- But errs not Nature from this gracious end,
- From burning suns when livid deaths descend,
- When earthquakes swallow, or when tempests sweep
- Towns to one grave, whole nations to the deep?
- “No,” ’tis replied, “the first Almighty Cause
- Acts not by partial but by gen’ral laws;
- Th’exceptions few; some change since all began
- And what created perfect?”–Why then man?
- If the great end be human happiness,
- Then Nature deviates; and can man do less?
- As much that end a constant course requires
- Of showers and sunshine, as of man’s desires;
- As much eternal springs and cloudless skies,
- As men for ever temp’rate, calm, and wise.
- If plagues or earthquakes break not Heav’n’s design,
- Why then a Borgia or a Cataline?
- Who knows but He, whose hand the lightning forms,
- Who heaves old ocean, and who wings the storms;
- Pours fierce ambition in a Cæsar’s mind,
- Or turns young Ammon loose to scourge mankind?
- From pride, from pride, our very reas’ning springs;
- Account for moral as for natural things:
- Why charge we Heav’n in those, in these acquit?
- In both, to reason right is to submit.
– Alexander Pope, (Epistle 1, IV),The Complete Poetical Works of Alexander Pope (edited by H.W. Boynton)
