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If the great end be human Happiness,

159

Then Nature deviates; and can Man do lefs?
As much that end a conftant course requires
Of fhow'rs and fun-fhine, as of Man's defires;
As much eternal fprings and cloudless skies,
As Men for ever temp'rate, calm, and wife.

COMMENTARY.

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 abufe of his own free will; our Poet 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 Universe, (from Ver. 150 to 165.) and this by analogy. You own, fays he, that ftorms and tempefts, clouds. rain, heat, and variety of seasons are necessary (notwithstanding the accidental evil they bring with them to the health and plenty of this Globe; why then should you fuppofe there is not the fame use, with regard to the Unive fe, in a Borgia or a Catiline? But you say you can see the one and not the other. You fay

NOTES.

VER. 150. Then Nature deviates, &c.] "While comets "move in very eccentric orbs, in all manner of positions, blind Fate could never make all the planets move one and the fame way in orbs concentric; fome inconfiderable irre"gularities excepted, which may have rifen from the mu"tual 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, Quæft. ult.

If plagues or earthquakes break not Heav'n's

defign,

Why then a Borgia, or a Catiline?

COMMENTARY.

155

right one terminates in this fyftem, the other refers to the Whele: which Whole can be comprehended by none but the great Author himself. For, fays the Poet in another place,

"of this Frame, the bearings, and the ties,
"The ftrong connections, nice dependencies,
"Gradations juft, has thy pervading foul
"Look'd thro'? or can a part contain the whole ?”

Own therefore, fays he, that

Ver. 29, & feq.

"From Pride, our very Reas'ning fprings; "Account for moral, as for natʼral things:

"Why charge we Heav'n in those, in these acquit ? "In both, to reafon right, is to fubmit.”

NOTES.

VER. 155. If plagues, &c.] What hath misled Mr. De Croufaz in this paffage, is his fuppofing the comparison to be between the effects of two things in this fnblunary world; when not only the clegancy, but the juftnefs of it, confifts in its being between the effects of a thing in the univerfe at large, and the familiar known effects of one in this fublunary world. For the pofition inforced in these lines is this, that partial evil tends to the good of the whole:

66

Refpecting Man, whatever wrong we call,
May, must be right, as relative to all."

Ver. 51.

How does the Poet inforce it? If you will believe this Critic, in illustrating the effects of partial moral evil in a particular fyftem, by that of partial natural evil in the fame fyftem, and fo he leaves his pofition in the lurch. But the Poet reasons at another rate: The way to prove his point, he knew, was to

Who knows but he, whose hand the light'ning

forms,

Who heaves old Ocean, and who wings the ftorms;

Pours fierce Ambition in a Cæfar's mind,

Or turns young Ammon loose to scourge man

kind?

160

From pride, from pride, our very reas'ning

fprings;

Account for moral, as for nat'ral things:
Why charge we Heav'n in thofe, in these acquit?
In both, to reafon right is to fubmit.

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 strengthen the foregoing analogical argument, and to make the wif

NOTES.

illuftrate the effect of partial moral evil in the universe, by partial natural evil in a particular fiftem. Whether partial moral evil tend to the good of the Univerfe, 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 clear and certain; and it is a thing clear and 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 greateft is the making the very difpenfation objected to, the periphrafis of bis Title.

That never air or ocean felt the wind;

That never paffion difcompos'd the mind.

COMMENTARY.

dom and goodness of God ftill more apparent, he obferves (from Ver. 164 to 173.) 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 ocean would stagnate, 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 thofe Paffions, would be a lifelefs calm, a ftoical Apathy.

"Contracted all, retiring to the breast:

"But health of Mind is Exercife, not Reft."

Ep. ii. Ver. 103.

Therefore, instead 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 course, throughout all ages, from the creation to the present 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 reafons given above, are neceffary to the fupport of Virtue: That, indeed, the

But ALL fubfifts by elemental ftrife;

And paffions are the elements of Life.
The gen'ral ORDER, fince the whole began,
Is kept in Nature, and is kept in Man.

COMMENTARY.

170

paffions in excefs, produce vice, which is, in its own Nature, the greatest cf all evils, and comes into the world from the abufe of Man's free-will; but that God, in his infinite wisdom and goodness, deviously 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. Ver. 175.

This, fet againft what we have obferved of the Poet's doctrine of a future State, will furnish us with an inftance of his fleering (as he well expreffes it in his preface) between doët, ines feemingly oppofite: If his Elay has any merit, he thinks it is in this. And doubtless it is uncommon merit to reject the visions and abfurdities 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 fcheme 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 na"ture, productive of Good."

NOTES.

VER. 169. But Al fubfifts, &c.] See this fubject extended in Ep. ii. from Ver. 90 to 112, 155, &c.

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