all: to birds he gives his woods,
To beasts his pastures, and to fish his floods;
For some his int'rest prompts him to provide,
For more his Pleasure, yet for more his Pride: 60
All feed on one vain patron, and enjoy
Th' extensive blessing of his luxury.
That very life his learned hunger craves,

He saves from famine, from the savage saves ;
Nay, feasts the animal he dooms his feast,

And, till he ends the being, makes it blest;
Which sees no more the stroke, or feels the pain,
Than favour'd Man by touch ethereal slain.
The creature had his feast of life before;
Thou too must perish, when thy feast is o'er!

To each unthinking being, Heav'n a friend,
Gives not the useless knowledge of its end :
To Man imparts it, but with such a view
As, while he dreads it, makes him hope it too:

NOTES.

65

70

Ver. 51. Nature that Tyrant checks ;] What an exquisite assemblage is here (down to Ver. 70) of deep reflection, humane sentiments, and poetic imagery! It is finely observed, that compassion is exclusively the property of Man alone.

Ver. 68. Than favour'd Man, &c.] 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 Hea

Ver. 68. By touch ethereal slain.] The expression is from Milton's Comus.

EPISTLE III.

The hour conceal'd, and so remote the fear,
Death still draws nearer, never seeming near.
Great standing miracle! that Heav'n assign'd
Its only thinking thing this turn of mind.

II. Whether with Reason or with Instinct blest, Know, all enjoy that pow'r which suits them best; 80 To bliss alike by that direction tend,

And find the means proportion'd to their end.
Say, where full Instinct is th' unerring guide,
What Pope or Council can they need beside?
Reason, however able, cool at best,

Cares not for service, or but serves when prest,
Stays till we call, and then not often near;
But honest Instinct comes a volunteer,
Sure never to o'ershoot, but just to hit;

While still too wide or short is human Wit;
Sure by quick Nature happiness to gain,
Which heavier Reason labours at in vain.
This too serves always, Reason never long;
One must go right, the other may go wrong.
See then the acting and comparing pow'rs
One in their nature, which are two in ours;
And Reason raise o'er Instinct as you can,
In this 'tis God directs, in that 'tis Man.

85

90

95

VARIATIONS.

After Ver. 84 in the MS.

While Man, with op'ning views of various ways
Confounded, by the aid of Knowledge strays.
Too weak to choose, yet choosing still in haste,
One moment gives the pleasure and distaste.

NOTES.

Ver. 97. And Reason raise o'er Instinct] Charron, of whom

Who taught the nations of the field and wood To shun their poison, and to choose their food? 100

NOTES.

Pope and Bolingbroke were so fond, has treated this subject with so much freedom of thought, and endeavoured to raise Instinct so much above Reason, that Stanhope, his translator, deemed it necessary to obviate the tendency of his tenets, by a long Appendix to the 34th chapter of the first book. It appears a little strange, that so orthodox a divine as Stanhope should translate two books that are supposed to favour libertinism and scepticism-the Wisdom of Charron and the Maxims of Rochefoucault. Bayle has stated the difficulties, that arise in accounting for the actions of brutes, with his usual acuteness and force of argument.

66

Hume has gone farther than any other writer on the subject; Though animals," he says, "learn many parts of their knowledge from observation and experience, there are also many parts of it which they derive from the original hand of Nature, which much exceed the share of capacity they possess on ordinary occasions, and in which they improve little or nothing by the longest practice and experience. These we denominate Instincts, and are so apt to admire as something very extraordinary and inexplicable by all the disquisitions of human understanding. But our wonder will perhaps cease or diminish, when we consider that the experimental reasoning itself, which we possess in common with beasts, and on which the whole conduct of life depends, is nothing but a species of Instinct, or mechanical power, that acts in us unknown to ourselves; and, in its chief operations, is not directed by any such relations or comparisons of ideas as are the proper objects of our intellectual faculties. Though the Instinct be different, yet still it is an Instinct which teaches a man to avoid the fire; as much as that which teaches a bird with such exactness the art of incubation, and the whole economy and order of its nursery." Of the Reason of Animals, Essay, p. 432.

Father Bougeant's little treatise on the Language of Beasts is an amusing work; in which he has placed the notion of Des Cartes, that they are mere machines, in a strong light, as well as the difficulties that arise from the opinion of their having immortal souls. Bougeant was severely censured by his brother jesuits for this little work. He had better have kept to politics.