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Freed from the putrid seeds of pain and death,
That living creatures might not, by their breath,
Through their warm veins, instead of vital food,
Disperse contagion, and corrupt their blood.
Without the wind, the ship were made in vain,
Adventurous merchants could not cross the main,
Nor sever'd realms their gainful trade maintain.
Then with this wise reflection you disturb
Your anxious thought, that our terrestrial orb
In many parts is not by man possest,

With too much heat, or too much cold, opprest.
But in mistake you this objection found:
Lunumber'd isles and spacious tracts of ground,
Which feel the scorching Sun's directer beam,
And did to you inhospitable seem,

With tawny nations, or with black, abound,
With noble rivers lav'd, with plenty crown'd;
And regions too from the bright orb remote
Are peopled, which you unfrequented thought.
But could Lucretius on the Sun reflect,
His proper distance from the Earth respect,
Observe his constant road, his equal pace,
His round diurna!, and his annual race;
Could he regard the nature of the light,
Its beauteous lustre, and its rapid flight,
And its relation to the sense of sight;
Could he to all these miracles advert,
And not in all perceive one stroke of art?
Grant, that the motions of the Sun are such,
That some have light too little, some too much;
Grant, that in different tracts he might have roll'd,
And given each clime more equal heat and cold:
Yet view the revolutions, as they are,
Does there no wisdom, no design app ar?
Could any but a knowing, prudent Cause
Begin such motions, and assign such laws?
If the Great Mind hat form'd a different frame,
Might not your wanton wit the system blame?
Though here you all perfection should not find,
Yet is it all th' Eternal Will design'd:

It is a finish'd world, and perfect in its kind.
Not that its regions every charm include,
With which celestial empires are endued;
Nor is consummate goodness here conferr'd,
If we perfection absolute regard;
But what's before asserted, we repeat,
Of the vast whole it is a part complete.

But since you are displeas'd the partial Sun
Is not indulgent to the frigid zone;
Suppose more suns in proper orbits roll'd,
Dissolv'd the snows, and chas'd the polar cold ;
Or grant that this revolv'd in such a way,
As equal heat to all he might convey,
And give the distant poles their share of day;
Observe how prudent Nature's icy board,
With all her nitrous stores, would be devour'd;
Then would unbalanc'd heat licentious reign,
Crack the dry hill, and chap the russet plain;
Her moisture all exhal'd, the cleaving Earth
Would yield to fruit, and bear no verdant birth.
You of the pools and spacious lakes complain,
And of the liquid deserts of the main,
As hurtful these, or useless, you arraign.

Besides the pleasure which the lakes afford, Are not their waves with fish delicious stor'd? Does not the wide capacious deep the sky With dewy clouds, the Earth with rain, supply? Do not the rivers, which the valley lave, Creep through the secret subterranean cave, And to the hills convey the refluent wave?

You then must own the Earth the ocean needs,
Which thus the lake recruits, the fountain feeds.
The noxious plant, and savage animal,
Which you the Earth's reproach and blemish
call,

Are useful various ways; if not for food,
For manufactures or for medicine good.
Thus we repel with reason, not evade,
The bold objections by Lucretius made.

Pyrrhonians next, of like ambitious aim,
Wanton of wit, and panting after fame,
Who strove to sink the sects of chief renown,
And on their ruin'd schools to raise their own;
Boldly presum'd, with rhetorician pride,
To hold of any question either side.
They thought, in every subject of debate,
In either scale the proof of equal weight.
Ask, if a God existent they allow?
The vain declaimers wiH attempt to show,
That, whether you renounce him, or assert,
There's no superior proof on either part.

Suppose a God, we must," say they, "conclude
He lives; if so, he is with sense endued;
And, if with sense endued, may pain perceive,
And what can suffer pain may cease to live."
Pyrrhonians, we a living God adore,
An unexhausted spring of vital power;
But his immortal, uncreated life,
No torment feels, and no destructive grief.
Does he by different organs taste or hear?
Or by an eye do things to him appear?
Has he a muscle, or extended nerve,
Which to impart or pain or pleasure serve?
Of all perfection possible possest,

He finds no want, nor is with woe opprest.
Though we can ne'er explore the life divine,
And sound the blest abyss by reason's line,
Yet 'tis not, mortal man, a transient life, like
thine.

Others, to whom the whole mechanic tribe
With an harmonious sympathy subscribe,
Nature with empire universal crown,
And this high queen the world's Creator own.
If you what builder rear'd the world demand,
They say 'twas done by Nature's powerful hand;
If whence its order and its beauty rose,
Nature, they say, did so the frame dispose;
If what its steady motions does maintain,
And holds of causes and effects the chain,
O'er all her works this Sovereign Cause presides,
Upholds the orbs, and all their motions guides.
Since to her bounty we such blessings owe,
Our generous Benefactor let us know.
When the word Nature you express, declare,
Form'd in your minds what image does appear?
Can you that term of doubtful sound explain?
Show it no idle offspring of the brain?

Sometimes by Nature your enlighten'd school Intends of things the universal whole; Sometimes it is the order that connects, And holds the cain of causes and effects: Sometimes it is the manner and the way, In which those causes do their force convey, And in effects their energy display. That she's the work itself, you oft assert, As oft' th' artificer, as oft the art, That is, that we may Nature clearly trace, And by her marks distinctly know her face; She's now the building, now the architect, And now the rule which does his hand direct.

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But let this empress be whate'er you please;
Let her be all or any one of these;
She is with reason, or she's not, endu'd:
If you the first affirm, we thence conclude
A God, whose being you oppose, you grant:
But if this mighty queen does reason want,
How could this noble fabric be design'd,
And fashion'd by a Maker brute and blind?
Could it of art such miracles invent,

And raise a beauteous world of such extent ?
Still at the helm does this dark pilot stand,
And with a steady, never-crring hand,
Steer all the floating worlds, and their set course
command?

That clearer strokes of masterly design,
Of wise contrivance, and of judgment, shine
In all the parts of Nature, we assert,
Than in the brightest works of human art:
And shall not those be judg'd th' effect of thought,
As well as these with skill inferior wrought!
Let such a sphere to India be convey'd,
As Archimede or modern Hugens made;
Will not the Indian, though untaught and rude,
This work th' effect of wise design conclude ?
Is there such skill in imitation shown?
And in the things, we imitate, is none!
Are not our arts, by artful Nature taught,
With pain and careful observation sought?

Behold the painter, who with Nature vies:
See his whole soul exerted in his eyes!
He views her various scenes, intent to trace
The master lines, that form'd her finish'd face:
Are thought and conduct in the copy clear,
While none in all th' original appear?

Tell us, what master, for mechanics fattı'd,
Has one machine so admirably fram'd,
Where you will art in such perfection grant,
As in a living creature or a plant?
Declare, what curious workmanship can vie
Or with a hand or foot, an eaf, or eye?
That can for skill as much applause deserve,
As the fine texture of the fibrous nerve;
Or the stupendous system, which contains
Th' arterial channels, or the winding veins ?
What artificial frame, what instrument,
Did one superior gchius yet invent,
Which to the bones or muscles is preferr'd,
If you their order, form, or use, regard?
Why then to works of Nature is assign'd
An Author unintelligent and blind,
When ours proceed from choice and conscious
mind?

To this you say, that "Nature's are indeed
Most artful works, but then they ne'er proceed
From Nature acting with design and art,
Who, void of choice, her vigour does exert ;
And by unguided motion things produce,
Regardless of their order, end, or use."
By Tully's mouth thus Cotta does dispute,
But thus, with ease, the Roman we confute.

Say, if in artful things no art is shown,
What are the certain marks, that make it known?
How will you artful from unartful bound,
And not th' ideas in our mind confound?
Than this no truth displays before our sight
A brighter beam, or more convincing light;
That skilful works suppose a skilful Cause,
Which acts by choice, and moves by prudent laws.
Where you, unless you are as matter blind,
Conduct and beauteous disposition find,

Conspiring order, fitness, harmony,
Use, and convenience; will you hot agree
That such effects could not be undesign'd,
Nor could proceed but from a knowing mind?

Old systems you may try, or new ones raise,
May shift, and wind, and plot, a thousand ways;
May various words, and forms of diction, use,
And with a different cant th' unjudging ear amuse;
You may affirm, that Chance did things create,
Or let it Nature be, or be it Fato;

dualism

Body alone, inert and brute, you'll find,
The cause of all things is by you assign'd.
And, after all your fruitless toil, if you
A Cause distinct from matter will allow,
It must be conscious, not like matter blind,
And show you grant a God, by granting miad.
Vaninus next, a hardy modern chief,
A bold opposer of divine belief,
Attempts Religion's fences to subvert,
Strong in his rage, but destitute of art;
In impious maxims fixt, he Heaven defy'd,
An unbelieving, anti-martyr dy'd.
Strange, that an atheist pleasure should refuse,
Relinquish life, and death in torment choose!
Of science what a despicable share

Vaninus own'd, his publish'd dreams declare.
Let impious wits applaud a godless mind,
As blest with piercing sight, and sense refin'd,
Contriv'd and wrought by Nature's careful hand,
All the proud schools of learning to command;
Let them pronounce each patron of their cause
Claims, by distinguish'd merit, just applause ;
Yet I this writer's want of sense arraign,
Treat all his empty pages with disdain,
And think a grave reply mis-spent and vain :
To borrow light, his errour to amend,
I would the atheist to Vaninus send.

At length Britannia's soil, immortal shame!
Brought forth a sage of celebrated name,
Who with contempt on blest Religion trod,
Mock'd all her precepts, and renounc'd his God.
As awful shades and horrours of the night
Disturb the mother, and the child affright;
Who see dire spectres through the gloomy air
In threatening forms advance, and shuddering hear
The groans of wandering ghosts, and yellings of

despair:

From the same spring," he says, "devotion flows,
Conscience of guilt from dread of vengeance roset,
Religion is the creature of the spleen,

And troubled fancy forms the world unseen;
That timorous minds, with self-tormenting care,
Create those awful phantoms which they fear."

Such arms were us'd by impious chiefs of old,
Vain as this modern hero, and as bold.
Who would not this philosopher adore,
For finding worlds discover'd long before?
Can he one flower in all his garden show,
Which in his Grecian master's did not grow!
And yet, imperious, with a teacher's air,
Boastful, he claints a right to Wisdom's chair
Gasping with ardent thirst of false renown,
With Grecian wreaths he does his temples crown,
Triumphs with borrow'd spoils, and trophies not his

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But let th' inquirer know, proud Briton! why
Hope should not gods, as well as fear, supply;
Does not th' idea of a God include

The notion of beneficent and good;
Of one to mercy, not revenge, inclin'd,
Able and willing to relieve mankind?
And does not this idea more appear
The object of our hope, than of our fear?
Then tell us, why this passion, more than that,
Should build their altars, and the gods create?

But let us grant the weak and timorous mind
To superstitious terrours is inclin'd;
That horrid scenes, and monsters form'd in air,
By night the children and the mother scare;
That apparitions, by a fever bred,

Or by the spleen's black vapours, fill the head;
Does that affect the sage of sense refin'd,
Whose body's heaithful, and serene his mind?
Yet more, insulting Briton! let us try
Your reason's force, your arguments apply.
You say, "since spectres from the fancy flow,
To timorous fancy gods their being qwe;
Since phantoms to the weak seem real things,
Religion from mistake and weakness springs."

But though the vulgar have illusions seen,
Thought objects were without that were within;
Yet we from hence absurdly should conclude,
All objects of the mind the mind delude:
That our ideas idle are, that none
Were ever real, and that nothing's known.

But, leaving phantoms and illusive fear,
Let us at Reason's judgment-seat appear;
There let the question be severely try'd;
By an impartial sentence we abide:
Th' Eternal Mind's existence we sustain,
By proofs so full, by evidence so plain,
That none of all the sciences have shown
Such demonstration of the truths they own.
Spinosa next, to hide his black design,
And to his side th' unwary to incline,
For Heaven his ensigns treacherous displays,
Declares for God, while he that God betrays;
For whom he's pleas'd such evidence to bring,
As sayes the name, while it subverts the thing.

Now hear his labour'd scheme of impious use:
No substance can another c'er produce;
Substance no limit, no confinement, knows,
And its existence from its nature flows;
The substance of the universe is one,
Which is the self-existent God alone.
The spheres of ether, which the world enclose,
And all th' apartments, which the whole compose;
The lucid orbs, the earth, the air, the main,
With every different being they contain,
Are one prodigious aggregated God,

Of whom each sand is part, each stone and clod;
Supreme perfections in each insect shine,
Each shrub is sacred, and each weed divine."
Sages, no longer Egypt's sons despise,
For their cheap gods, and savoury deities!
No more their coarse divinities revile!
To leeks, to onions, to the crocodile,
You might your humble adorations pay,
Were you not gods yourselves, as well as they.
As much you pull Religion's altars down,
By owning all things God, as owning none;
For should all beings be alike divine,
Of worship if an object you assign,
God to himself must veneration show,
Must be the idol and the votary too;

And their assertions are alike absurd, Who own no God, or none to be ador'd.

CREATION.

BOOK IV.

THE ARGUMENT,

THE introduction. No man happy, that has not conquered the fears of death. The inability of the Epicurean scheine to accomplish that end. Religion only capable of subduing those fears. The hypothesis of Epicurus concerning the. formation of the universe shown to be absurd, I. In a more general survey of the parts of the universe. II. By a more close and strict examination of his scheine. The principle of motion not accounted for by that scheme; nor. the determination of it one way. Pondus, gra. vity, innate mobility, words without a meaning. Descent of atoms; upwards and downwards, a middle or centre, absurdly asserted by Epicurns in infinite space. His hypothesis not to be supported, whether his matter be supposed finite or infinite. His ridiculous assertion relating to the diurnal and annual motion of the Sun. The impossibility of forming the world by the casual concourse of atoms. They could never meet if they moved with equal speed, Primitive atoms, being the smallest parts of matter, would move more slowly than bodies of greater bulk, which have more gravity; yet these are absurdly supposed to move the swiftest. His assertion, that some primitive atoms have a direct, and others an inclining, motion, implies a contradiction. Lucretius's explanation of this inclining motion of some first atoms not intelligible. The inexplicable difficulty of stopping the atoms in their flight, and causing them to settle in a formed world. The ponderous Earth not to be sustained in liquid air. The Epicurean formation of the Heavens very ridiculous. No account given by the Epicureans how the Sun and stars are upheld in fluid ether. Their idle account of the formation of the air.. The variety of figure and size given by Epicurus to his atoms, a convincing proof of wisdom and design. Another proof is the disproportion of the moist and dry atoms in the formation of the Earth. His ludicrous and childish account of the formation of the hollow for the sea. No account given by Epicurus, or his followers, of the motion of the heavenly orbs, particularly of the Sun.

CARUS, we grant, no man is blest, but he Whose mind from anxious thoughts of death is free Let laurel wreaths the victor's brows adorn, Sublime thro' gazing throngs in triumph borne; Let acclamations ring around the skies, While curling clouds of balmy incense rise; Let spoils immense, let trophies gain'd in war, And conquer'd kings, attend his rolling car; If dread of death, still unsubdu'd remains, And secret o'er the vanquish'd victor reigns;

Th' illustrious slave in endless thraldom bears
A heavier chain than his led captive wears.

With swiftest wing, the fears of future fate
Flude the guards, and pass the palace gate;
Traverse the lofty rooms, and, uncontroll'd,
Fly hovering round the painted roofs, and bold
To the rich arras cling, and perch on busts of gold,
Familiar horrours haunt the monarch's head,
And thoughts ill-boding from the downy bed
Chase gentle sleep; black cares the soul infest,
And broider'd stars adorn a troubled breast:
In vain they ask the charming lyre, in vain
The flatterer's sweeter voice, to lull their pain;
Riot and wine but for a moment please;
Delights they oft enjoy, but never ease.

What are distinction, honour, wealth, and state, The pomp of courts, the triumphs of the great; The numerous troops, that envy'd thrones secure, And splendid ensigns of imperial power? What the high palace, rear'd with vast expense, Unrivall'd art, and luxury immense,

With statues grac'd by ancient Greece supply'd, With more than Persian wealth, and Tyrian pride?

What are the foods of all delicious kinds,

Which now the huntsman, now the fowler, finds; The richest wines, which Gallia's happy field, Which Tuscan hills, or thine, Iberia, yield?

Nature, deprav'd, abundance does pursue;
Her first and pure demands are cheap and few.
What health promotes, and gives unenvy'd peace,
Is all expenseless, and procur'd with ease.
Behold the shepherd, see th' industrious swain,
Who ploughs the field, or reaps the ripen'd grain,
How mean, and yet how tasteful, is their fare!
How sweet their sleep! their souls how free from
care!

They drink the streaming crystal, and escape
Th' inflaming juices of the purple grape;
And, to protect their limbs from rigorous air,
Garments, their own domestic work, they wear:
Yet thoughts of death their lonely cots molest,
Affright the hind, and break the labourer's rest.
Since these reflections on approaching fate
Distrust and ill-presaging care create;
'Tis clear we strive for happiness in vain,
While fears of death within insulting reign.
But then Lucretian wits absurdly frame,
To sink those inbred fears, their impious scheme,
To chase the horrours of a conscious mind,
They desperate means and wild expedients find;
The hardy rebels aiming to appease
Their fierce remorse, and dream a while at ease,
Of crying guilt th' avenging power disown,
And pull their high Creator from his throne;
That done, they mock the threats of future pain,
As inonstrous fictions of the poet's brain.

Thy force, alone, Religion Death disarms,
Breaks all his darts, and every viper charms;
Soften'd by thee, the grisly form appears
No more the horrid object of our fears;
We undismay'd this awful power obey,
That guides us thro' the safe, tho' gloomy way,
Which leads to life, and to the blest abode,
Where ravish'd minds enjoy, what here they own'd,
a God.

Regard, ye sages of Lucretian race,

Nature's rich dress, behold her lovely face.
Look all around, terrestrial realms survey,
The isles, the rivers, and the spacious sea;

Observe the air, view with attentive eyes
The glorious concave of the vaulted skies;
Could these from casual hits, from tumult those,
arise?

Can rule and beauty from distraction grow?
Can symmetry from wild confusion flow?
When atoms in th' unmeasur'd space did rove,
And in the dark for doubtful empire strove ;
Did intervening Chance the feuds compose,
Establish friendship, and disarm the foes?
Did this the ancient darksome horrours chase,
Distinction give, and spread celestial grace
O'er the black districts of the empty space?
Could atoms, which, with undirected flight,
Roam'd through the void, and rang'd the realms of
night,

Of reason destitute, without intent,

Depriv'd of choice, and mindless of event,
In order march, and to their posts advance,
Led by no guide, but undesigning Chance?

What did th' entangled particles divide,
And sort the various seeds of things ally'd?
To make primeval elements select

All the fit atoms, and th' unfit reject?
Distinguish hot from cold, and moist from dry,
Range some to form the Earth, and some the sky?
From the embrace, and gloomy arms, of Night,
What freed the glimmering fire, and disengag'd

the light?

Could Chance such just and prudent measures take?
To frame the world, such distribution make?
If to your builder you will conduct give,
A power to choose, to manage, and contrive,
Your idol Chance, suppos'd inert and blind,
Must be enroll'd an active conscious mind.
Did this your wise and sovereign architect
Design the model, and the world erect?
Were by her skill the deep foundations laid,
The globes suspended, and the Heavens display'd?
By what elastic engines did she rear
The starry roof, and roll the orbs in air?

On the formation of the Earth reflect;

Is this a blind fortuitous effect?
Did all the grosser atoins, at the call
Of Chance, file off, to form the ponderous ball,
And undetermin'd into order fall?

Did of themselves th' assembled seeds arrive,
And without art this artful frame contrive?
To build the Earth, did Chance materials choose,
And through the parts cementing glue diffuse;
Adjust the frontier of the sea and soil,
Balance and hang in air the finish'd pile?
Ye towering hills, whose snowy peaks arise
Above the clouds, and winter in the skies;
Ye rocks, which on the shores your heads advance ;
Are you the labour and the care of Chance?
To draw up stones of such prodigious weight,
And raise th' amazing heaps to such a height,
What huge machine, what forceful instrument,
Did your blind builder of the world invent?
Could it distinguish, could it wall around
The damp and dark apartments under ground;
With rocky arches vault the hollow caves,
And form the tracks of subterranean waves;
Extend the different mineral veins, and spread
For rich metallic ores the genial bed?

What could prepare the gulphs to entertain
Between their shores the interposing main;
Disjoin the land, the various realins divide,
And spread with scatter'd isles th' extended tide?

Regard th' unnumber'd wonders of the deep, Where confluent streams, their race completed, sleep:

Did Chance the compass take, and in the dark
The wide dimensions of the ocean mark;
Then dig the ample cave, and stretch the shores,
Whose winding arms confine the liquid stores,
Which, gushing from the mountain to the main,
Through verdant vallies draw their humid train?
Did it design the deep abyss, and spread
The ancient waters on their central bed?
To the wild flood did sovereign Fortune say,
"Thus far advance, and here thy billows stay;
Be this thy barrier, this enclosing sand
Thou shalt not pass, nor overflow the land?"
And do the waves revere her high command?

Did chemic Chance the furnaces prepare,
Raise all the labour-houses of the air,
And lay crude vapours in digestion there;
Where Nature is employ'd, with wondrous skill,
To draw her spirits, and her drops distil;
Meteors for various purposes to form,
The breeze to cheer, to terrify the storm?
Did she extend the gloomy clouds on high,
Where all th' amazing fireworks of the sky
In unconcocted seeds fermenting lie,
Till the imprison'd flames are ripe for birth,
And ruddy bolts exploded wound the Earth?
What ready hand applies the kindled match,
Which evening trains of unctuous vapours catch?
Whence shoots with lambent flight the falling
star,

And flames unhurtful hovering dance in air?
What curious loom does Chance by evening spread?
With what fine shuttle weave the virgin's thread,
Which, like the spider's net, hangs on the grassy
mead?

Let us the moulds to fashion meteors know,
How these produce the hail, and those the snow?
What gave the exhalations wings to rise,
To leave their centre, and possess the skies?

Let us no longer missive weapons throw,
But close the fight, and grapple with the foe;
Submit to reason's strictest test their scheme,
And by mechanic laws pursue the huddled frame.
See, how th' ambitious architects design:
To rear the world without the Power Divine,
As principles, the great contrivers place
Unbounded matter in unbounded space :
Matter was first, in parts minute, endued
With various figures, various magnitude;
Some, moving in the spacious infinite,
Describe a line oblique, and some a right;
For, did not some from a straight course deflect,
They could not meet, they could no world erect:
While unfatigued from endless ages past,
They rang'd the dark interminable waste,
Oft clashing and rencountering in their flight,
Some atoms leap aside, and some upright;
They various ways recoil, and swiftly flow,
By mutual repercussions, to and fro,
Till, shuffled and entangled in their race,
They clasp each other with a close embrace;
Combin'd by concourse, mingled and comprest,
They grow in bulk, and complicated rest.
Hence did the world and all its parts arise!

Hence the bright Sun and stars, and hence the

skies!

Hence sprung the air, the ocean, and the earth! And hence all nature had its casual birth!

If you demand what wise directing mind The wondrous platform of the world design'd; Did range, divide, and in their order place, The crude materials of th' unfashion'd mass; Did move, direct, and all the parts control, With perfect skill, to serve the beauteous whole; Fortune to this high honour they advance, And no surveyor want, no guide, but Chance. Lucretian masters, now to make it plain In building worlds how raw you are, and vain; Grant that before this mighty frame was rear'd, Before confusion fled, and light appear'd, In the dark void and empty realms of night Your restless atoms did pursue their flight; And in their adverse paths, and wild career, By chance rencounter, and by chance cohere; Thus clasp'd in strict embraces, they produce Unnumber'd casual forms for different use: You, who to clearer reason make pretence, Of wit refin'd, and eminent in sense,

Let us, ye sons of Epicurus, know

The spring, whence all these various motions flow.
What vigour push'd primeval atoms on?
Was it a foreign impulse, or their own?

If 'twas a foreiga delegated force,

Which mov'd those bodies, and control'd their

course;

Asserting this, you your own scheme destroy,
And Power Divine, to form the world, employ.
If from a moving principle within,
Your active atoms did their flight begin,
That spring, that moving principle, explain,
And in the schools unrivall'd you shall reign;
Declare its nature, and assign its name;
For motion, and its cause, are not the same.

We know, you'll tell us, 'tis impulsive weight,
Mobility, or power to move innate:
Profound solution! worthy of your schools,
Where reason in its boasted freedom rules.
But thus you mock mankind, and language use,
Not to inform the mind, but to amuse.
Of motion we the principle demand;
You say, 'tis power to move, and there you stand!
But is it to explain, to change the name?
Is not the doubt in different words the same?
Do you reveal the spring of motion more,
By wisely calling that a moving power,
Which we had term'd a principle before?
The youngest head, new-vers'd in reasoning,
knows

That motion must a power to move suppose;
Which, while in vain you labour to unfold,
You clearly tell us, that Lucretians hold
An active spring, a principle approve,
Distinct from matter, which must matter move.
Matter, as such, abstracted in the mind,
We from a power to move divested find,
Not more to motion than to rest inclin'd;
The power, which motion does to matter give,
We therefore must distinct from both conceive;
A power to nature given by Nature's Lord,
When first he spoke the high creating word,
When for his world materials he prepar'd,
And on each part this energy conferr'd.

Ye vain philosophers! presumptuous race!
Who would the Great Eternal Mind displace;
Take from the world its Maker, and advance
To his high throne your thoughtless idol Chance:
Let us th' inquiry by just steps pursue;
With motion we your atoms will endue.

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