Still for the strong too weak, the weak, too strong.
Yet go, and thus o’er all the creatures sway,
Thus let the wiser make the rest obey,
And for those arts mere instinct could afford
Be crowned as monarchs, or as gods ador’d.”
There is a trace, in this last couplet, of the irony, and chastising enforcement of humiliation, which generally characterize the ‘Essay on Man’; but, though it takes this colour, the command thus supposed to be uttered by the voice of Nature, is intended to be wholly earnest. “In the arts of which I set you example in the unassisted instinct of lower animals, I assist you by the added gifts of will and reason: be therefore, knowingly, in the deeds of Justice, kings under the Lord of Justice, while in the works of your hands, you remain happy labourers under His guidance
Who taught the nations of the field and wood
To shun their poison, and to choose their food, [[137]]
Prescient, the tides or tempests to withstand,
Build on the wave, or arch beneath the sand.”