Here then we rest: "The Universal CauseActs to one end, but acts by various laws."In all the madness of superfluous health,The trim of pride, the impudence of wealth,Let this great truth be present night and day;But most be present, if we preach or pray.
I.Combining all below and all above.See plastic Nature working to this end,The single atoms each to other tend,Attract, attracted to, the next in placeForm'd and impell'd its neighbour to embrace.See matter next, with various life endu'd,Press to one centre still, the gen'ral good.See dying vegetables life sustain,See life dissolving vegetate again:All forms that perish other forms supply,(By turns we catch the vital breath, and die)Like bubbles on the sea of matter born,They rise, they break, and to that sea return.Nothing is foreign: parts relate to whole;One all-extending, all-preserving SoulConnects each being, greatest with the least;Made beast in aid of man, and man of beast;All serv'd, all serving! nothing stands alone;The chain holds on, and where it ends, unknown....
II.Know, all enjoy that pow'r which suits them best;To bliss alike by that direction tend,And find the means proportion'd to their end.Say, where full instinct is th' unerring guide,What pope or council can they need beside?Reason, however able, cool at best,Cares not for service, or but serves when prest,Stays 'till we call, and then not often near;But honest instinct comes a volunteer,Sure never to o'er-shoot, but just to hit;While still too wide or short is human wit;Sure by quick nature happiness to gain,Which heavier reason labours at in vain,This too serves always, reason never long;One must go right, the other may go wrong.See then the acting and comparing pow'rsOne in their nature, which are two in ours;And reason raise o'er instinct as you can,In this 'tis God directs, in that 'tis man....
III.The state of nature was the reign of God:Self-love and social at her birth began,Union the bond of all things, and of man.Pride then was not; nor arts, that pride to aid;Man walk'd with beast, joint tenant of the shade;The same his table, and the same his bed;No murder cloth'd him, and no murder fed.In the same temple, the resounding wood,All vocal beings hymn'd their equal God:The shrine with gore unstain'd, with gold undrest,Unbrib'd, unbloody, stood the blameless priest:Heav'n's attribute was universal care,And man's prerogative to rule, but spare.Ah! how unlike the man of times to come!Of half that live the butcher and the tomb;Who, foe to nature, hears the gen'ral groan,Murders their species, and betrays his own.But just disease to luxury succeeds,And ev'ry death its own avenger breeds;The fury-passions from that blood began,And turn'd on man a fiercer savage, man.
IV.Whate'er is best administer'd is best:For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight;His can't be wrong whose life is in the right:In faith and hope the world will disagree,But all mankind's concern is charity:All must be false that thwart this one great end,And all of God, that bless mankind or mend.
Man, like the gen'rous vine, supported lives;The strength he gains is from th' embrace he gives.On their own axis as the planets run,Yet make at once their circle round the sun;So two consistent motions act the soul;And one regards itself and one the whole.
Thus God and Nature link'd the gen'ral frame,And bade self-love and social be the same.
