id,comments,provenance,dictionary,created_at,reviewed_on,work_id,theme,context,updated_at,metaphor,text 11887,"•I've included twice: once in Government, once in Machine: Balance","Reading. Found again searching ""rule"" and ""reason"" in HDIS (Poetry).","",2003-11-04 00:00:00 UTC,2004-06-22,4525,"",Epistle II,2017-03-08 19:51:19 UTC,"""Self-love, the spring of motion, acts the soul; / Reason's comparing balance rules the whole.""","Self-love, the spring of motion, acts the soul;
Reason's comparing balance rules the whole.
Man, but for that, no action could attend,
And, but for this, were active to no end;
Fix'd like a plant on his peculiar spot,
To draw nutrition, propagate, and rot;
Or, meteor-like, flame lawless thro' the void,
Destroying others, by himself destroy'd.
(Epistle II, ll. 59-66)"