That lay from everlasting in the store
Of his divine conceptions. Nor content,
By one exertion of creating pow'r,
His goodness to reveal; thro' every age,
Thro' every moment up the tract of time,340
His parent-hand with ever-new increase
Of happiness and virtue has adorn'd
The vast harmonious frame: his parent-hand,
From the mute shell-fish gasping on the shore,
To men, to angels, to cœlestial minds,345
For ever leads the generations on
To higher scenes of being; while supply'd
From day to day by his inlivening breath,
Inferior orders in succession rise
To fill the void below. As flame ascends,[1]350
As bodies to their proper center move,
As the poiz'd ocean to th' attracting moon
Obedient swells, and every headlong stream
Devolves its winding waters to the main;
So all things which have life aspire to God,355
The sun of being, boundless, unimpair'd,
- ↑ As flame ascends, &c.] This opinion, tho' not held by Plato or any of the ancients, is yet a very natural consequence of his principles. But the disquisition is too complex and extensive to be enter'd upon here.
of any particular circumstances of human life separately consider'd, but of the sum or universal system of life and being. See also the vision at the end of the Theodicée of Leibnitz.
