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Of the Nature and State of Man with respect to the UNIVERSE.

OF Man in the abftract.-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

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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 caufe of Man's error and mifery. The impiety of putting himself in the place of God, and judging of the fitness or unfitnefs, perfection or imperfection, justice or injustice, of bis difpenfations, 109, &c. V. The abfurdity of conceiting himself the final caufe of the creation, or expecting that perfection in the moral world, which is not in the natural, 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; though, to poffefs any of the fenfitive faculties in a higher degree, would render him miferable, 173, &c. VII. That throughout the whole vifible 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 fense, instinct, thought, reflection, reafon; that Reafon alone countervails all the other faculties, 207. VIII. How much farther this order and fubordination of living creatures may extend, above and bélow us; were any part of which broken, not that part only, but the whole connected creation must be destroyed, 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 state, 281, &c. to the end.

THE NEW YOR PUBLIC LIBRARY

ASTOR, LUG

TILDEN FOUNDATIONS.

Plate VIII.

Vol. III. facing p.3

N.Blakey inv.&del.

Ravenet sculp.

HOPE humbly then with trembling Vinions soar, e great teacher Death; and,

. Wait the.

God adore!

Essay on Man, Ep.1.

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WAKE, my ST JOHN! leave all meaner things

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To low ambition, and the pride of Kings. Let us (fince Life can little more supply Than juft to look about us and to die) Expatiate free o'er all this fcene of Man; A mighty maze! but not without a plan; A Wild, where weeds and flow'rs promiscuous shoot; Or Garden, tempting with forbidden fruit.

NOTES.

The Opening of this poem, in fifteen lines, is taken up in giving an account of the Subject; which, agreeably to the title, is an ESSAY on MAN, or a Philofophical Enquiry into his Nature and End, his Paffions and Purfuits.

The Exordium relates to the whole work, of which the Effay on Man was only the first book. The 6th, 7th, and 8th lines allude to the fubjects of this Effay, viz. the general Order and Defign of Providence; the Conftitution of the human Mind; the origin, ufe, and end, of the Paffions and Affections, both felfish and focial; and the wrong pursuits of Power,

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Pleasure, and Happiness. The 10th, 11th, 12th, &c. have relation to the subjects of the bocks intended to follow, viz. the Characters and Capacities of Men, and the Limits of Learning and Ignorance. The 13th and 14th, to the Knowledge of Mankind, and the various Manners of the age.

VER. 7, 8. AWild,-Or Garden,] The Wild relates to the human paffions, productive (as he explains in the fecond epiftle) both of good and evil. The Garden, to human reafon, fo often tempting us to tranfgrefs the bounds God has fet to it, and wander in fruitless enquiries.

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