142 ORIGIN OF SOCIETY. CANTO IT. 



But if the beam some firmer hand suspends, 

 And good and evil load the adverse ends; 

 With strong libration, where the Good abides, 

 Quick nods the beam, the ponderous gold subsides. 



tc HEAR, O ye Sons of Time! the powers of Life 

 Arrest the elements, and stay their strife; 

 From wandering atoms, ethers, airs, and gas, 

 By combination form the organic mass; 

 Aijd, as they seize, digest, secrete, dispense 

 The bliss of Being to the vital Ens. 150 



Hence in bright groups from IRRITATION rise 

 Young Pleasure's trains, and roll their azure eyes. 



From wandering atoms, 1. 147. Had those ancient philosophers, who 

 contended that the world was formed from atoms, ascribed their com- 

 binations to certain immutable properties received from the hand of 

 the Creator, such as general gravitation, chemical affinity, or ani- 

 mal appetency, instead of ascribing them to a blind chance; the doc- 

 trine of atoms, as constituting or composing the material world by 

 the variety of their combinations, so far from leading the mind to 

 atheism, would strengthen the demonstration of the existence of a 

 Deity, as the first cause of all things; because the analogy resulting 

 from our perpetual experience of cause and effect would have thus 

 been exemplified through universal nature. 



