On the Immortality of the Soul

O Blind to truth, to science blind,
The skeptic tribe of human-kind!
Who doubt, Lorenzo, if our lot
Be here to die and be forgot,
Or if it prove our future fate
To know an intellectual state,
In death to perish, or to rise,
Immortal to our native skies.

Allur'd by wit to neither side,
Be reason our impartial guide;
Let us, Lorenzo, fairly weigh
What argument hath here to say.

Hast thou poor Dromio's sophisms got,
Who bids us vegetate and rot;
Man but a rank and useless weed?
Prove them alike, and 'tis agreed.
But the analogy of parts
Is all that's prov'd by skeptic arts.
Say that, "of vegetable race,
"We spread the root from place to place;
"The lovely flow'r of beauty blows,
"Twin sister to the province rose,
"Allures at morn the gazing, eye,
"That ere the ev'ning sees it die."
Say, "years disrobe the mantled brow,
"As winter strips th' autumnal bough;
"The rough, rude blast to both unkind,
"Both perish by an eastern wind;
"Or, by the ax, untimely blow!
"Are laid their spreading honours low."
Admit, Lorenzo, this be true:
Go on,—the parallel pursue.
Say, "the tall elms, you stately row,
"Sweet transports of sensation know;
"When zephyrs kiss the lily's breast
"The lily's rapture be confess'd."
Say "the broad oak, when thunders roar,
"Fears till the thunder-storm be o'er;
"Conscious of doubt and dread by turns,
"Stands trembling as the forest burns;
"Alive, awake, to nature's laws,
"From nature's scenes experience draws;
"Throbbing its trunk with hopes and fears.
"Grown old in wisdom as in years!"
Is this absurd? absurd indeed!
Lorenzo how unlike a weed!

To moral arguments dost run?
Here shall we end as we begun.
Sayst thou "the virtuous, when they die,
"In their own right ascend the sky;
"The wicked, here unpunish'd, go
"To torment in the world below;
"Heaven's justice else we should arraign,
"And prove the virtuous good in vain."
You take, my friend, for granted here,
What none by reason make appear;
That vice at God Almighty's hands
Eternal punishment demands;
While endless bliss beyond the skies
Justice bestows, as virtue's prize.
Justice! Lorenzo, what, my friend,
By justice dost thou here intend?
Her sword she holds; but say, what ails
The equilibrium of her scales?
How low the one, tho empty, lies,
To kick the beam while t' other flies!

Alas, I see by what compell'd;
In diff'rent mediums are they held;
One in material fluids buoy'd,
The other in a perfect void;
Weigh'd in eternity and time,
The punishment against the crime!
Dare the self-righteous tribe to say,
That heaven's no more than virtue's pay,
While vice demerits endless woe?
Needs God a friend? fears God a foe?
Holding vindictive rage in store,
For his own sake, on man to pour?
O, No—unhurt th' Almighty cause,
Or kept, or broken, human laws.

Cease, then, presumption, to contend
That mortals heaven can so offend,
As at an infinite expence,
To answer a finite offence:
To pay the fine immortal made;
Which else they never could have paid.
The dying wretch tho tyrants cure,
But tortures longer to endure;
With nature cruelly at strife
When criminals are quit with life;
Can God, whose tender mercies flow
O'er all his varied works below,
Whose loving kindness all confess,
Whose name the distant nations bless;
Say, can this God, of boundless love,
Vengeful as earthly tyrants prove?
O shame, Lorenzo, shame to all
Who cruelty can justice call!
Such argument, beside, is vain,
Unless the premises were plain;
Unless we first could make it clear,
That vice can ne'er be punish'd here;
That virtue must be ever blest,
For following but its interest;
Or that we truly could define
That justice mortals call divine.

By metaphysicks dost thou strive
To keep the man in death alive?
Wouldst thou, set moral pleas aside,
The body from the soul divide?
Material that and born to die,
While this a native of the sky;
Objects that none can hear and see
Hence claiming immortality!
But, say, is thy corporeal claim
Laid to the matter, or the frame?
Is it the substance of the heart
Or make, that is the mortal part?
Doth change of form bring death alone?
Form we must immaterial own.
If to the essence of the clay,
Again, mortality we lay,
Doom'd the loath'd carcass to the worm,
The substance changes but its form:
Through modes of being given to range,
Immortal in perpetual change,
Matter by all the skeptic crowd
Essentially the same allow'd;
In death, in life, our shame, our pride,
In various forms but modified.
Say, then, the matter or the frame,
Or both, in body have a claim;
Nor mortal, nor immortal, we
From our materiality.

Lorenzo, doth thy bosom beat,
To claim in heaven th' immortal seat?
So fond of thy existence here,
Dost thou annihilation fear?
To fall as undistinguish'd clay
To dumb forgetfulness a prey?
The joys of paradise in view,
Sayst thou "thy claim must needs be true,
"Else, wherefore doth thy fond desire
"To immortality aspire?"
Whate'er in hope be heaven's intent,
This is, my friend, no argument.
I, too, perhaps, so pleas'd to live,
My very means of life might give,
All I am worth, from death to save,
If hope were buried in the grave.
But let Lorenzo never trust
To wish or hope, however just:
Nor let a passionate desire
To reason's sober task aspire.
Wouldst thou false principles defend,
Because they serve a pleasing end?
Who loves the truth will sure despise
Her cause to rest on specious lies.
What merit doth it add to worth
That knaves its virtues babble forth?
What added weight or consequence,
In suffrage, gives the fool to sense?

Again, is't said "so closely join'd
"In life the body and the mind,
"Reciprocally form'd to bear
"Each other's weight of pain and care,
"Sharing alike the mutual joy,
"Which either wholly may destroy;
"Since thus together both concur,
"We know not either to prefer,
"If both be purposely combin'd,
"In use of body or of mind."
Are there who weakly, hence, suppose
"The soul no sep'rate being knows;
"But, as the body doth decay,
"So wears the mortal mind away."
Yet wherefore might not at our birth.
Lodg'd in this tenement of earth,
Lock'd up for life th' immortal mind,
Its temporary prison find,
Till paid our vital debt should be,
And death should set the captive free?
Mean-while, in hope, in fear, in doubt,
Concerning friends and foes without,
Prone thro its prison grates to pry,
It sees Time's scatter'd ruins lie,
In darkness and confusion hurl'd,
The embryo of another world.
Why may not thus, on earth, be join'd
The body and the tenant mind?
Th'inhabitant, with cost and care,
Keeping his mansion in repair,
Us'd to the dungeon where he lies,
And prone his present home to prize,
Unknowing whither doom'd to roam,
If once bereft of house and home.
What wonder, then, for help he calls
When danger threats his tott'ring walls?
Nor strange, if, heedless.of their fate,
They tumble on his wareless pate;
Each other's mutual strength and ward,
The mansion and the mansion's lord.
What tho we hold the soul to be
Attach'd to sensibility,
Concludes Lorenzo rashly hence
The soul's as mortal as the sense?
Alleging that "in life we find
"Perception to the organs join'd,
"Poor mortals of sensation void
"As these are damag'd or destroy'd;
"Therefore the soul on sense depends,
"And with the failing organ ends."
Lorenzo, thro a darken'd glass
Seest thou but faintly objects pass?
More darken'd yet, dost thou confess
Thy certainty of vision less?
With its transparency thy sight
Decreasing, till obstructed quite?
Suppose it broke or let it fall,
Dost think thou couldst not see at all?
Ridiculous! when objects lie
All open to the naked eye.

Thus, may the soul, to body join'd,
Be deaf, irrational or blind:
But take th' obstructing organs hence,
At liberty its native sense,
By fits no more it hears and sees,
As now by piece-meal and degrees,
In partial modes, adapted here
To organs of the eye and ear;
But, intellect, all ear, all eye,
It reads the wonders of the sky,
At once what nature can disclose
Of scientific secrets knows;
Now sense and science both combin'd
In each perception of the mind.

But here, Lorenzo, for a while
Lay by the metaphysic foil.
With this, behind our darken'd glass,
Too apt to make a blund'ring pass:
By much more anxious, on the whole,
To guard the body than the soul.
Too nice th' anatomizing art,
To take them dextrously apart,
Let us on both inquiry plan,
And scrutinize their compound, man;
Contented from his present state
To reason of his future fate.

Doth Dromio say, to hold dispute,
"Man, if no plant, is yet a brute;
"A helpless animal in birth,
"His body form'd of kindred earth,
"An animal in his decay,
"His strength and vigour pass away;
"Equal the beast's sagacious pow'rs,
"Or even superior oft to ours."
The politic, industrious bee
Dost own in wisdom rivals thee?
Oeconomy secures from want
The careful and laborious ant,
While man, with all his boasted sense,
Riots at health's and life's expence,
Luxurious, casts his cares aside,
Or starves thro indolence or pride;
Here no pre-eminence his claim,
Insects! in life and death the same!

Is there no medium in dispute?
Must man be either God or brute?
Must we with burning seraphs join,
Or litter with the grov'ling swine?
Content to bear the slight disgrace
Of mingling with the brutal race,
Agreed,—for once, no longer proud,
Be men mere animals allow'd:
Say that, more helpless at his birth
Than ev'n the vilest brute on earth,
Man, if denied the nurse's care,
Might have run wild, a human bear;
Have beat the plains in search of food,
Or sought his shelter in the wood:
Devoid of language and of art,
Apparent brute in head and heart.
Yet still, Lorenzo, as we find
Some little difference, in kind;
Man, as an animal, is known,
By marks peculiarly his own.

Tho both, sharp-sighted, grave and fat,
Melinda, and her tabby cat,
Tho but a trifling diff'rence seen,
'Twixt Pug and Faddle, in the spleen,
The wild, the tame, the great, the small,
Included in one genus all;
We must not hence, my friend, infe[...]
Melinda's only born to purr;
Nor that, because alike in shape,
Paddle by nature's but an ape.
What, if a monkey, taught in France,
A modish minuet could dance;
Or, mischievous, should play his tricks,
Vers'd in Parisian politicks,
Breaking thy China's brittle clay,
Tho sure to suffer for his play;
Wouldst thou acknowledge, hence, to me,
The pert baboon, un homme d'esprit?
Or own, on this sagacious plan,
A monkey's nat'rally a man?
Let rash polemicks idly prate
Of nature and a nat'ral state,
The arts of social life despise,
And think that brutes are only wise;
Pretending better had it been
If kings and priests we ne'er had seen;
If lawless, ignorant and wild,
Man had been left, while yet a child,
With brutes to share a common fate;
More blest than in his present state:
Go thou, and act a social part,
Man's nat'ral state's a state of art.
'Twas nature, when the world was young,
Made loose our first great grandsire's tongue;
Taught his wild sons the force of speech,
And gave the human pow'r to teach;
To social converse tun'd the ear,
Gave mutual love and mutual fear,
Inspir'd the hero, warm'd the friend,
And bade the strong the weak defend.
'Twas nature gave religion's rule,
And bade the wise conduct the fool;
In justice gave the law, to save
The weak and honest from the knave.
'Twas nature rais'd our thoughts on high,
In contemplation, to the sky;
Taught us to beat the wilds of space,
And worlds on worlds in ether trace;
Planets and suns unknown explore,
And hence their maker, God, adore.
All this you artificial call,
I heed not empty terms at all:
Call it by whatsoever name,
'Tis human nature's special claim:
Say, from mere phrases to depart,
How differs nature here from art?

Within the solitary wood
Rears the old brock her helpless brood;
For safety, scouring to her den,
At sight, or sound of dogs and men?
'Tis nature warns her not t' expose
Herself, or offspring, to her foes;
But sends her to the safe retreat,
Where both enjoy their rest and meat.
Why rears not man in forest wild,
Or acorn grove, his fav'rite child?
But, lodg'd in towns, and nurs'd with care;
Protects and feeds his fondled heir?
Experter, sure, were human race
If train'd in forests, for the chase;
The chase that might our food provide;
And what need animals beside?

Lorenzo, here we plainly find
The characters that mark our kind.
'Twas nature knowledge did impart,
Which time has ripen'd into art:
But call it art, or what you will,
'Tis nature, human nature still:
As natural for us, my friend,
To bid the cloud-capt tow'rs ascend;
To bid the floating castles ride
On moving mountains of the tide;
As for the bird and beast their food
To seek in thicket, plain or wood,
To build the nest, or dig the den,
Far distant from the haunts of men.
Science, disprove it those who can,
Is, therefore, natural to man;
To other animals denied
This best and worst excuse for pride.

There are, 'tis true, who gravely hold
"Grimalkin's no essential scold,
"That men and monkies differ wide,
"The former to the heavens allied:"
Striving to prove, by various means,
"That brutes are nothing but machines."
But, can we e'er with these suppose
Springs lodg'd within the terrier's nose,
Direct his nimble feet to go
Where the old fox lies earth'd below?
Or that by mere mechanicks Tray
Pursues his master's doubtful way?
For me, I frankly must impute
True syllogisms to e'en the brute:
A pow'r of reason, spite of pride,
No more to him than man denied.

So much admitting, dost thou say?
"I fairly throw my cause away,
"Unless to brutes, heaven also give
"In immortality to live."
Lorenzo, no.—Tho' less refin'd,
My pleas are of another kind:
Low as the dust tho' here we lie,
Yet death may raise us to the sky.
Is man a worm? 'Tis here his fate
To winter his aurelia state;
In time to burst his cell design'd,
And leave his clay-cold case behind;
Flutt'ring on angel wings, to rise
A bright papilio to the skies!

Distinguish'd from the beasts, my friend,
Experience ev'ry doubt may end;
Granting "by nature all enjoy
"The pow'rs heaven meant them to employ;
"Passion nor instinct e'er bestow'd
"On man, or beast, a useless load;
"But serving animals, in kind,
"To th' end for which they were design'd."
This once suppos'd, here end disputes;
Look round among our fellow brutes,
See to what point their labours tend,
And how in death their talents end.
Perfect the bird and beast, we find,
Advance not here their sev'ral kind;
From race to race no wiser grow,
No gradual perfection know;
T'increasing knowledge void their claim,
Still their specific pow'rs the same;
In th'individual centred all,
Tho generations rise and fall.
Mean-while by observation wise,
The human genius never dies;
But, in tradition kept alive,
The wreck of kingdoms doth survive;
Or, glowing in th'instructive page,
Improving, lives from age to age;
Ev'n giving those, who greatly know,
An immortality below.
What idle mourner droops his head?
Is Plato, Locke, or Newton dead?
With Plato still his pupils rove
Along his academic grove;
With Locke we wing the naked soul,
And mount with Newton to the pole.
To animals of ev'ry kind
Are, then, their proper pow'rs assign'd;
To actuate, strengthen or restrain,
Nor sense nor instinct giv'n in vain?
Man, as an animal confess'd,
Distinguish'd plainly from the rest,
Behold his powers, his labours here
Presumptive of a brighter sphere!
Not merely to this life confin'd
The aim, and end of human-kind!
Say, if our purpose but to live,
What mighty help doth science give?
What needed more the human brute
Than cooling springs and strenght'ning fruit?
Or, summer past, the diet spare
Of wholesome roots, his winter fare?
How need our better rest and health
Golconda's or Potosi's wealth,
That sacrific'd that health and rest,
To fetch it home from east and west?
Lorenzo, sure, if human-kind
For this life only were design'd,
As well we ignorant had been
Of luxury, the bawd to sin;
As well those arts had been without
That give, while none can cure, the gout.
Ah! why was speculation given
If not to teach the way to heaven?
What need have animals below
The planets' paths above to know?
Or, in what curves, meand'ring, rove
Satellites round the orb of Jove?
Lends Art its microscopic eye,
In nature's miniature to pry?
To see beneath the civil knife
The butcher'd atoms robb'd of life;
To know that 'scaping from the steel,
Thousands may perish at a meal;
While conscious ev'ry step we tread,
We trample hosts of beings dead.
Ah, why this knowledge, given, to raise
Our wonder to our maker's praise?
Why hence inspir'd our God t'adore,
If seen, in death, his face no more?
It cannot be.—Of heavenly birth,
Science, no offspring of the earth,
To man hath Jacob's ladder given;
Reaching, its foot on earth, to heaven.
O, seize, with ardour seize the prize;
And claim thy kindred to the skies;
Genius, Lorenzo, yours or mine,
Faint image of the pow'r divine;
Endow'd with ev'n creative power,
To form the beings of an hour,
To people worlds, to light the skies,
To bid a new creation rise;
O'er all to wield the thunderer's rod,
And act the momentary God!

Ev'n here my friend doth nature's plan,
Prove the divinity of man.
A truth that genius feels and knows,
As oft as with the God it glows.
And shall t'oblivion be consign'd
This portion of th' aetherial mind?
O, no.—Come death in any form,
I doubt not to ride out the storm;
The shipwreck'd body to survive;
My thinking part still left alive.
Mean-while, through all the modes of sense,
Bear me, bold Contemplation, hence:
On thy firm wing, O, let me soar;
And idle hope and fear no more.
Bear me to th' ever-blooming groves,
Where Genius with fair Science roves;
Where, in the cool sequester'd shade,
Sits Resignation, pious maid;
To heaven directed by whose eye,
When drooping nature calls to die,
Let this my latest wishes crown;
On her soft lap to lay me down,
Whilst mild Content, and gentle Peace,
Her handmaids, waiting my release,
Strow, stealing round with softest tread,
Their grateful roses o'er my bed,
No thorn among, to break my rest;
By euthanasian slumbers blest;
Without a sigh at close of day,
To breathe, becalm'd, my soul away.