"No ('tis reply'd) the first Almighty Cause 145 Then Nature deviates; and can Man do less? 150 COMMENTARY. That is, if Nature, or the inanimate fyftem (on which God hath impofed his laws, which it obeys as a machine obeys the hand of the workman) may in courfe of time deviate from its first direction, as the best philofophy fhews it may; where is the wonder that Man, who was created a free Agent, and hath it in his power every moment to tranfgrefs the eternal rule of Right, fhould fometimes go out of Order? VER. 151. As much that end, &c.] Having thus fhewn how moral evil came into the world, namely, by Man's abuse of his own free-will; he comes to the point, the confirmation of his thefis, by fhewing how moral evil promotes good; and employs the fame conceffions of his adverfaries, concerning natural evil, to illuftrate it. 1. He fhews it tends to the good of the whole, or Univerfe (from 151 to 164) and this by analogy. You own, fays he, that storms and tempefts, clouds, rain, heat, and variety of fea NOTES. VER. 150. Then Nature deviates, &c.] "While comets move in very eccentric orbs, in all manner of pofitions, blind "Fate could never make all the planets move one and the same 66 way in orbs concentric; fome inconfiderable irregularities "excepted, which may have rifen from the mutual actions of "comets and planets upon one another, and which will be apt to increase, 'till this fyftem wants a reformation." Sir Ifaac Newton's Optics, Queft. ult. As much eternal fprings and cloudless skies, COMMENTARY. 156 fons are neceflary (notwithstanding the accidental evil they bring with them) to the health and plenty of this Globe; why then fhould you fuppofe there is not the fame use, with regard to the Univerfe, in a Borgia or a Catiline? But you fay you can fee the one and not the other. You fay right: one terminates in this fyftem, the other refers to the whole of which none are capable of judging but the great Author himself: For, fays the poet, in another place, -of this Frame the bearings, and the ties, The strong connections, nice dependencies, Look'd thro'? or can a part contain the whole? 29,& feq Own therefore, fays he, that From Pride, from Pride, our very Reas'ning springs; Why charge we Heav'n in thofe, in these acquit? NOTES. VER. 155. If plagues, &c.] What hath misled fome perfons in this paffage, is their fuppofing the comparison to be between the effects of two things in this fublunary world; when not only the elegancy, but the justness of it, confifts in its being between the effects of a thing in the universe at large, and the familiar and known effects of one in this fublunary world. For the pofition inforced in thefe lines is this, that partial evil tends to the good of the whole : Refpecting Man, whatever wrong we call, 51. How does the poet inforce it? if you will believe these perfons, in illuftrating the effects of partial moral evil in a particular fyftem, by that of partial natural evil in the fame Who knows but he, whose hand the light'ning forms, 159 Who heaves old Ocean, and who wings the storms; Better for Us, perhaps, it might appear, 165 Were there all harmony, all virtue here ; COMMENTARY. VER. 165. Better for us, &c.] But, fecondly, to ftrengthen the foregoing analogical argument, and to make the wisdom and goodness of God ftill more apparent, he observes (from 165 NOTES. fyftem, and fo he leaves his pofition in the lurch. But the poe reasons at another rate: The way to prove his point, he knew, was to illustrate the effect of partial moral evil in the universe, by partial natural evil in a particular fyftem. Whether partial moral evil tend to the good of the universe, being a question which, by reafon of our ignorance of many parts of that univerfe, we cannot decide, but from known effects; the rules of argument require that it be proved by analogy, i. e. fetting it by, and comparing it with, a thing certain; and it is a thing certain, that partial natural evil tends to the good of our particular fyftem. VER. 157. Who knows but he, &c.] The fublimity with which the great Author of Nature is here characterised, is but the fecond beauty of this fine paffage. The greatest is the making the very difpenfation objected to, the periphrafis of his Title. That never air or ocean feit the wind; That never paffion discompos'd the mind. COMMENTARY. to 172) that moral evil is not only productive of good to the whole, but is even productive of good in our own fyftem. It might, fays he, perhaps, appear better to us, that there were nothing in this world but peace and virtue : That never air or ocean felt the wind; That never paffion difcompos'd the mind. But then confider, that as our material fyftem is fupported by the ftrife of its elementary particles; fo is our intellectual fyftem by the conflict of our Paffions, which are the elements of human action. In a word, as without the benefit of tempeftuous winds, both air and occan would ftagnate, corrupt, and spread univerfal contagion throughout all the ranks of animals that inhabit, or are fupported by, them; fo, without the benefit of the Paffions, fuch virtue as was merely the effect of the abfence of those Paffions, would be a lifeless calm, a ftoical Apathy: Contracted all, retiring to the breast : But health of Mind is Exercife, not Reft. Ep.ii. 103 Therefore, inftead of regarding the conflict of the elements, and the Paffions of the mind as diforders, you ought to confider them as part of the general order of Providence: And that they are fo, appears from their always preferving the fame unvaried courfe, throughout all ages, from the creation to the prefent time: The gen'ral order, fince the Whole began, Is kept in Nature, and is kept in Man. We fee, therefore, it would be doing great injuftice to our author to fufpect that he intended, by this, to give any encouragement to Vice. His fyftem, as all his Ethic Epiftles fhew, is this: That the Paffions, for the reasons given above, are neceflary to the fupport of Virtue; That, indeed, the Paffions in excefs produce Vice, which is, in its own Nature, the greatest of all Evils, and comes into the world from the abufe of Man's freewill, but that God, in his infinite wifdom and goodness, devi But ALL fubfifts by elemental ftrife; And paffions are the elements of Life. The gen❜ral ORDER, fince the whole began, 170 VI. What would this Man? Now upward will he foar, And little less than Angel, would be more; 174 COMMENTARY. oufly turns the natural bias of its malignity to the advancement of human happiness, and makes it productive of general Good: TH'ETERNAL ART EDUCES GOOD FROM ILL. Ep. ii. 175. This fet against what we have obferved of the Poet's doctrine of a future State, will furnish us with an inftance of his fteering (as he well expreffes it in his preface) between doctrines feemingly oppofite: If his Essay has any merit, he thinks it is in this. And doubtlefs it is uncommon merit to reject the extravagances of every System, and take in only what is rational and real. The Characteristics and the Fable of the Bees are two feemingly inconfiftent fyftems; the extravagancy of the first is in giving a scheme of Virtue without Religion; and of the latter, in giving a scheme of Religion without Virtue. These our Poet leaves to Any that will take them up; but agrees however fo far with the first, that " Virtue would be worth having, though "itself was its only reward;" and fo far with the latter, that "God makes Evil, against its nature, productive of Good." VER. 173. What would this Man? &c.] Having thus justified Providence in its permission of partial MORAL EVIL, he employs the remaining part of his Epistle in vindicating it from the im NOTES. VER. 169. But all fubfifts, &c.] See this fubject extended in Ep. ii. from 90 to 112, 155, &c. VER. 174. And little less than Angels, &c.] Thou haft made him a little lower than the Angels, and haft crowned him with glory and honour. Pfalm viii. 9. |