In human works, tho' labour'd on with pain,
A thousand movements scarce one purpose gain;
In God's, one single can its end produce;

Yet serves to second too some other use.
So man, who here seems principal alone,
Perhaps acts second to some sphere unknown,
Touches some wheel, or verges to some goal;
'Tis but a part we see, and not a whole.

COMMENTARY.

55

60

That it may, he proves (from ver. 52 to 61.) by shewing in what consists the difference between the systematic works of God, and those of Man; viz. that, in the latter, a thousand movements scarce gain one purpose; in the former, one movement gains many purposes. So that

Man, who here seems principal alone,
Perhaps acts second to some sphere unknown."

And acting thus, the appearance of wrong in the partial system. may be right in the universal; for

"'Tis but a part we see, and not a whole."

That it must, the whole body of this epistle is employed to illustrate and enforce. Thus partial Evil is universal Good, and thus Providence is fairly acquitted.

NOTES.

Ver. 53. In human works,] Verbatim from Bolingbroke; Fragments 43 and 63. Warton.

"In the works of men," says Bolingbroke, "the most complicated schemes produce, very hardly and very uncertainly, one single effect. In the works of God, one single scheme produces a multitude of different effects, and answers an immense variety of purposes." This occurs towards the close of Bolingbroke's work, Fragm. 63; and was probably not written till after the publication of the Essay on Man.

Ver. 60. 'Tis but a part] A new method of accounting for the origin of evil has been advanced by Hume in his Dialogues, p. 196. "I scruple not to allow," said Cleanthes," that I have been apt to suspect the frequent repetition of the word infinite, which we meet with in all theological writers, to savour more of panegyric than of

When the proud steed shall know why Man

restrains

His fiery course, or drives him o'er the plains;

COMMENTARY.

Ver. 61. When the proud steed, &c.] From all this the Poet draws a general conclusion (from ver. 60 to 91.), that, as what has

NOTES.

been

of philosophy; and that any purposes of reasoning, and even of religion, would be better served, were we to rest content with more accurate and more moderate expressions. The terms, admirable, excellent, superlatively great, wise, and holy, these sufficiently fill the imaginations of men; and any thing beyond, besides that it leads into absurdities, has no influence on the affections or sentiments. Thus, in the present subject, if we abandon all human analogy, as it seems your intention, Demea, I am afraid we abandon all religion, and retain no conception of the great object of our adoration. If we preserve human analogy, we must for ever find it impossible to reconcile any mixture of evil in the universe with infinite attributes; much less can we ever prove the latter from the former. But supposing the Author of Nature to be finitely perfect, though far exceeding mankind, a satisfactory account may then be given of natural and moral evil, and every untoward phenomenon be explained and adjusted. A less evil may then be chosen, in order to avoid a greater: inconveniencies be submitted to, in order to reach a desirable end: and, in a word, benevolence, regulated by wisdom and limited by necessity, may produce just such a world as the present." This seems to have been borrowed from Voltaire. Questions sur l'Encyclopédie, 9 Partie, p. 348. I have heard Dr. Adam Smith say, that these Dialogues concerning Natural Religion were the most laboured of all Hume's works. They were the occasion of Dr. Balguy's publishing that capital treatise, intitled, Divine Benevolence: which benevolence he undertakes to vindicate like this Essay on Man, but with greater consistency and closeness of reasoning, without having recourse to a future existence. Wollaston, in a celebrated passage, has given a striking and pathetic picture of the evils and miseries of this present life, in order to shew (as many divines do in their discourses) the absolute necessity of another, for the defence of the

dispensations

When the dull ox, why now he breaks the clod, Is now a victim, and now Egypt's God:

Then shall Man's pride and dulness comprehend 65 His actions', passions', being's, use and end;

COMMENTARY..

been said is sufficient to vindicate the ways of Providence, Man should rest submissive and content, and own every thing to be disposed for the best; that to think of discovering the manner how God conducts this wonderful scheme to its completion, is as absurd as to imagine that the horse and ox shall ever be able to comprehend why they undergo such different treatment in the hand of Man; nay, that such knowledge, if communicated, would be even pernicious, and make us neglect or desert our duty here. This he illustrates by the case of the lamb, which is happy in not knowing the fate that attends it from the butcher; and from thence takes occasion to observe, that God is the equal master of all his creatures, and provides for the proper happiness of each and every of them.

NOTES.

dispensations of Providence. Dr. Balguy, from p. 110 to p. 127, has minutely, and step by step, confuted every part of this statement of the evils and miseries of life; and ends by saying, “that Wollaston has only attended to one side of the question. He has dwelt largely on the melancholy parts of human life; but, in great measure, overlooked its enjoyments. A pen like his could, with equal ease and success, have painted the happiness of our present state, and given it the appearance of a paradise." This is the passage of Wollaston, which Bolingbroke has so much ridiculed. Works, vol. ii. p. 110.

Ver. 64. Egypt's God:] Called so, because the God Apis was worshipped universally over the whole land of Egypt. Warburton.

VARIATIONS.

Ver. 64.] In the former Editions,

Now wears a garland, an Egyptian God: altered as above for the reason given in the note. After ver. 68. the following lines in the first Edition :

If to be perfect in a certain sphere,

What matters soon or late, or here or there?
The blest to-day is as completely so,

As who began ten thousand years ago.

Warburton.

Why doing, suffering; check'd, impell'd; and why This hour a slave, the next a deity.

Then say not Man's imperfect, Heav'n in fault; Say rather, Man's as perfect as he ought: 70 His knowledge measur'd to his state and place; His time a moment, and a point his space.

If to be perfect in a certain sphere,

What matter, soon or late, or here or there?
The blest to-day is as completely so,

As who began a thousand years ago.

75

III. Heav'n from all creatures hides the book of

Fate,

All but the page prescrib'd, their present state;
From brutes what men, from men what spirits know,
Or who could suffer Being here below?
The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day,

Had he thy reason, would he skip and play?
Pleas'd to the last, he crops the flow'ry food,
And licks the hand just rais'd to shed his blood.

NOTES.

80

Ver. 70. as he ought:] Consequently man is not in a lapsed or degenerate state. He is as perfect a being as ever his Creator intended him to be; nor, consequently, did he stand in need of any redemption or atonement. The expression, as he ought, is imperfect; for, ought to be. Warton.

This extraordinary objection to a philosophical poem, has already been observed upon in the introductory note to the present edition.

Ver. 77. the book of Fate,] It would obviate the heavy difficulties in which we are involved, when we argue on the Divine Prescience, and consequent Predestination, if we were to adopt Archbishop King's opinion, and say, " that the knowledge of God is very different from the knowledge of Man, which implies succession, and seeing objects one after another; but the existence and the attributes of the Deity can have no relation to time; for that all things, past, present, and to come, are all at once present to the Divine Mind." Warton.

Oh! blindness to the future! kindly giv'n,

That each may fill the circle mark'd by Heav'n; Who sees with equal eye, as God of all,

85

A hero perish, or a sparrow fall,

Atoms or systems into ruin hurl❜d,

And now a bubble burst, and now a world.

90

Hope humbly then; with trembling pinions soar; Wait the great teacher Death, and God adore.

COMMENTARY.

Ver. 91. Hope humbly then; &c.] But now an Objector is supposed to put in, and say, "You tell us, indeed, that all things shall terminate in good; but we see ourselves surrounded with present evil; yet you forbid us all inquiry into the manner how we are to be extricated from it, and, in a word, leave us in a very disconsolate condition." Not so, replies the Poet; you may reasonably, if you please, receive much comfort from the HOPE of a happy futurity; a hope implanted in the human breast by God himself for this very purpose, as an earnest of that bliss, which, always flying from us here, is reserved for the good man hereafter. The reason why the Poet chooses to insist on this proof of a future state, in preference to others, is in order to give his system (which is founded in a sublime and improved Platonism) the greater grace of uniformity. For HOPE was Plato's peculiar argument for a future state; and the words here employed-The soul uneasy, &c. his peculiar expression. The Poet in this place, therefore, says in express terms, that GOD GAVE US HOPE TO SUPPLY THAT FUTURE In his second epistle, ver. 274, he goes still further, and says, this HOPE quits us not even at Death, when every thing mortal drops from us : "Hope travels through, nor quits us when we die."

BLISS, WHICH HE AT PRESENT KEEPS HID FROM US.

NOTES.

And,

Ver. 87. Who sees with equal eye, &c.] Matth. x. 29. Warburton.

No great, no little; 'tis as much decreed,

That Virgil's Gnat should die, as Cæsar bleed. Warburton.