IV. Go, wiser thou! and in thy scale of sense,[1024] Weigh thy opinion against Providence;[1025] Call imperfection what thou fanci'st such, 115 Say, Here he gives too little, there too much![1026] Destroy all creatures for thy sport or gust,[1027] Yet cry, If man's unhappy, God's unjust;[1028] If man alone ingross not heav'n's high care, Alone made perfect here, immortal there:[1029] 120 Snatch from his hand the balance and the rod,[1030] Re-judge his justice, be the god of God.[1031] In pride, in reas'ning pride,[1032] our error lies; All quit their sphere and rush into the skies! Pride still is aiming at the bless'd abodes, 125 Men would be angels, angels would be gods.[1033] Aspiring to be gods if angels fell, Aspiring to be angels men rebel:[1034] And who but wishes to invert the laws Of order, sins against th' Eternal Cause. 130 [Sidenote: The absurdity of conceiting himself the final cause of creation, or expecting that perfection in the moral world which is not in the natural.] V. Ask for what end the heav'nly bodies shine, Earth for whose use, Pride answers,[1035] "'Tis for mine! For me kind nature wakes her genial pow'r, Suckles each herb, and spreads out every flow'r;[1036] Annual for me, the grape, the rose renew 135 The juice nectareous, and the balmy dew; For me the mine a thousand treasures brings; For me health gushes from a thousand springs; Seas roll to waft me, suns to light me rise; My footstool earth, my canopy the skies!"[1037] 140 But errs not nature from this gracious end, From burning suns when livid deaths descend, When earthquakes swallow, or when tempests sweep[1038] Towns to one grave, whole nations[1039] to the deep?[1040] "No," 'tis replied, "the first Almighty Cause 145 Acts not by partial but by gen'ral laws:[1041] Th' exceptions few; some change since all began;[1042] And what created perfect?"--Why then man? If the great end be human happiness, Then nature deviates;[1043] and can man do less?[1044] 150 As much that end a constant course requires Of show'rs and sunshine, as of man's desires: As much eternal springs and cloudless skies, As men for ever temp'rate, calm, and wise.[1045] If plagues or earthquakes break not heaven's design, 155 Why then a Borgia or a Catiline?[1046] Who knows but He, whose hand the lightning forms, Who heaves old ocean, and who wings the storms; Pours fierce ambition in a Cæsar's mind,[1047] Or turns young Ammon[1048] loose to scourge mankind?[1049] 160 From pride, from pride our very reas'ning springs; Account for moral, as for nat'ral things:[1050] Why charge we heav'n in those, in these acquit?