I could exprefs them more shortly this way than in prose itself and nothing is more certain, than that much of the force as well as grace of arguments or inftructions, depends on their concifenefs. I was unable to treat this part of my subject more in detail, without becoming dry and tedious; or more poetically, without facrificing perfpicuity to ornament, without wandring from the precifion, or breaking the chain of reasoning: If any man can unite all these without diminution of any of them, I freely confefs he will compass a thing above my capacity. What is now published, is only to be confidered as a general Map of MAN, marking out no more than the greater parts, their extent, their limits, and their connection, but leaving the particular to be more fully delineated in the charts which are to follow. Confequently, these Epiftles in their progress (if I have health and leisure to make any progrefs) will be less dry, and more fufceptible of poetical ornament. I am here only opening the fountains, and clearing the paffage. To deduce the rivers, to follow them in their courfe, and to obferve their effects, may be a task more agreeable, ΑΝ ESSAY on MAN, IN FOUR EPISTLES, ΤΟ H. St. John, Lord Bolingbroke. ARGUMENT OF EPISTLE I. Of the Nature and State of Man with respect to the UNIVERSE. OF Man in the abftra&t-I. That we can judge only with regard to our own fyftem, being ignorant of the relations of fyftems and things, 17, &c. II. That Man is not to be deemed imperfect, but a Being fuited to his place and rank in the creation, agreeable to the general Order of things, and conformable to Ends and Relations to him unknown, † 35, &c. III. That it is partly upon his ignorance of future events, and partly upon the hope of a future ftate, that all his happiness in the prefent depends, ✯ 77, &c. IV. The pride of aiming at more knowledge, and pretending to more Perfection, the cause of Man's error and mifery. The impiety of putting himself in the place of God, and judging of the fitness or unfitness, perfection or imperfection, justice or injustice, of his difpenfations, 109, &c. V. The abfurdity of concciting himself the final cause of the creation, or expecting that perfection in the moral world, which is not in the natural, y 131, &c. VI. The unreafonableness of his complaints against Providence, while on the one hand he demands the Perfections of the Angels, and on the other the bodily qualifications of the Brutes; tho', to poffefs any of the fenfitive faculties in a higher degree, would render him miferable, 173, &c. VII. That throughout the whole visible world, an univerfal order and gradation in the fenfual and mental faculties is obferved, which caufes a fubordination of creature to creature, and of all creatures to Man. The gradations of fenfe, instinct, thought, reflection, reafon; that Reafon alone countervails all the other faculties, 207. VIII. How much further this order and fubordination of living creatures may extend, above and below us; were any part of which broken, not that part only, but the whole connected creation must be defroyed, 233. IX. The extravagance, madness, and pride of fuch a defire, † 250. X. The confequence of all, the abfolute fubmiffion due to Providence, both as to our present and future ftate, * 281, &c. to the end. |