Of the Nature and State of Man with respect to the UNIVERSE. OF Man in the abstract-I. That we can judge only with regard to our own fyftem, being ignorant of the relations of fyftems and things, & 17, &c. II. That Man is not to be deemed imperfect, but a Being fuited to his place and rank in the creation, agreeable to the general Order of things, and conformable to Ends and Relations to him unknown, 35, &c. III. That it is partly upon his ignorance of future events, and partly upon the hope of a future ftate, that all his happiness in the prefent depends, 77, &c. IV. The pride of aiming at more knowledge, and pretending to more Perfection, the caufe of Man's error and mifery. The impiety of putting himself in the place of God, and judging of the fitnefs or unfitness, perfection or imperfection, justice or injuftice of his difpenfations, 109, &c. V. The abfurdity of conceiting himself the final caufe of the creation, or expecting that perfection in the moral world, which is not in the natural, 131, &c. VI. The unreasonableness of his complaints against Providence, while on the one hand he demands the Perfections of the Angels, and on the other the bodily qualifications of the Brutes; though, to poffefs any of the fenfitive faculties in a higher degree, would render him miferable, 173, &c. VII. That throughout the whole visible world, an univerfal order and gradation in the fenfual and mental faculties is obferved, which caufes a fubordination of creature to creature, and of all creatures to Man. The gradations of fenfe, inftinct, thought, reflection, reafon; that Reafon alone countervails all the other faculties, 207. VIII. How much further this order and fubordination of living creatures may extend, above and below us; were any part of which broken, not that part only, but the whole connected creation must be destroyed, 233. IX. The extravagance, madnefs, and pride of fuch a defire, & 250. X. The confequence of all, the abfolute fubmiffion due to Providence, both as to our prefent and future ftate, & 281, &c. to the end. N.Blakey inv.&del. Ravenet sculp. HOPE humblythen; with trembling Vinions soar, Wait the great teacher Death; and God adore! WAKE, my ST. John! leave all meaner things the pride of To low ambition, and the pride of Kings. Let us (fince Life can little more fupply Than just to look about us and to die) Expatiate free o'er all this scene of Man; 5 A mighty maze! but not without a plan; COMMENTARY. THE Opening of this poem, in fifteen lines, is taken up in giving an account of the Subject; which, agreeably to the title, is an ESSAY on MAN, or a Philofophical Enquiry into his Nature and End, his Paffions and Pursuits. The Exordium relates to the whole work, of which the Essay on Man was only the first book. The 6th, 7th, and 8th lines allude to the subjects of this Essay, viz. the general Order and Design of Providence; the Conftitution of the human Mind; the origin, ufe, and end of the Paffions and Affections, both felfish and focial; and the wrong purfuits of Power, Pleafure, and Happiness. The 10th, 11th, 12th, &c. have relation to the fubjects of the books intended to follow, viz. the Characters and Capacities of Men, and the Limits of Science, which once tranfgreffed, ignorance begins, and error follows. The 13th and 14th, to the Knowledge of Mankind, and the various Manners of the age. NOTES. VER. 7, 8. A Wild,-Or Garden,] The Wild relates to the human paffions, productive (as he explains in the fecond epiftle) both of good and evil. The Garden, to human reafon, fo often tempting us to tranfgrefs the bounds God has fet to it, and wander in fruitless enquiries. C 3 |