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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=341048" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>An Essay on Man: Epistle II</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">I. <br>Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; <br>The proper study of mankind is man. <br>Plac'd on this isthmus of a middle state, <br>A being darkly wise, and rudely great: <br>With too much knowledge for the sceptic side, <br>With too much weakness for the stoic's pride, <br>He hangs between; in doubt to act, or rest; <br>In doubt to deem himself a god, or beast; <br>In doubt his mind or body to prefer; <br>Born but to die, and reas'ning but to err; <br>Alike in ignorance, his reason such, <br>Whether he thinks too little, or too much: <br>Chaos of thought and passion, all confus'd; <br>Still by himself abus'd, or disabus'd; <br>Created half to rise, and half to fall; <br>Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all; <br>Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurl'd: <br>The glory, jest, and riddle of the world! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Go, wondrous creature! mount where science guides, <br>Go, measure earth, weigh air, and state the tides; <br>Instruct the planets in what orbs to run, <br>Correct old time, and regulate the sun; <br>Go, soar with Plato to th' empyreal sphere, <br>To the first good, first perfect, and first fair; <br>Or tread the mazy round his follow'rs trod, <br>And quitting sense call imitating God; <br>As Eastern priests in giddy circles run, <br>And turn their heads to imitate the sun. <br>Go, teach Eternal Wisdom how to rule— <br>Then drop into thyself, and be a fool! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Superior beings, when of late they saw <br>A mortal Man unfold all Nature's law, <br>Admir'd such wisdom in an earthly shape, <br>And showed a Newton as we shew an Ape. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Could he, whose rules the rapid comet bind, <br>Describe or fix one movement of his mind? <br>Who saw its fires here rise, and there descend, <br>Explain his own beginning, or his end? <br>Alas what wonder! Man's superior part <br>Uncheck'd may rise, and climb from art to art; <br>But when his own great work is but begun, <br>What Reason weaves, by Passion is undone. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Trace science then, with modesty thy guide; <br>First strip off all her equipage of pride; <br>Deduct what is but vanity, or dress, <br>Or learning's luxury, or idleness; <br>Or tricks to show the stretch of human brain, <br>Mere curious pleasure, or ingenious pain; <br>Expunge the whole, or lop th' excrescent parts <br>Of all our Vices have created Arts; <br>Then see how little the remaining sum, <br>Which serv'd the past, and must the times to come! </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>II. <br>Two principles in human nature reign; <br>Self-love, to urge, and reason, to restrain; <br>Nor this a good, nor that a bad we call, <br>Each works its end, to move or govern all: <br>And to their proper operation still, <br>Ascribe all good; to their improper, ill. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Self-love, the spring of motion, acts the soul; <br>Reason's comparing balance rules the whole. <br>Man, but for that, no action could attend, <br>And but for this, were active to no end: <br>Fix'd like a plant on his peculiar spot, <br>To draw nutrition, propagate, and rot; <br>Or, meteor-like, flame lawless through the void, <br>Destroying others, by himself destroy'd. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Most strength the moving principle requires; <br>Active its task, it prompts, impels, inspires. <br>Sedate and quiet the comparing lies, <br>Form'd but to check, delib'rate, and advise. <br>Self-love still stronger, as its objects nigh; <br>Reason's at distance, and in prospect lie: <br>That sees immediate good by present sense; <br>Reason, the future and the consequence. <br>Thicker than arguments, temptations throng, <br>At best more watchful this, but that more strong. <br>The action of the stronger to suspend, <br>Reason still use, to reason still attend. <br>Attention, habit and experience gains; <br>Each strengthens reason, and self-love restrains. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Let subtle schoolmen teach these friends to fight, <br>More studious to divide than to unite, <br>And grace and virtue, sense and reason split, <br>With all the rash dexterity of wit: <br>Wits, just like fools, at war about a name, <br>Have full as oft no meaning, or the same. <br>Self-love and reason to one end aspire, <br>Pain their aversion, pleasure their desire; <br>But greedy that its object would devour, <br>This taste the honey, and not wound the flow'r: <br>Pleasure, or wrong or rightly understood, <br>Our greatest evil, or our greatest good. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>III. <br>Modes of self-love the passions we may call: <br>'Tis real good, or seeming, moves them all: <br>But since not every good we can divide, <br>And reason bids us for our own provide; <br>Passions, though selfish, if their means be fair, <br>List under reason, and deserve her care; <br>Those, that imparted, court a nobler aim, <br>Exalt their kind, and take some virtue's name. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">In lazy apathy let Stoics boast <br>Their virtue fix'd, 'tis fix'd as in a frost; <br>Contracted all, retiring to the breast; <br>But strength of mind is exercise, not rest: <br>The rising tempest puts in act the soul, <br>Parts it may ravage, but preserves the whole. <br>On life's vast ocean diversely we sail, <br>Reason the card, but passion is the gale; <br>Nor God alone in the still calm we find, <br>He mounts the storm, and walks upon the wind. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Passions, like elements, though born to fight, <br>Yet, mix'd and soften'd, in his work unite: <br>These 'tis enough to temper and employ; <br>But what composes man, can man destroy? <br>Suffice that reason keep to nature's road, <br>Subject, compound them, follow her and God. <br>Love, hope, and joy, fair pleasure's smiling train, <br>Hate, fear, and grief, the family of pain, <br>These mix'd with art, and to due bounds confin'd, <br>Make and maintain the balance of the mind: <br>The lights and shades, whose well accorded strife <br>Gives all the strength and colour of our life. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Pleasures are ever in our hands or eyes, <br>And when in act they cease, in prospect, rise: <br>Present to grasp, and future still to find, <br>The whole employ of body and of mind. <br>All spread their charms, but charm not all alike; <br>On diff'rent senses diff'rent objects strike; <br>Hence diff'rent passions more or less inflame, <br>As strong or weak, the organs of the frame; <br>And hence one master passion in the breast, <br>Like Aaron's serpent, swallows up the rest. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">As man, perhaps, the moment of his breath, <br>Receives the lurking principle of death; <br>The young disease, that must subdue at length, <br>Grows with his growth, and strengthens with his strength: <br>So, cast and mingled with his very frame, <br>The mind's disease, its ruling passion came; <br>Each vital humour which should feed the whole, <br>Soon flows to this, in body and in soul. <br>Whatever warms the heart, or fills the head, <br>As the mind opens, and its functions spread, <br>Imagination plies her dang'rous art, <br>And pours it all upon the peccant part. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Nature its mother, habit is its nurse; <br>Wit, spirit, faculties, but make it worse; <br>Reason itself but gives it edge and pow'r; <br>As Heav'n's blest beam turns vinegar more sour. <br>We, wretched subjects, though to lawful sway, <br>In this weak queen some fav'rite still obey: <br>Ah! if she lend not arms, as well as rules, <br>What can she more than tell us we are fools? <br>Teach us to mourn our nature, not to mend, <br>A sharp accuser, but a helpless friend! <br>Or from a judge turn pleader, to persuade <br>The choice we make, or justify it made; <br>Proud of an easy conquest all along, <br>She but removes weak passions for the strong: <br>So, when small humours gather to a gout, <br>The doctor fancies he has driv'n them out. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Yes, nature's road must ever be preferr'd; <br>Reason is here no guide, but still a guard: <br>'Tis hers to rectify, not overthrow, <br>And treat this passion more as friend than foe: <br>A mightier pow'r the strong direction sends, <br>And sev'ral men impels to sev'ral ends. <br>Like varying winds, by other passions toss'd, <br>This drives them constant to a certain coast. <br>Let pow'r or knowledge, gold or glory, please, <br>Or (oft more strong than all) the love of ease; <br>Through life 'tis followed, ev'n at life's expense; <br>The merchant's toil, the sage's indolence, <br>The monk's humility, the hero's pride, <br>All, all alike, find reason on their side. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Th' eternal art educing good from ill, <br>Grafts on this passion our best principle: <br>'Tis thus the mercury of man is fix'd, <br>Strong grows the virtue with his nature mix'd; <br>The dross cements what else were too refin'd, <br>And in one interest body acts with mind. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">As fruits, ungrateful to the planter's care, <br>On savage stocks inserted, learn to bear; <br>The surest virtues thus from passions shoot, <br>Wild nature's vigor working at the root. <br>What crops of wit and honesty appear <br>From spleen, from obstinacy, hate, or fear! <br>See anger, zeal and fortitude supply; <br>Ev'n av'rice, prudence; sloth, philosophy; <br>Lust, through some certain strainers well refin'd, <br>Is gentle love, and charms all womankind; <br>Envy, to which th' ignoble mind's a slave, <br>Is emulation in the learn'd or brave; <br>Nor virtue, male or female, can we name, <br>But what will grow on pride, or grow on shame. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Thus nature gives us (let it check our pride) <br>The virtue nearest to our vice allied: <br>Reason the byass turns to good from ill, <br>And Nero reigns a Titus, if he will. <br>The fiery soul abhorr'd in Catiline, <br>In Decius charms, in Curtius is divine: <br>The same ambition can destroy or save, <br>And make a patriot as it makes a knave. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>IV. <br>This light and darkness in our chaos join'd, <br>What shall divide? The God within the mind. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Extremes in nature equal ends produce, <br>In man they join to some mysterious use; <br>Though each by turns the other's bound invade, <br>As, in some well-wrought picture, light and shade, <br>And oft so mix, the diff'rence is too nice <br>Where ends the virtue, or begins the vice. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Fools! who from hence into the notion fall, <br>That vice or virtue there is none at all. <br>If white and black blend, soften, and unite <br>A thousand ways, is there no black or white? <br>Ask your own heart, and nothing is so plain; <br>'Tis to mistake them, costs the time and pain. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>V. <br>Vice is a monster of so frightful mien, <br>As, to be hated, needs but to be seen; <br>Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face, <br>We first endure, then pity, then embrace. <br>But where th' extreme of vice, was ne'er agreed: <br>Ask where's the North? at York, 'tis on the Tweed; <br>In Scotland, at the Orcades; and there, <br>At Greenland, Zembla, or the Lord knows where: <br>No creature owns it in the first degree, <br>But thinks his neighbour farther gone than he! <br>Ev'n those who dwell beneath its very zone, <br>Or never feel the rage, or never own; <br>What happier natures shrink at with affright, <br>The hard inhabitant contends is right. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>VI. <br>Virtuous and vicious ev'ry man must be, <br>Few in th' extreme, but all in the degree; <br>The rogue and fool by fits is fair and wise; <br>And ev'n the best, by fits, what they despise. <br>'Tis but by parts we follow good or ill, <br>For, vice or virtue, self directs it still; <br>Each individual seeks a sev'ral goal; <br>But heav'n's great view is one, and that the whole: <br>That counterworks each folly and caprice; <br>That disappoints th' effect of ev'ry vice; <br>That, happy frailties to all ranks applied, <br>Shame to the virgin, to the matron pride, <br>Fear to the statesman, rashness to the chief, <br>To kings presumption, and to crowds belief, <br>That, virtue's ends from vanity can raise, <br>Which seeks no int'rest, no reward but praise; <br>And build on wants, and on defects of mind, <br>The joy, the peace, the glory of mankind. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Heav'n forming each on other to depend, <br>A master, or a servant, or a friend, <br>Bids each on other for assistance call, <br>'Till one man's weakness grows the strength of all. <br>Wants, frailties, passions, closer still ally <br>The common int'rest, or endear the tie: <br>To these we owe true friendship, love sincere, <br>Each home-felt joy that life inherits here; <br>Yet from the same we learn, in its decline, <br>Those joys, those loves, those int'rests to resign; <br>Taught half by reason, half by mere decay, <br>To welcome death, and calmly pass away. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Whate'er the passion, knowledge, fame, or pelf, <br>Not one will change his neighbour with himself. <br>The learn'd is happy nature to explore, <br>The fool is happy that he knows no more; <br>The rich is happy in the plenty giv'n, <br>The poor contents him with the care of heav'n. <br>See the blind beggar dance, the cripple sing, <br>The sot a hero, lunatic a king; <br>The starving chemist in his golden views <br>Supremely blest, the poet in his Muse. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">See some strange comfort ev'ry state attend, <br>And pride bestow'd on all, a common friend; <br>See some fit passion ev'ry age supply, <br>Hope travels through, nor quits us when we die. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Behold the child, by nature's kindly law, <br>Pleas'd with a rattle, tickl'd with a straw: <br>Some livelier plaything gives his youth delight, <br>A little louder, but as empty quite: <br>Scarfs, garters, gold, amuse his riper stage, <br>And beads and pray'r books are the toys of age: <br>Pleas'd with this bauble still, as that before; <br>'Till tir'd he sleeps, and life's poor play is o'er! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Meanwhile opinion gilds with varying rays <br>Those painted clouds that beautify our days; <br>Each want of happiness by hope supplied, <br>And each vacuity of sense by Pride: <br>These build as fast as knowledge can destroy; <br>In folly's cup still laughs the bubble, joy; <br>One prospect lost, another still we gain; <br>And not a vanity is giv'n in vain; <br>Ev'n mean self-love becomes, by force divine, <br>The scale to measure others' wants by thine. <br>See! and confess, one comfort still must rise, <br>'Tis this: Though man's a fool, yet God is wise.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Alexander+Pope">Alexander Pope</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=341048" data-title="An Essay on Man: Epistle II de Alexander Pope" data-description="I. 
Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; 
The proper study of mankind is man. 
Plac'd on this isthmus of a middle state, 
A being darkly wise, and rudely great: 
With too much knowledge for the sceptic side, 
With too much weakness for the ..."></div>
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