Self-love and Reason to one end aspire, Pain their averfion, Pleasure their defire; This tafte the honey, and not wound the flow'r : Pleasure, or wrong or rightly understood, Our greatest evil, or our greatest good. III. Modes of Self-love the Paffions we may call: 'Tis real good, or feeming, moves them all: COMMENTARY. every thing which hath the appearance of good; the other weighs and examines whether it be indeed what it appears. This fhews, as he next obferves, the folly of the fchoolmen, who confider them as two oppofite principles, the one good and the other evil. The obfervation is feasonable and judicious; for this dangerous fchool opinion gives great fupport to the Manichæan or Zoroastrian error, the confutation of which was one of the author's chief ends in writing. For if there be two principles in Man, a good and bad, it is natural to think him the joint product of the two Manichæan deities (the firft of which contributed to his Reafon, the other to his Paffions) rather than the creature of one Individual Caufe. This was Plutarch's notion, and, as we may fee in him, of the more ancient Manichæans. It was of importance, therefore, to reprobrate and fubvert a notion that ferved to the fupport of fo dangerous an error: And this the poet has done with more force and clearness than is often to be found in whole volumes written against that heretical opinion. VER. 93. Modes of Self-love, &c.] Having given this account of the nature of Self-love in general, he comes now to anatomize it, in a difcourfe on the PASSIONS, which he aptly names the modes of Self-love. The object of all thefe, he fhews (from 92 to 101) is good; and, when under the guidance of Reafon, real good, either of ourselves or of another; for fome goods not being capable of divifion or communication, and Reafon at the fame time directing us to provide for ourselves, 95 But fince not ev'ry good we can divide, In lazy Apathy let Stoics boast Their Virtue fix'd; 'tis fix'd as in a froft; But ftrength of mind is Exercise, not Rest: COMMENTARY. 105 we therefore, in purfuit of thefe objects, fometimes aim at our own good, fometimes at the good of others: when fairly aiming at our own, the quality is called Prudence; when at another's, Virtue. Hence (as he fhews from 100 to 105) appears the folly of the Stoics, who would eradicate the Pafiions, things fo neceffary both to the good of the Individual and of the Kind. Which prepofterous method of promoting Virtue he therefore very reasonably reproves. VER. 105. The rifing tempeft puts in at the foul,] But as it was from obfervation of the evils occafioned by the Pallions, that the Stoics thus extravagantly projected their extirpation, the poet recurs (from 104 to 111) to his grand principle, to often before, and to fo good purpofe, infifted on, that partial Li is univerfal Good; and fhews, that though the tempeft of the i affions, like that of the air, may tear and ravage fome few parts of nature in its paffage, yet the falutary agitation produced by it preferves the whole in life and vigour. This is his first argument against the Stoics, which he illuftrates by On life's vaft ocean diverfely we fail, Reason the card, but paffion is the gale; 109 He mounts the ftorm, and walks upon the wind, Paffions, like elements, tho' born to fight, Yet, mix'd and foften'd, in his work unite: VARIATIONS. After 108. in the MS. A tedious Voyage! where how useless lies The foft reward the virtuous, or invite; COMMENTARY. a very beautiful fimilitude, on a hint taken from Scripture: Nor God alone in the ftill calm we find, He mounts the ftorm, and walks upon the wind. VER. III. Paffions, like Elements, &c.] His fecond argument against the Stoics (from 110 to 133) is, that Paffions go to the compofition of a moral character, juft as elementary particles go to the compofition of an organized body: Therefore, for Man to project the deftruction of what composes his very Being, is the height of extravagance. 'Tis true, he tells us, NOTES. VER. 109. Nor God alone, &c.] Thefe words are only a fimple affirmation in the poetic drefs of a fimilitude, to this purpofe: Good is not only produced by the fubdual of the Paffions, but by the turbulent exercife of them. A truth conveyed under the moft fublime imagery that poetry could conceive or paint. For the author is here only fhewing the providential iffue of the Paffions, and how, by God's gracious difpofition, they are turned away from their natural byas, to promote the happinefs of Mankind. As to the method in which they are to be treated by Man, in whom 115 These 'tis enough to temper and employ ; Pleasures are ever in our hands or eyes; COMMENTARY. that these Paffions, which, in their natural ftate, like elements, are in perpetual jar, must be tempered, foftened, and united, in order to perfect the work of the great plaftic Artift; who, in this office, employs human Reafon; whofe business it is to follow the road of Nature, and to obferve the dictates of the Deity; Follow her and God. The ufe and importance of this precept is evident: For in doing the firft, fhe will discover the abfurdity of attempting to eradicate the Paffions; in doing the fecond, fhe will learn how to make them fubfervient to the interefts of Virtue. VER. 123. Pleafures are ever in our hands or eyes;] His third argument against the Stoics (from 122 to 127) is, that the Paffions are a continual fpur to the purfuit of Happiness; which, without these powerful inciters, we fhould neglect, and fink into a fenfelefs indolence. Now Happiness is the end of our NOTES. they are found, all that he contends for, in favour of them, is only this, that they fhould not be quite rooted up and Present to grasp, and future still to find, The whole employ of body and of mind. 125 All spread their charms, but charm not all alike ; COMMENTARY. 130 creation; and this excitement the means of Happiness; therefore, these movers, the Paffions, are the inftruments of God, which he hath put into the hands of Reason to work withal. VER. 127. All spread their charms, &c.] The poet now proceeds in his fubject; and this laft obfervation leads him naturally to the difcuffion of his next principle. He fhews then, that though all the Paffions have their turn in fwaying the determinations of the mind, yet every Man hath one MASTER PASSION that at length ftifles or abforbs all the rest. The fact he illuftrates at large in his epiftle to Lord Cobham. Here (from 126 to 149) he giveth us the caufe of it. Those Pleasures or Goods, which are the objects of the Paffions, affect the mind by ftriking on the fenses; but, as through the formation of the organs of our frame, every man hath fome one fenfe stronger and more acute than others, the object which strikes that stronger or acuter fenfe, whatever it be, will be the object most desired; and confequently, the pursuit of that will be the ruling Paffion. That the difference of force in this ruling Paffion fhall, at first, perhaps, be very fmall or even imperceptible; but Nature, Habit, Imagination, Wit, nay even Reafon itself fhall affift its growth, 'till it hath at length drawn and converted every other into itself. All which is delivered in a strain of Poetry so won NOTES. deftroyed, as the Stoics, and their followers in all religions, foolishly attempted. For the reft, he conftantly repeats this advice, The action of the ftronger to fufpend, Reason ftill ufe, to Reafon ftill attend. |