The Works of Voltaire/Volume 1/On Moderation in All Things
On Moderation in all Things.
Fools by excess make varied pleasures pall,
The wise man's moderate, and enjoys them all;
Pleasure and business to combine he knows,
And makes joy terminate in due repose.
To all things no one mortal can aspire,
From early youth to know was your desire:
Nature's your book, you strive with curious eye
In nature more than others to descry,
Guided by reason nature try to sound,
But set to curiosity a bound.
Stop on infinity's dread verge thy course,
And pry not into nature's awful source,
Reaumur and Buffon who with piercing sight,
Athwart her veil discerned truth's sacred light,
Cannot by philosophic process state
The wondrous laws by which plants vegetate.
Was it e'er known to the profoundest sage
Why panthers, tigers, and why vipers rage?
Wherefore to man the dog still lifts his eyes,
And licks his feeder's hand before he dies?
Why on a hundred legs, with motion slow,
Does yonder insect ever trembling go?
Why does the reptile which entombed now lies,
Revived, from thence with a new body rise?
Why does it, crowned like flame, ascending spring,
And in the air expand its gorgeous wing?
Can even Dufay, whose head with plans is filled,
Dufay in vegetables deeply skilled,
Tell why the plant, which sensitive we name,
Shrinks from the touch of man its trembling frame?
Languid with sickness, on your bed reclined,
From Sylva's eloquence relief you find,
He makes the tortured patient cease to groan,
To him the happy art to please is known.
Can Sylva's self the economy explain
Which works digestion, and makes food sustain?
How the bile through so many channels flows,
How, by degrees, it's filtrated, and goes
To pour into my veins a purple tide,
By which both strength and spirits are supplied,
Which makes the pulse of life incessant beat,
And makes the brain intelligence's seat?
Lost in amaze, he lifts to heaven his eye
And bids you for the truth to God apply.
Return, Maupertuis, to these realms of light,
From realms where half the year day's hid in night;
You, who alone the praise of Newton share,
Who know the truth, the truth to man declare.
You who forego in search of knowledge ease,
Who traverse mountains, and who pass the seas,
Who could the mind and body's toil sustain,
Who could our planet's figure ascertain;
Who scan all nature's laws with minds profound,
The cause from whence attraction springs expound.
To men like you all nature's laws are known,
Tell me how, seated on His heavenly throne,
The great first mover can with power control
Those orbs which in the heavens incessant roll,
Direct their motions, make them gravitate
Towards each other with responsive weight?
Why towards the sun is this our nether world
Forever pulled, and round its axis hurled,
Why in twelve years does Jove the heavens go round,
Why of his day is ten hours space the bound?
These subtle disquisitions all are vain,
Mars measures heaven, but nature can't explain.
Thus by sure art, and by perspective's law,
You may the front of some proud palace draw,
Its architecture's to the eye revealed,
The inside of the structure is concealed.
Why should I grieve then, if my feeble sight
Cannot pierce through this veil of darkest night?
I would not, like Empedocles, aspire
To know the nature of famed Ætna's fire,
Who to walk o'er sulphurous vaults presumed,
Who fire would know, and was by fire consumed,
Let then ambition's sallies be repressed,
It is the ruling passion of the breast.
The farmer-general rude, the magistrate
Who struts with the imperious airs of state,
All these to court, contempt to suffer go,
Contempt which they to all at Paris show.
Even bards sometimes urged on by Phœbus' flame,
Have been deluded by that phantom fame,
Plato was Dionysius' humble guest,
Louis Racine turned Jansenist caressed.
Horace, in loose and prostituted lays,
Sang Glycera and sold Octavius praise.
At court these pawned integrity for gain,
But opulence and ease made light their chain;
Horace, the sage, with affluence lived blessed,
Who grasps at all, is sure to be distressed.
You who have introduced in Gallia's court
All Sybaris' luxury and wanton sport,
Who even on the down of ease reclined,
To luxury dedicate the vacant mind,
You frantic men, who vainly bliss pursue,
Learn to enjoy it, and to know it too;
Pleasure's the God from whom we claim our birth.
Starved 'midst the weeds and brambles of the earth.
Pleasures are various in each varied stage
Of life, and some we taste when chilled by age.
But prudently the soul should feast on joy,
Pleasures are always transient soon they cloy.
Present not to your senses when they fail,
All the perfumes which Flora can exhale;
Let us not strive of all joys to partake,
But let us pleasure quit, for pleasure's sake;
Who labors hard true pleasure still obtains,
I pity him whom indolence enchains.
True wisdom yields true happiness below,
On earth no harvests without culture grow:
Good by laborious search must here be sought,
Success by industry alone is bought.
Behold Lucullus critic in nice fare,
To supper from the opera repair,
Pleasure in luxury he hopes to find,
But vapors still o'ercast his clouded mind.
His soul o'erwhelmed, no rays of light pervade,
He sleeps supine in dark oblivion's shade;
He grasps at joy, to rapture he aspires
In vain; he's dead to pleasure and desires.
Caressed by ease, officious and o'erkind
Pleasure long since on sloth's soft lap reclined:
Love, music, poetry, no more could please,
Man was enslaved by indolence and ease.
But God in pity to man's helpless kind
Labor with pleasure, joy with pain's combined.
Awaked by fear, man strives his bliss to gain;
Toil ever follows in fair pleasure's train.
The wise man's moderate, and enjoys them all;
Pleasure and business to combine he knows,
And makes joy terminate in due repose.
To all things no one mortal can aspire,
From early youth to know was your desire:
Nature's your book, you strive with curious eye
In nature more than others to descry,
Guided by reason nature try to sound,
But set to curiosity a bound.
Stop on infinity's dread verge thy course,
And pry not into nature's awful source,
Reaumur and Buffon who with piercing sight,
Athwart her veil discerned truth's sacred light,
Cannot by philosophic process state
The wondrous laws by which plants vegetate.
Was it e'er known to the profoundest sage
Why panthers, tigers, and why vipers rage?
Wherefore to man the dog still lifts his eyes,
And licks his feeder's hand before he dies?
Why on a hundred legs, with motion slow,
Does yonder insect ever trembling go?
Why does the reptile which entombed now lies,
Revived, from thence with a new body rise?
Why does it, crowned like flame, ascending spring,
And in the air expand its gorgeous wing?
Can even Dufay, whose head with plans is filled,
Dufay in vegetables deeply skilled,
Tell why the plant, which sensitive we name,
Shrinks from the touch of man its trembling frame?
Languid with sickness, on your bed reclined,
From Sylva's eloquence relief you find,
He makes the tortured patient cease to groan,
To him the happy art to please is known.
Can Sylva's self the economy explain
Which works digestion, and makes food sustain?
How the bile through so many channels flows,
How, by degrees, it's filtrated, and goes
To pour into my veins a purple tide,
By which both strength and spirits are supplied,
Which makes the pulse of life incessant beat,
And makes the brain intelligence's seat?
Lost in amaze, he lifts to heaven his eye
And bids you for the truth to God apply.
Return, Maupertuis, to these realms of light,
From realms where half the year day's hid in night;
You, who alone the praise of Newton share,
Who know the truth, the truth to man declare.
You who forego in search of knowledge ease,
Who traverse mountains, and who pass the seas,
Who could the mind and body's toil sustain,
Who could our planet's figure ascertain;
Who scan all nature's laws with minds profound,
The cause from whence attraction springs expound.
To men like you all nature's laws are known,
Tell me how, seated on His heavenly throne,
The great first mover can with power control
Those orbs which in the heavens incessant roll,
Direct their motions, make them gravitate
Towards each other with responsive weight?
Why towards the sun is this our nether world
Forever pulled, and round its axis hurled,
Why in twelve years does Jove the heavens go round,
Why of his day is ten hours space the bound?
These subtle disquisitions all are vain,
Mars measures heaven, but nature can't explain.
Thus by sure art, and by perspective's law,
You may the front of some proud palace draw,
Its architecture's to the eye revealed,
The inside of the structure is concealed.
Why should I grieve then, if my feeble sight
Cannot pierce through this veil of darkest night?
I would not, like Empedocles, aspire
To know the nature of famed Ætna's fire,
Who to walk o'er sulphurous vaults presumed,
Who fire would know, and was by fire consumed,
Let then ambition's sallies be repressed,
It is the ruling passion of the breast.
The farmer-general rude, the magistrate
Who struts with the imperious airs of state,
All these to court, contempt to suffer go,
Contempt which they to all at Paris show.
Even bards sometimes urged on by Phœbus' flame,
Have been deluded by that phantom fame,
Plato was Dionysius' humble guest,
Louis Racine turned Jansenist caressed.
Horace, in loose and prostituted lays,
Sang Glycera and sold Octavius praise.
At court these pawned integrity for gain,
But opulence and ease made light their chain;
Horace, the sage, with affluence lived blessed,
Who grasps at all, is sure to be distressed.
You who have introduced in Gallia's court
All Sybaris' luxury and wanton sport,
Who even on the down of ease reclined,
To luxury dedicate the vacant mind,
You frantic men, who vainly bliss pursue,
Learn to enjoy it, and to know it too;
Pleasure's the God from whom we claim our birth.
Starved 'midst the weeds and brambles of the earth.
Pleasures are various in each varied stage
Of life, and some we taste when chilled by age.
But prudently the soul should feast on joy,
Pleasures are always transient soon they cloy.
Present not to your senses when they fail,
All the perfumes which Flora can exhale;
Let us not strive of all joys to partake,
But let us pleasure quit, for pleasure's sake;
Who labors hard true pleasure still obtains,
I pity him whom indolence enchains.
True wisdom yields true happiness below,
On earth no harvests without culture grow:
Good by laborious search must here be sought,
Success by industry alone is bought.
Behold Lucullus critic in nice fare,
To supper from the opera repair,
Pleasure in luxury he hopes to find,
But vapors still o'ercast his clouded mind.
His soul o'erwhelmed, no rays of light pervade,
He sleeps supine in dark oblivion's shade;
He grasps at joy, to rapture he aspires
In vain; he's dead to pleasure and desires.
Caressed by ease, officious and o'erkind
Pleasure long since on sloth's soft lap reclined:
Love, music, poetry, no more could please,
Man was enslaved by indolence and ease.
But God in pity to man's helpless kind
Labor with pleasure, joy with pain's combined.
Awaked by fear, man strives his bliss to gain;
Toil ever follows in fair pleasure's train.