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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=448942" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>A Satyre Against Mankind</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Were I - who to my cost already am<br>One of those strange, prodigious creatures, man -<br>A spirit free to choose for my own share<br>What sort of flesh and blood I pleased to wear,<br>I'd be a dog, a monkey, or a bear,<br>Or anything but that vain animal,<br>Who is so proud of being rational.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">His senses are too gross; and he'll contrive<br>A sixth, to contradict the other five;<br>And before certain instinct will prefer<br>Reason, which fifty times for one does err.<br>Reason, an ignis fatuus of the mind,<br>Which leaving light of nature, sense, behind,<br>Pathless and dangerous wand'ring ways it takes,<br>Through Error's fenny bogs and thorny brakes;<br>Whilst the misguided follower climbs with pain<br>Mountains of whimseys, heaped in his own brain;<br>Stumbling from thought to thought, falls headlong down,<br>Into Doubt's boundless sea where, like to drown,<br>Books bear him up awhile, and make him try<br>To swim with bladders of Philosophy;<br>In hopes still to o'ertake the escaping light;<br>The vapour dances, in his dancing sight,<br>Till spent, it leaves him to eternal night.<br>Then old age and experience, hand in hand,<br>Lead him to death, make him to understand,<br>After a search so painful, and so long,<br>That all his life he has been in the wrong:</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Huddled In dirt the reasoning engine lies,<br>Who was so proud, so witty, and so wise.<br>Pride drew him in, as cheats their bubbles catch,<br>And made him venture; to be made a wretch.<br>His wisdom did has happiness destroy,<br>Aiming to know that world he should enjoy;<br>And Wit was his vain, frivolous pretence<br>Of pleasing others, at his own expense.<br>For wits are treated just like common whores,<br>First they're enjoyed, and then kicked out of doors;<br>The pleasure past, a threatening doubt remains,<br>That frights th' enjoyer with succeeding pains:<br>Women and men of wit are dangerous tools,<br>And ever fatal to admiring fools.<br>Pleasure allures, and when the fops escape,<br>'Tis not that they're beloved, but fortunate,<br>And therefore what they fear, at heart they hate:</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But now, methinks some formal band and beard<br>Takes me to task; come on sir, I'm prepared:</div><div style="margin:10px 0">&quot;Then by your Favour, anything that's writ<br>Against this jibing, jingling knack called Wit<br>Likes me abundantly: but you take care<br>Upon this point not to be too severe.<br>Perhaps my Muse were fitter for this part,<br>For I profess I can be very smart<br>On Wit, which I abhor with all my heart;<br>I long to lash it in some sharp essay,<br>But your grand indiscretion bids me stay,<br>And turns my tide of ink another way.<br>What rage Torments in your degenerate mind,<br>To make you rail at reason, and mankind<br>Blessed glorious man! To whom alone kind heaven<br>An everlasting soul hath freely given;<br>Whom his great maker took such care to make,<br>That from himself he did the image take;<br>And this fair frame in shining reason dressed,<br>To dignify his nature above beast.<br>Reason, by whose aspiring influence<br>We take a flight beyond material sense,<br>Dive into mysteries, then soaring pierce<br>The flaming limits of the universe,<br>Search heaven and hell, Find out what's acted there,<br>And give the world true grounds of hope and fear.&quot;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Hold mighty man, I cry, all this we know,<br>From the pathetic pen of Ingelo;<br>From Patrlck's Pilgrim, Sibbes' Soliloquies,<br>And 'tis this very reason I despise,<br>This supernatural gift that makes a mite<br>Think he's an image of the infinite;<br>Comparing his short life, void of all rest,<br>To the eternal, and the ever-blessed.<br>This busy, pushing stirrer-up of doubt,<br>That frames deep mysteries, then finds them out;<br>Filling with frantic crowds of thinking fools<br>The reverend bedlam's, colleges and schools;<br>Borne on whose wings each heavy sot can pierce<br>The limits of the boundless universe;<br>So charming ointments make an old witch fly,<br>And bear a crippled carcass through the sky.<br>'Tis the exalted power whose business lies<br>In nonsense and impossibilities.<br>This made a whimsical philosopher<br>Before the spacious world his tub prefer,<br>And we have modern cloistered coxcombs, who<br>Retire to think 'cause they have nought to do.<br>But thoughts are given for action's government;<br>Where action ceases, thought's impertinent:<br>Our sphere of action is life's happiness,<br>And he that thinks beyond thinks like an ass.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Thus, whilst against false reasoning I inveigh.<br>I own right reason, which I would obey:<br>That reason which distinguishes by sense,<br>And gives us rules of good and ill from thence;<br>That bounds desires. with a reforming will<br>To keep 'em more in vigour, not to kill. -<br>Your reason hinders, mine helps to enjoy,<br>Renewing appetites yours would destroy.<br>My reason is my friend, yours is a cheat,<br>Hunger calls out, my reason bids me eat;<br>Perversely. yours your appetite does mock:<br>This asks for food, that answers, 'what's o'clock'<br>This plain distinction, sir, your doubt secures,<br>'Tis not true reason I despise, but yours.<br>Thus I think reason righted, but for man,<br>I'll ne'er recant, defend him if you can:<br>For all his pride, and his philosophy,<br>'Tis evident: beasts are in their own degree<br>As wise at least, and better far than he.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Those creatures are the wisest who attain. -<br>By surest means. the ends at which they aim.<br>If therefore Jowler finds and kills the hares,<br>Better than Meres supplies committee chairs;<br>Though one's a statesman, th' other but a hound,<br>Jowler in justice would be wiser found.<br>You see how far man's wisdom here extends.<br>Look next if human nature makes amends;<br>Whose principles are most generous and just,<br>- And to whose morals you would sooner trust:</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Be judge yourself, I'll bring it to the test,<br>Which is the basest creature, man or beast<br>Birds feed on birds, beasts on each other prey,<br>But savage man alone does man betray:<br>Pressed by necessity; they kill for food,<br>Man undoes man, to do himself no good.<br>With teeth and claws, by nature armed, they hunt<br>Nature's allowance, to supply their want.<br>But man, with smiles, embraces. friendships. Praise,<br>Inhumanely his fellow's life betrays;<br>With voluntary pains works his distress,<br>Not through necessity, but wantonness.<br>For hunger or for love they bite, or tear,<br>Whilst wretched man is still in arms for fear.<br>For fear he arms, and is of arms afraid:<br>From fear, to fear, successively betrayed.<br>Base fear, the source whence his best passions came.<br>His boasted honour, and his dear-bought fame.<br>The lust of power, to whom he's such a slave,<br>And for the which alone he dares be brave;<br>To which his various projects are designed,<br>Which makes him generous, affable, and kind.<br>For which he takes such pains to be thought wise,<br>And screws his actions, in a forced disguise;<br>Leads a most tedious life in misery,<br>Under laborious, mean hypocrisy.<br>Look to the bottom of his vast design,<br>Wherein man's wisdom, power, and glory join:<br>The good he acts. the ill he does endure.<br>'Tis all from fear, to make himself secure.<br>Merely for safety after fame they thirst,<br>For all men would be cowards if they durst.<br>And honesty's against all common sense,<br>Men must be knaves, 'tis in their own defence.<br>Mankind's dishonest: if you think it fair<br>Among known cheats to play upon the square,<br>You'll be undone.<br>Nor can weak truth your reputation save,<br>The knaves will all agree to call you knave.<br>Wronged shall he live, insulted o'er, oppressed,<br>Who dares be less a villain than the rest.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Thus sir, you see what human nature craves,<br>Most men are cowards, all men should be knaves;<br>The difference lies, as far as I can see.<br>Not in the thing itself, but the degree;<br>And all the subject matter of debate<br>Is only, who's a knave of the first rate</div><div style="margin:10px 0">All this with indignation have I hurled<br>At the pretending part of the proud world,<br>Who, swollen with selfish vanity, devise,<br>False freedoms, holy cheats, and formal lies,<br>Over their fellow slaves to tyrannise.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But if in Court so just a man there be,<br>(In Court, a just man - yet unknown to me)<br>Who does his needful flattery direct<br>Not to oppress and ruin, but protect:<br>Since flattery, which way soever laid,<br>Is still a tax: on that unhappy trade.<br>If so upright a statesman you can find,<br>Whose passions bend to his unbiased mind,<br>Who does his arts and policies apply<br>To raise his country, not his family;<br>Nor while his pride owned avarice withstands,<br>Receives close bribes, from friends corrupted hands.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Is there a churchman who on God relies<br>Whose life, his faith and doctrine justifies<br>Not one blown up, with vain prelatic pride,<br>Who for reproofs of sins does man deride;<br>Whose envious heart makes preaching a pretence<br>With his obstreperous, saucy eloquence,<br>To chide at kings, and rail at men of sense;<br>Who from his pulpit vents more peevlsh lies,<br>More bitter railings, scandals, calumnies,<br>Than at a gossiping are thrown about<br>When the good wives get drunk, and then fall out.<br>None of that sensual tribe, whose talents lie<br>In avarice, pride, sloth, and gluttony.<br>Who hunt good livings; but abhor good lives,<br>Whose lust exalted, to that height arrives,<br>They act adultery with their own wives.<br>And ere a score of years completed be,<br>Can from the loftiest pulpit proudly see,<br>Half a large parish their own progeny.<br>Nor doting bishop, who would be adored<br>For domineering at the Council board;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">A greater fop, in business at fourscore,<br>Fonder of serious toys, affected more,<br>Than the gay, glittering fool at twenty proves,<br>With all his noise, his tawdry clothes and loves.<br>But a meek, humble man, of honest sense,<br>Who preaching peace does practise continence;<br>Whose pious life's a proof he does believe<br>Mysterious truths which no man can conceive.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">If upon Earth there dwell such god-like men,<br>I'll here recant my paradox to them,<br>Adores those shrines of virtue, homage pay,<br>And with the rabble world their laws obey.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">If such there are, yet grant me this at least,<br>Man differs more from man than man from beast.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Lord+John+Wilmot">Lord John Wilmot</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=448942" data-title="A Satyre Against Mankind de Lord John Wilmot" data-description="Were I - who to my cost already am
One of those strange, prodigious creatures, man -
A spirit free to choose for my own share
What sort of flesh and blood I pleased to wear,
I'd be a dog, a monkey, or a bear,
Or anything but that vain animal,
Who ..."></div>
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