More pow'rful each as needful to the reft, NOTES. 333 ever, Mr. Pope may be justified in receiving and inforcing this Platonic notion, as it hath been adopted by the most celebrated and orthodox divines both of the ancient and modern church. This doctrine, we own then, was taken up by Leibnitz; but it was to ingraft upon it a moft pernicious fatalifm. Plato faid, God chose the beft: Leibnitz faid, he could not but chufe the beft as he could not act without, what this philosopher called, a uffi ient reafon. Plato fuppofed freedom in God to chufe one of two things equally good: Leibnitz held the fuppofition to be abfurd: however, admitting the cafe, he still held that God could not chufe one of two things equally good. Thus it appears, the first went on the fyftem of Freedom; and that the latter, notwithstanding the most artful disguises of his principles, in his Theodicée, was a thorough Fatalist: For we cannot well fuppofe he would give that freedom to Man which he had taken away from God. The truth of the matter feems to be this: he faw, on the one hand, the monftrous abfurdity of fuppofing, with Spinoza, that blind Fate was the author of a coherent Univerfe; but yet, on the other, could not conceive with Plato, how God could forefee and conduct, according to an archetypal idea, a World, of all poffible Worlds the beft, inhabited by free Agents. This difficulty therefore, which made the Socinians take Prescience from God, difpofed Leibnitz to take Free-will from Man: And thus he fafhioned his fantaftical hypothefis; he fuppofed that when God made the body, he impreffed on his new created Machine a certain series or fuite of motions; and that when he made the fellow foul, he impreffed a correfpondent feries of ideas; whofe operations, throughout the whole duration of the union, were fo exactly timed, that whenever an ida was excited, a correfpondent motion was ever ready to fatisfy the volition. Thus, for inftance, when the mind had the will to raife the arm to the head, the body was fo precontrived, as to raife, at that very moment, the part required. This he called the PRE-ESTABLISHED HARMONY; and with this he promifed to do wonders. "Yet, after all, Draw to one point, and to one centre bring COMMENTARY. VER. 303. For Forms of Government let Fools conteft; &c.] But now the Poet, having fo much commended the invention and inventors of the philofophic principles of Religion and Government, left an evil ufe fhould be made of this, by Men's resting in theory and fpeculation, as they have been NOTE s. "(fays an excellent philofopher and beft interpreter of New"ton) he owned to his friends, that this extraordinary noti on was only a lufus ingenii (un jeu d'efprit) to try his parts, "and laugh at the credulity of philofophers; who are as "fond of a new paradox, as Enthufiafts of a new light. If "at other times he was fo pleas'd with his own notions in "the Theodicée, as to defend them feriously against the "learned Dr. Clarke; that fhews only that he angled for two "different forts of reputation, from the fame performance; "and unluckily he loft both. The fubject was too serious "to pafs for a romance; and the principles too abfurd to be "admitted for truth." Mr Baxter's Appendix to the Inquiry As this was the into the nature of the human Soul, p. 162. cafe, none would have thought it amifs, in M. Voltaire, to oppose one romance to another, had he refted there. But his Tale of Candide, which profeffes to ridicule the Optimifme of Leibnitz, was apparently compofed in favour of an irreligious Natural fme, which he makes the folution of all the difficulties in the story. VER. 303. For Forms of Government, &.] These fine lines have been trangely misunderstood: the author, against his own exprefs words, against the plain fenfe of his fyftem, hath been conceived to mean, That all Governments and all Religions were, as to their forms and objects, indifferent. But as this wrong judgment proceeded from ignorance of the R For Modes of Faith let graceless zealots fight; 305 His can't be wrong whofe life is in the right: COMMENTARY. always too apt to do in matters where practice makes their happiness, he cautions his reader (from Ver. 302 to 311.) against this error. The feasonablenefs of this reproof will appear evident enough to thofe who know, that mad difputes about Liberty and Prerogative had once well nigh overturned our Constitution; while others about Mystery and Church Authority had almoft deftroyed the very spirit of our Religion. NOTES. reafon of the reproof, as explained above, that explanation is alone fufficient to rectify the mistake. However, not to leave him under the leaft fufpicion in a matter of fo much importance, I fhall juftify the fense here given to this paffage, more at large: I. And first as to Society, Let us confider the words themfelves and then compare this mistaken fense with the context. The Poet, we may observe, is here fpeaking, not of civil Society at large, but of a juft legitimate Policy: "Th' according mufic of a well-mix'd State. Now mix'd States are of various kinds; in fome of which the Democratic, in others the Ariftocratic, and in others, the Monarchic form prevails. Now, as each of these mixed Forms is equally legitimate, as being founded on the prin ciples of natural liberty, that man is guilty of the highest folly, who chufeth rather to employ himfelf in a fpeculative conteft for the fuperior excellence of one of thefe Forms to the reft, than in promoting the good adminiftration of that fettled Form to which he is fubject. And yet most of our warm difputes about Government, have been of this kind. Again, In Faith and Hope the world will disagree, NOTES. Again, if by Forms of Government, muft needs be meant legitimate Government, because that is the subject under debate; then by Modes of Faith, which is the correspondent idea, must needs be meant the the modes or explanations of the True Faith, because the Author is here too on the fubject of true Religion: "Relum'd her ancient light, not kindled new." Besides, the very expreffion (than which nothing can be more precife) confineth us to understand by Modes of Faith, those human explanations of Christian Myfteries, in contefting which zeal and ignorance have so perpetually violated Charity. Secondly, If we confider the context; to fuppofe him to mean, that all Forms of Government are indifferent, is making him directly contradict the preceding paragraph; where he extols the Patriot for difcriminating the true from the falfe modes of Government. He, fays the Poet, "Taught Pow'r's due ufe to People and to Kings, "That touching one, muft ftrike the other too; "Th' according mufic of a well-mix'd State." Here he recommendeth the true Form of Government, which is the mixed. In another place he as ftrongly condemneth the false, or the abfolute jure divino Form: "For Nature knew no right divine in Men." But the Reader will not be difpleased to see the Poet's own apology, as I find it written in the year 1740, in his own hand, in the margin of a pamphlet, where he found these two celebrated lines very much mifapplied: "The Author "of thefe lines was far from meaning that no one form of "Government is, in itself, better than another, (as, that mixed or limited Mcnarchy, for example, is not preferable "to abfolute) but that no form of Government, however ex All must be false that thwart this One great End; And all of God, that bless Mankind or mend. 310 NOTES. "cellent or preferable, in itself, can be fufficient to make a "People happy, unless it be administered with integrity. On "the contrary, the best fort of Government, when the form of it is preferved, and the adminiftration corrupt, is most "dangerous." II. Again, to fuppofe the Poet to mean, that all Religions are indifferent, is an equally wrong, as well as uncharitable fufpicion. Mr. Pope, though his fubject, in this Essay on Man, confineth him to Natural Religion; yet he giveth frequent intimations of a more fublime Difpenfation, and even of the ncceffity of it; particularly in his fecond epistle (Ver. 149, &c.) where he confeffeth the weakness and infufficiency of human Reason. And likewife in his fourth epiftle, where, fpeaking of the good Man, the favourite of Heaven, he fayeth, "For him alone, Hope leads from goal to goal, But Natural Religion never lengthened Hope on to Faith; nor did any Religion, but the Chriftian, ever conceive that Faith could fill the mind with happiness. Lastly, In this very epistle, and in this very place, speaking of the great Restorers of the Religion of Nature, he intimates that they could only draw God's fhadow, not his image: "Re-lum'd her ancient light, not kindled new, as reverencing that truth, which telleth us, this difcovery referved for the glorious Gospel of Chrift, who is the image of God, 2 Cor. iv. 4. VER. 305. For Modes of Faith let graceless zealots fight ;] Thefe latter ages have feen fo many fcandalous contentions for modes of faith, to the violation of Chriftian Charity, and difhonour of facred Scripture, that it is not at all ftrange they |
