If to your builder you will conduct give,
A power to chufe, to manage, and contrive,
Your idol Chance, fuppos'd inert and blind,
Must be inrol'd an actvie confcious mind.
Did this your wife and fovereign architect
Defign the model, and the world erect?
Were by her skill the deep foundations laid,
The globes fufpended, and the heavens display'd?
By what elaftic engines did the rear
The ftarry roof, and roll the orbs in air?
On the formation of the earth reflect;
Is this a blind fortuitous effect?
Did all the groffer atoms, at the call
Of Chance, file off, to form the ponderous ball,
And undetermin'd into order fall?
Did of themselves th' affembled feeds arrive,
And without art this artful frame contrive?
To build the Earth, did Chance materials chufe,
And through the parts cementing glue diffuse ?
Adjuft the frontier of the fea and foil,
Balance and hang in air the finifh'd pile ?
Ye towering hills, whofe fnowy peaks arife
Above the clouds, and winter in the skies;
Ye rocks, which on the fhores your heads advance;
Are you the labour and the care of Chance?
To draw up ftones of fuch prodigious weight,
And raife th' amazing heaps to fuch a height,
What huge machine, what forceful inftrument,
Did your blind builder of the world invent?
Could it diftinguish, could it wall around
The damp and dark apartments under ground?
With rocky arches vault the hollow caves,
And form the tracks of fubterranean waves?
Extend the different mineral veins, and (pread
For rich metallic ores the genial bed?
What could prepare the gulphs to entertain
Between their fhores the interpofing main?
Dif-join the land, the various realms divide,
And fpread with fcatter'd ifles th' extended tide?
Regard th' unnumber'd wonders of the deep,
Where confluent ftreams, their race completed, fleep.
Did Chance the compass take, and in the dark
The wide dimenfions of the ocean mark ?
Then dig the ample cave, and ftretch the fhores
Whofe winding arms confine the liquid ftores,
Which gufhing from the mountain to the main
Through verdant vallies draw their humid train ?
Did it defign the deep abyfs, and fpread
The ancient waters on their central bed?
To the wild flood did fovereign Fortune say,
Thus far advance, and here thy billows stay :
Be this thy barrier, this enclofing fand
Thou shalt not pafs, nor overflow the land?
And do the waves revere her high command ?
Did chemic Chance the furnaces prepare,
Raife all the labour-houses of the air,
And lay crude vapours in digeftion there?
Where Nature is employ'd, with wondrous fkill,
To draw her fpirits, and her drops diftil;
Meteors for various purposes to form,
The breeze to cheer, to terrify the ftorm;
Did the extend the gloomy clouds on high,
Where all th' amazing fireworks of the sky
In unconcocted feeds fermenting lie?
Till the imprison'd flames are ripe for birth,
And ruddy bolts exploded wound the earth;
What ready hand applies the kindled match,
Which evening trains of unctuous vapours catch;
Whence shoots with lambent flight the falling ftar,
And flames unhurtful hovering dance in air?
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What curious loom does' Chance by evening spread ?
With what fine shuttle weave the virgin's thread,
Which, like the spider's net, hangs on the graffy mead?
Let us the moulds to fashion meteors know,
How these produce the hail, and those the snow ?
What gave the exhalations wings to rise,
To leave their centre, and poffefs the skies?
Let us no longer miffive weapons throw,
But close the fight, and grapple with the foe;
Submit to reafon's ftricteft teft their scheme,
And by mechanic laws purfue the huddled frame.
See, how th' ambitious architects design:
To rear the world without the power divine,
As principles, the great contrivers place
Unbounded matter, in unbounded space :
Matter was first, in parts minute, endued
With various figures, various magnitude;
Some, moving in the spacious infinite,
Describe a line oblique, and fone a right;
For, did not fome from a ferait course dèflect,
They could not meet, they could no world erect:
While unfatigued from endlefs ages past,
They rang'd the dark interminable wafte,
Oft clashing and rencountering in their flight,
Some atoms leap afide, and fome upright;
They various ways recoil, and fwiftly flow
By mutual repercuffions to and fro,
Till, fhuffled and entangled in their race,
They clafp each other with a close embrace;
Combin'd by concourfe, mingled and compreft,
They grow in bulk, and complicated reft.
Hence did the world and all its parts arife!
Hence the bright fun and stars, and hence the fkies!
Hence fprung the air, the ocean, and the earth!
And hence all Nature had its cafual birth!
demand what wife directing mind
The wondrous platform of the world defign'd;
Did range, divide, and in their order place,
The crude materials of th' unfashion'd mafs;
Did move, direc, and all the parts control,
With perfect skill, to ferve the beauteous whole;
Fortune to this high honour they advance,
And no furveyor want, no guide, but Chance.
Lucretian mafters, now to make it plain
In building worlds how raw you are, and vain;
Grant that before this mighty frame was rear'd,
Before confufion fled, and light appear'd,
In the dark void and empty realms of night
Your restless atoms did pursue their flight;
And in their adverfe paths, and wild career,
By chance rencounter, and by chance cohere;
K
Thus clafpt in ftrict embraces they produce
Unnumber'd cafual forms for different use:
You, who to clearer reafon make pretence,
Of wit refin'd, and eminent in sense;
Let us, ye fons of Epicurus, know
The fpring, whence all these various motions flow.
What vigour pufh'd primæval atoms on?
Was it a foreign impulfe, or their own?
If 'twas a foreign delegated force,
Which mov'd thofe bodies, and control'd their course;
Afferting this, you your own scheme destroy,
And power divine, to form the world, employ.
If from a moving principle within
Your active atoms did their flight begin,
That fpring, that moving principle explain,
And in the fchools unrival'd you shall reign;
Declare its nature, and affign its name;
For motion, and its caufe, are not the fame.
We know, you'll tell us, 'tis impulsive weight,
Mobility, or power to move innate :
Profound folution! worthy of your schools,
Where reafon in its boafted freedom rules.
But thus you mock mankind, and language use,
Not to inform the mind, but to amuse.
Of motion we the principle demand;
You fay 'tis power to move, and there
But is it to explain, to change the name?
Is not the doubt in different words the fame?
Do you reveal the fpring of motion more,
By wifely calling that a moving power,
Which we had term'd a principle before?
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