ARGUMENT OF THE BOOK AND NEW PROEM AGAINST A TELEOLOGICAL CONCEPT And walking nowIn his own footprints, I do follow throughHis reasonings, and with pronouncements teachThe covenant whereby all things are framed,How under that covenant they must abideNor ever prevail to abrogate the aeons'Inexorable decrees,- how (as we've found),In class of mortal objects, o'er all else,The mind exists of earth-born frame createAnd impotent unscathed to abideAcross the mighty aeons, and how comeIn sleep those idol-apparitions,That so befool intelligence when weDo seem to view a man whom life has left.Thus far we've gone; the order of my planHath brought me now unto the point where IMust make report how, too, the universeConsists of mortal body, born in time,And in what modes that congregated stuffEstablished itself as earth and sky,Ocean, and stars, and sun, and ball of moon;And then what living creatures rose from outThe old telluric places, and what onesWere never born at all; and in what modeThe human race began to name its thingsAnd use the varied speech from man to man;And in what modes hath bosomed in their breastsThat awe of gods, which halloweth in all landsFanes, altars, groves, lakes, idols of the gods.Also I shall untangle by what powerThe steersman nature guides the sun's courses,And the meanderings of the moon, lest we,Percase, should fancy that of own free willThey circle their perennial courses round,Timing their motions for increase of cropsAnd living creatures, or lest we should thinkThey roll along by any plan of gods.For even those men who have learned full wellThat godheads lead a long life free of care,If yet meanwhile they wonder by what planThings can go on (and chiefly yon high thingsObserved o'erhead on the ethereal coasts),Again are hurried back unto the fearsOf old religion and adopt againHarsh masters, deemed almighty,- wretched men,Unwitting what can be and what cannot,And by what law to each its scope prescribed,Its boundary stone that clings so deep in Time.