III. God, in the nature of each being, founds Its proper bliss, and sets its proper bounds: 110 But as he framed a whole, the whole to bless, On mutual wants built mutual happiness: So from the first, eternal Order ran, And creature link'd to creature, man to man. Whate'er of life all-quickening ether keeps, Or breathes through air, or shoots beneath the deeps, Or pours profuse on earth, one nature feeds The vital flame, and swells the genial seeds. Not Man alone, but all that roam the wood, Or wing the sky, or roll along the flood, 120 Each loves itself, but not itself alone, Each sex desires alike, till two are one. Nor ends the pleasure with the fierce embrace; They love themselves, a third time, in their race. Thus beast and bird their common charge attend, The mothers nurse it, and the sires defend; The young dismiss'd to wander earth or air, There stops the instinct, and there ends the care; The link dissolves, each seeks a fresh embrace, Another love succeeds, another race. 130 A longer care Man's helpless kind demands; That longer care contracts more lasting bands: Reflection, reason, still the ties improve, At once extend the interest, and the love; With choice we fix, with sympathy we burn; Each virtue in each passion takes its turn; And still new needs, new helps, new habits rise, That graft benevolence on charities. Still as one brood, and as another rose, These natural love maintain'd, habitual those: 140 The last, scarce ripen'd into perfect man, Saw helpless him from whom their life began: Memory and forecast just returns engage, That pointed back to youth, this on to age; While pleasure, gratitude, and hope, combined, Still spread the interest, and preserved the kind. IV. Nor think, in Nature's state they blindly trod; 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. 150 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 clothed 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 undress'd, Unbribed, unbloody, stood the blameless priest: Heaven's attribute was universal care, And Man's prerogative to rule, but spare. 160 Ah! how unlike the Man of times to come! Of half that live the butcher and the tomb; Who, foe to Nature, hears the general groan, Murders their species, and betrays his own. But just disease to luxury succeeds, And every death its own avenger breeds; The fury-passions from that blood began, And turn'd on Man, a fiercer savage, Man.