Page:The Bible of Nature, and Substance of Virtue.djvu/31

Wherefore by his success our right we gain,
Religion is our subject, and we reign.
We knew not yet how is our soul produc'd,
Whether with body born, or else infus'd;
Whether in death breath'd out into the air,
She doth confus'dly mix and perish there;
Or through vast shades, and horrid silence go
To visit brimstone caves, and pools below
Or into beasts retires—
These fears, that darkness that o'erspreads our souls,
Day can't disperse, but those eternal rules
Which from firm premises true reason draws,
And a deep insight into Nature's laws.
Well, then, let this as the first rule be laid,
Nothing was by the gods of nothing made.
But this once prov'd, it gives an open way
To Nature's secrets, and we walk in day.
If nothing can be fertile, what law binds
All beings still to generate their own kinds?
Why do not all things variously proceed
From every thing? what use of similar seed?
Why do not birds and fishes rise from earth?
And men and trees from water take their birth?
Why do not herds and flocks drop down from air?
Wild creatures and untam'd spring every where?
Nought fixt and constant be, but every year
Whole Nature change, and all things all things bear?
But now, since constant Nature all things breeds,
From matter fitly join'd with proper seeds,
Their various shapes, their different properties,
Is the plain cause why all from all can't rise.
Wherefore 'tis better to conclude there are
Many first common bodies every where,
Which join'd, as letters words, do things compose,
Than that from nothing any thing arose.
Wherefore, as nothing Nature's power creates,
So death dissolves, but not annihilates:
For could the substances of bodies die,
They presently would vanish from our eye;
And without force dissolving perish all,
And silently into their nothing fall: