ABSTRACT
WHENCE arise our Miseries? Whence arise our Vices? From imaginary Wants. No man is wicked without temptation, no man is wretched without a cause. But if each among us confined his wishes to the actual necessaries and real comforts of Life, we should preclude all the causes of Complaint and all the motives to Iniquity. What Nature demands, she will supply, asking for it that portion only of Toil, which would otherwise have been necessary as Exercise But Providence, which has distinguished Man from the lower orders of Being by the progressiveness of his nature, forbids him to be contented. It has given us the restless faculty of Imagination. Hence the soft Couch and many-colour’d Robe, The Timbrel and arch’d Dome and costly Feast With all th’ inventive Arts that nurse the Soul To forms of Beauty; and by sensual wants Unsensualize the mind, which in the Means Learns to forget the grossness of the End, Best-plcasur’d with its own activity. And hence Disease that withers manhood’s arm, The dagger’d Envy, spirit-quencbing Want, Warriors, and Lords, and Priests—all the fore ills That vex and desolate our mortal life. Wide-wasting ills! yet each th’ immediate source Of mightier good! Their keen necessities To ceaseless action, goading human thought Have made Earth’s reasoning Animal her Lord, And the pale-featur’d Sages trembling hand Strong as an Host of armed Deities! From Avarice thus, from Luxury, and War Sprang heavenly Science, and from Science Feeedom! Religious Musings.
