The pleasures of imagination. A poem / In three books.

  • Mark Akenside
Date:
1754
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The pleasures of imagination. A poem / In three books. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    74/144 (page 70)
    7° Yet by immenfe benignity inclin’d To fpread around him that primaeval joy Which fill’d himfelf, he rais’d his plaftic arm. And founded thro’ the hollow depth of fpace The ftrong, creative mandate. Strait arofe 315 Thefe heav’nly orbs, the glad abodes of life ci;ice might he deprejfed and fuhdued, and virtue made fecure of vidiory and happinefs with the great eft facility and in the high- eft degree pcfjible: In this manner he order'd thro9 the entire cir¬ cle of being, the internal conftituiion of every mind, where jhould be its ftation in the univerfal f abric, and thro9 what variety of circumftances it jhould proceed in the whole tenour of its exiftence „ He goes on in his fublime manner to affert a future ftate of re¬ tribution, as well for thofe who, by the exercife of good difpoft- tions being harmonized and ajftmilated into the divine virtue, are confequently removed to a place of unblemiftdd fandlity and happi¬ nefs ; as of thofe who by the moft flagitious arts have rifen fro?n contemptible beginnings to the greateft ajflue}ice and power, and whom you therefore look upon as unanfvjerable inftances of negli¬ gence in the gods, becaufe you are ignorant of the purpofes to which they are fubfervient, and in what manner they contribute to that Jupreme intention of good to the whole. Plato de Leg, X. 16. This theory has been delivered of late, efpecjally abroad, in p. manner which fubverts the freedom of human actions; where¬ as Plato appears very careful to preferve it, and has been in that refpeft imitated by the belt of his followers. Effufive