EPISTLE III. RE then we reft: "The Universal Caufei HERE "Acts to one end, but acts by various laws." In all the madness of fuperfluous health, The trim of pride, the impudence of wealth, VARIATIONS. Let VER. 1. In feveral Edit. in 4to. Learn, Dulnefs, learn! "The Universal Cause," &c. COMMENTARY. We are now come to the third epiftle of the Effay on Man. It having been fhewn, in explaining the origin, use, and end of the Paffions, in the fecond epiftle, that Man hath focial as well as selfish Paffions, that doctrine naturally introduceth the third, which treats of Man as a SOCIAL animal; and connects it with the fecond, which confidered him as an INDIVIDUAL. And as the conclufion from the subject of the firft epistle made the introduction to the second, fo here again, the conclufion of the second"(Ev'n mean Self-love becomes, by force divine, The scale to measure others' wants by thine,)": maketh the introduction to the third, "Here then we reft: The Univerfal Caufe Acts to one end, but acts by various laws." The reason of variety in those laws, which tend to one and the fame end, the good of the Whole generally, is, because the good of the Individual is likewife to be provided for; both which together make NOTES. VER. 3. fuperfluous health,] Immoderate labour and immoderate study are equally the impairers of health: They whose station fets them above both, muft needs have an abundance of it, which not being employed in the common service, but wasted in Luxury and Folly, the Poet properly calls a fuperfluity. WARBURTON. Let this great truth be prefent night and day; COMMENTARY. 5 Look make up the good of the Whole univerfally. And this is the cause (as the Poet fays elsewhere) that "Each individual feeks a fev'ral goal." But, to prevent our refting there, God hath made each need the affiftance of another; and fo "On mutual wants built mutual happiness." It was neceffary to explain the two first lines, the better to see the pertinency and force of what followeth (from ver. 2 to 7.), where the Poet warns fuch to take notice of this truth, whose circumftances placing them in an imaginary ftation of Independ ence, and inducing a real habit of infenfibility to mutual wants (from which wants general Happiness results), make them but too apt to overlook the true fyftem of things; viz. the men in full health and opulence. This caution was neceffary with respect to Society; but ftill more neceffary with respect to Religion: Therefore he especially recommends the memory of it as well to the Clergy as Laity, when they preach or pray; because the preacher who doth not confider the First Cause under this view, as a Being consulting the good of the Whole, muft needs give a very unworthy idea of him; and the fupplicant, who prayeth as one not related to a whole, or indifferent to the happiness of it, will not only pray in vain, but offend his Maker by neglecting the interests of his difpenfation. WARBURTON. NOTES. : VER. 3, 4, 5, 6. M. Du Refnel, not feeing into the admirable purpose of the caution contained in these four lines, hath quite dropped the moft material circumftances contained in the laft of them; and, what is worse, for the fake of a foolish antithefis, hath deftroyed the whole propriety of the thought in the two firft and fo, between both, hath left his Author neither sense nor system. "Dans le fein du bonheur, ou de l'adverfité." Now of all men, thofe in adverfity have least need of this caution, as being leaft apt to forget, That God confults the good of the whole, and provides for it by procuring mutual happiness by means of mutual wants; it being feen that fuch who yet retain the smart of any calamity, are moft compaffionate to others labouring under diftreffes, and moft prompt and ready to relieve them. fresh WARBURTON. ΤΟ Look round our World; behold the chain of Love Combining all below and all above. See plastic Nature working to this end, The fingle atoms each to other tend, Attract, attracted to, the next in place Form'd and impell'd its neighbour to embrace. See Matter next, with various life endu❜d, Prefs to one centre ftill, the gen'ral Good. COMMENTARY. See VER. 7. Look round our World, &c.] He now introduceth his fyftem of human Sociability (ver, 7, 8.), by fhewing it to be the didate of the Creator; and that Man, in this, did but follow the example of general Nature, which is united in one close system of benevolence. WARBURTON. VER. 9. See plaftic Nature working to this end,] This he proveth, first (from ver. 8 to 13.), on the noble theory of Attraction, from the economy of the material world; where there is a general confpiracy in all the particles of Matter to work for one end; the use, beauty, and harmony of the whole mafs. WARBURTON. VER. 13. See Matter next, &c.] The fecond argument (from ver. 12 to 27.), is taken from the vegetable and animal world; whose parts ferve mutually for the production, support, and sustentation of each other. But the observation, that God "Connects each being, greatest with the leaft; Made Beast in aid of Man, and Man of Beast; awaking again the pride of his impious adverfaries, who cannot bear that man should be thought to be ferving as well as served; he takes this occafion again to humble them (from ver. 26 to 49.) by the fame kind of argument he had so fuccefsfully employed in the first epistle, and which the comment on that epiftle hath confidered at large. WARBURTON. NOTES. VER. 12. Form'd and impell'd, &c.] To make Matter so cohere as to fit it for the ufes intended by its Creator, a proper configura See dying vegetables life fuftain, 15 See life diffolving vegetate again: All forms that perifh other forms fupply, They rife, they break, and to that sea return. NOTES. 20 Nothing tion of its infenfible parts, is as neceffary as that quality fo equally and univerfally conferred upon it, called Attraction. To exprefs the first part of this thought, our Author fays form'd; and to exprefs the latter, impell'd. WARBURTON. VER. 15. See dying vegetables] "Thus, in the feveral terrestrial forms, a refignation is required; a facrifice, and mutual yielding of nature, one to another. The vegetables, by their death, fuftain the animals; and the animal bodies diffolved enrich the earth, and raise again the vegetable world. The numerous infects are reduced by the superior kinds of birds or beafts; and these again are checked by man, who, in his turn, fubmits to other natures, and refigns his form a facrifice in common to the rest of things." Shaftesbury's Moralist, p. 131. In a letter of Dr. Warburton, transcribed from the manuscripts of Dr. Birch, in the British Museum, by the late Mr. Maty, are these remarkable words: "As to the paffages of Mr. Pope that correfpond with Leibnitz, you know he took them from Shaftefbury; and that Shaftesbury and Leibnitz had one common original, Plato, whofe fyftem, of the beft, when pufhed as far as Leibnitz has carried it, muft end in Fate." A strange opinion once prevailed, that Leibnitz was not serious in his Theodicée. Le Clerc and De Maiseaux were of this opinion. But Mr. Jourdan, in his entertaining Voyage Literaire, p. 150, has produced a letter of the celebrated and learned Mr. Le Croze, that effectually deftroys this abfurd fuppofition. WARTON. VER. R. 19, 20. Like bubbles, &c.] M. Du Refnel translates these two lines thus: "Sort du neant y réntre, et reparoit au jour." He is here, indeed, confiftently wrong: for having (as we faid) miftaken the Poet's account of the prefervation of Matter for the creation Nothing is foreign; Parts relate to whole; 25 Who for thy table feeds the wanton fawn, For him as kindly spread the flow'ry lawn: NOTES. 30 The creation of it, he commits the very same mistake with regard to the vegetable and animal fyftems; and fo talks now, though with the lateft, of the production of things out of nothing. Indeed, by his speaking of their returning into nothing, he has subjected his Author to M. Du Croufaz's cenfure. "Mr. Pope defcends to the most vulgar prejudices, when he tells us that each being returns to nothing: the Vulgar think that what difappears is annihilated," &c. Comm. p. 221. WARBURTON. VER. 22. One all-extending, all-preferving Soul] Which, in the language of Sir Ifaac Newton, is, "Deus omnipræfens eft, non per virtutem folam, fed etiam per fubftantiam: nam virtus fine fubftantia fubfiftere non poteft." Newt. Princ. Schol. gen. fub fin. WARBURTON. VER. 23. Connects each being,] Spiritus intus alit, magno et fe corpore mifcet. VIRG. VER. 23. greatest with the leaft ;] As acting more strongly and immediately in beasts, whose instinct is plainly an external reason ; which made an old fchool-man fay, with great elegance, "Deus eft anima brutorum :" "In this 'tis God directs". WARBURTON. |