The bliss of Man (could Pride that blessing find)
Is, not to think, or act, beyond Mankind;
No pow’rs of Body or of Soul to share,
But what his Nature and his State can bear.
Why has not Man a microscopic eye?
For this plain reason, Man is not a Fly.
Say what the use, were finer opticks giv'n,
T’ inspect a Mite, not comprehend the Heav’n?
Or Touch, if tremblingly alive all o’er,
To smart, and agonize at ev’ry pore?
Or keen Effluvia darting thro’ the brain,
Die of a Rose, in aromatic pain?
If Nature thunder'd in his opening ears,
And stunn’d him with the music of the Spheres,
How would he wish that Heav'n had left him still
The whisp’ring Zephyr, and the purling rill?
Who finds not Providence all-good and wise,
Alike in what it gives, and what denies?
*
See, thro’ 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 pow’rs
Were we to press, inferior might on ours;
Or in the full Creation leave a Void,
Where, one step broken, the great Scale’s destroy’d:
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 th’ amazing Whole;
The least confusion but in one, not all
That System only, but the whole must fall.
Let Earth unbalanc’d from her Orbit fly,
Planets and Suns rush lawless thro’ the sky,
Let ruling Angels from their spheres be hurl’d,
Being on Being wreck’d, and World on World,
Heav'ns whole foundations to their Centre nod,
And Nature tremble, to the Throne of God.
All this dread ORDER break – For whom? for thee,
Vile Worm! – O Madness! Pride! Impiety!
*
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 stoic’s pride,
He hangs between; in doubt to act, or rest;
In doubt to deem himself a god, or beast;
In doubt his mind or body to prefer;
Born but to die, and reas'ning but to err;
Alike in ignorance, his reason such,
Whether he thinks too little, or too much:
Chaos of thought and passion, all confus’d;
Still by himself abus’d, or disabus’d;
Created half to rise, and half to fall;
Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all;
Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurl’d:
The glory, jest, and riddle of the world!
Alexander Pope, 1668-1744 – “An Essay on Man” from The Major Works
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