[1119] From Kennet's Pascal, p. 180: "If we think too little of a thing or too much, our head turns giddy, and we are at a loss to find out our way to truth."
[1120] Kennet's Pascal, p. 162: "What a chimæra then is man! What a confused chaos! What a subject of contradiction!"
[1121] "Abused" here means "deceived," a sense of the word which was once common. Lord Bacon, Essay on Cunning: "Some build upon the abusing of others, and, as we now say, putting tricks upon them." Bishop Hall, Contemplations upon the New Testament, bk. ii. cont. 6: "Crafty men and lying spirits agreed to abuse the credulous world."
[1122] Kennet's Pascal, p. 162: "If he is too aspiring we can lower him; if too mean we can raise him."
[1123] From Kennet's Pascal, p. 162: "A professed judge of all things, and yet a feeble worm of the earth; the great depositary and guardian of truth, and yet a mere huddle of uncertainty; the glory and the scandal of the universe."
[1124] After ver. 18 in the MS.:
For more perfection than this state can bear
In vain we sigh; heav'n made us as we are.
[If gods we must because we would be, then
Pray hard ye monkies, and ye may be men.]
As wisely sure a modest ape might aim
To be like man, whose faculties and frame
He sees, he feels, as you or I to be
An angel thing we neither know nor see.
Observe how near he edges on our race;
What human tricks! how risible of face!
"It must be so—why else have I the sense
Of more than monkey charms and excellence?
Why else to walk on two so oft essayed?
And why this ardent longing for a maid?"
So Pug might plead, and call his gods unkind,
Till set on end, and married to his mind.
Go, reas'ning thing! assume the Doctor's chair,
As Plato deep, as Seneca severe:
Fix moral fitness, and to God give rule,
Then drop, etc.—Warburton.
The couplet between brackets was omitted by Warburton. There is still another reading in the MS. of the couplet, "Observe how near," etc.
Observe his love of tricks, his laughing face;
An elder brother, too, to human race.
[1125] MS.: