Extremes in nature equal ends produce, In man they join to some mysterious use
 Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man (1734). copy citation

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Author Alexander Pope
Source An Essay on Man
Topic
Date 1734
Language English
Reference
Note
Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2428/2428-h/2428-h.htm

Context

“The fiery soul abhorred in Catiline, In Decius charms, in Curtius is divine: The same ambition can destroy or save, And makes a patriot as it makes a knave. This light and darkness in our chaos joined, What shall divide? The God within the mind. Extremes in nature equal ends produce, In man they join to some mysterious use; Though each by turns the other's bound invade, As, in some well-wrought picture, light and shade, And oft so mix, the difference is too nice Where ends the virtue or begins the vice. Fools! who from hence into the notion fall, That vice or virtue there is none at all.” source