But greedy that, its object would devour, This taste the honey, and not wound the flow'r: 90 Pleasure, or wrong or rightly understood, Our greatest evil, or our greatest good. III. Modes of self-love the passions we may call; 'Tis real good, or seeming, moves them all:[1163] But since not ev'ry good we can divide, 95 And reason bids us for our own provide, Passions, though selfish, if their means be fair,[1164] List[1165] under reason, and deserve her care; Those, that imparted, court[1166] a nobler aim, Exalt their kind, and take some virtue's name.[1167] 100 In lazy apathy let stoics boast Their virtue fixed;[1168] 'tis fixed as in a frost;[1169] Contracted all, retiring to the breast;[1170] But strength of mind is exercise, not rest:[1171] The rising tempest puts in act the soul,[1172] 105 Parts it may ravage, but preserves the whole.[1173] On life's vast ocean diversely we sail,[1174] Reason the card,[1175] but passion is the gale;[1176] Nor God alone in the still calm we find, He mounts the storms, and walks upon the wind.[1177] 110 [Sidenote: The predominant passion and its force.] Passions, like elements, though born to fight, Yet, mixed and softened, in his work unite:[1178] These, 'tis enough to temper and employ; But what composes man, can man destroy?[1179] Suffice that reason keep to nature's road, 115 Subject, compound them, follow her and God.[1180] Love, hope, and joy, fair pleasure's smiling train, Hate, fear, and grief, the family of pain,[1181] These mixed with art,[1182] and to due bounds confined, Make and maintain the balance of the mind: 120 The lights and shades, whose well-accorded strife[1183] Gives all the strength and colour of our life. Pleasures are ever in our hands or eyes; And when in act they cease, in prospect rise: Present to grasp, and future still to find,[1184] 125 The whole employ of body and of mind.[1185] All spread their charms, but charm not all alike; On diff'rent senses diff'rent objects strike;[1186] Hence diff'rent passions more or less inflame, As strong or weak the organs of the frame;[1187] 130 And hence one master passion in the breast, Like Aaron's serpent, swallows up the rest.[1188] As man, perhaps, the moment of his breath, Receives the lurking principle of death; The young disease, that must subdue at length, 135 Grows with his growth, and strengthens with his strength: So, cast and mingled with his very frame,[1189] The mind's disease, its ruling passion, came; Each vital humour which should feed the whole, Soon flows to this, in body and in soul: 140