Leibnitz, Sur le

1. 53. In human works, tho' labour'd on with pain, &c. principe de vie, Opp. Philos. p. 432 (ed. Erd.): 'Les lois de la nature sont faites et appliquées avec tant de sagesse, qu'elles servent à plus d'un fin.' Bolingbroke follows Leibnitz, fragm. 43, Works, vol. 8. p. 179: 'We labour hard, we complicate various means to arrive at one end; and several systems of conduct are often employed by us to bring about some paltry purpose. But God neither contrives nor executes like man. His means are simple, his purposes various; and the same system that answers the greatest answers the least.'

1. 56. Yet serves to second too some other use. Hooker, Eccl. Pol. 1. 9. 1: For we see the whole world, and each part thereof so compacted that as long as each thing performeth only that work which is natural unto it, it thereby preserveth both other things and also itself.'

li. 60-68. On this passage see Introd. p. 14.

1. 64. Egypt's God, the sacred bull kept at Memphis, and called Apis by the Greeks.

1. 70. man's as perfect as he ought. A principle of the Cartesian school. Regis, Metaphysique, 2. 2. 29: Il est trés facile de concevoir que Dieu a pu rendre l'homme plus parfait; mais si l'on veut considérer l'homme, non en lui-même, et séparément du reste des créatures, mais comme un membre de l'Univers, et une partie qui est soumise aux loix générales des mouvemens, on sera obligé de reconnoître que l'homme est aussi parfait qu'il a pu l'être.' Cf. Leibnitz, Théodicée, § 341.

1. 71. His knowledge measur'd to his state and place. Leibnitz, ubi sup.: 'La place que Dieu a assignée à l'homme dans l'espace et dans le temps borne les perfections qu'il a pu recevoir.'

1. 72. Cf. M. Aurelius, Meditations, Collier's Transl. (1701): 'Remember what an atom your person stands for in respect of the universe, what a minute of time comes to your share, and what a small concern you are in the empire of fate.'

1. 73. If to be perfect in a certain sphere. This is one of the obscure passages which have been complained of in all Pope's poems. Gray says of The Dunciad (Letter to West), 'The metaphysician's part is to me the worst; here and there are a few ill-expressed lines, and some hardly intelligible.'

11. 73-76. If to be perfect years ago. These four lines were in the first edition of 1732 after 1. 98. They are irrelevant to the argument, and Pope struck them out accordingly in the edition revised by himself in 1740. Warburton replaced them in the quarto of 1743, in their present position.

75. The blest to-day is as completely so, &c. Bayle, Dict. Hist. et Crit., art. 'Pauliciens,' note (E): 'Si la douleur ou la joie nous étoient communiquées selon le même dégre cent ans de suite, nous serions aussi malheureux, ou aussi heureux, la centième année que le premier jour.' But Pope's immediate source was probably Dryden, Transl. of Lucretius; (Dryden's Works, vol. 12, p. 326):

The man as much to all intents is dead,
Who dies to-day, and will as long be so,
As he who died a thousand years ago.'

The thesis is as old as Chrysippus (circ. B.C. 250); see Plutarch, De Stoicis Cont. p. 699 : παρὰ τὸν πλείονα χρόνον οὐδέν μᾶλλον εὐδαιμονοῦσιν, ἀλλ ̓ ὁμοίως καὶ ἐπίσης τοῖς τὸν ἀμερῆ χρόνον εὐδαιμονίας μετασχοῦσιν.

The sentiment is false, and is justly reckoned among the Stoical quibbles or 'paradoxes.' Moralists have observed this distinction between satisfaction (pleasure) and happiness, that satisfaction is perfect at any given moment, happiness demands a full and completely developed term of existence. Wollaston, on the other hand, asserts that pleasures are greater by mere continuance, Religion of Nature Delineated (1723), p. 59: Because all the nioments of our pleasure must be in some ratio to those of another pleasure. And if the degrees of intenseness be multiplied by the moments of duration, there must still be some ratio of the one product to the other.' 1. 77. Heav'n from all creatures bides the book of fate. 3. 29. 30:

'Prudens futuri temporis exitum
Caliginosa nocte premit Deus.'

Hor. Carm.

1. 81. The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day, &c. Cic. De Officiis, 1. 4: 'Inter hominem et belluam hoc maxime interest, quod haec tantum ad id quod adest, quodque praesens est, se accommodat, paululum sentiens praeteritum et futurum.' D'Israeli, Cur. of Lit. p. 208, compares Dr. King, Mully of Mountown (1704):

A gentle lamb has rhetoric to plead,

And when she sees the butcher's knife decreed, Her voice entreats him not to make her bleed.' 1. 84. And licks the hand just rais'd to shed his blood. of Ovid, Met. 15 (Works, vol. 12, p. 211):

Dryden. Transl.

'Deaf to the calf that lies beneath the knife, Looks up and from her butcher begs her life.' 1. 85. Ob blindness to the future! kindly giv'n. To escape the many difficulties occasioned by attributing souls to brutes, Cartesianism made them mere machines, and allowed a soul to man only. Pope, in the present passage, gives to brutes sensation, but supposes that the want of the rational soul exempts them from the worst part of suffering-the expectation of evil. 1.87. Who sees with equal eye, as God of all,

A bero perish, or a sparrow fall.

The allusion is to the words of Christ, St. Matt. 10. 29: Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father.' But Pope has omitted the distinction drawn by Christ between the moral value of the rational and the irrational agent. It is perhaps a defect of expression, for Pope seems to say that the ruin of a world is of no more account in the eye of the Supreme Ruler of the universe than the bursting of a bubble. He could not have meant this. What he means is no doubt to inculcate the doctrine of natural religion that Providence extends to the minute as well as to the great. Cf. Plato, Leges, 10. 9oo c: οὐδὲν ἂν εἴη χαλεπὸν ἐνδείξασθαι, κ. τ. λ., Nor would it be very difficult to demonstrate that the gods are no less careful of small matters than of such as excel in magnitude.'

1. 92. Wait the great teacher death. Imitated by Gifford, Translation of Juvenal, 10. 70:

'Death, the great teacher, death alone proclaims.'

1. 93. What future bliss, i. e. in what future bliss shall consist.

1. 94. But gives that hope to be thy blessing now. It has been objected to the sentiment of these lines that Pope has here represented man as enabled to bear the evils of life by aid of a visionary illusive fancy. The objection is unfounded. That we do not know in what happiness hereafter will consist, and yet that we are supported by that hope of an unknown future, is the position of catholic theology. As faith is belief in the unproved, so hope is expectation of the unknown. The incognoscibility of its object is included by S. Thomas in his definition of the theological virtue of Hope, Summa, sec. ii. quaest. 17, art. 2: Utrum beatitudo aeterna sit objectum proprium spei ?' In Ess. 4. 346, Pope writes less correctly: Hope of known bliss and faith in bliss unknown.'

1. 97.

The soul, uneasy and confin'd from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.

In the Latin theologians, and the books of devotion with which Pope was familiar, this life is called 'via,' the pilgrimage; the future life, 'patria,' the home. Cf. Drummond, Flowers of Sion:

=

Think on thy home, my soul, and think aright

Of what yet rests thee of life's fleeting day.'

Young, Night Thoughts, Night I:

At home a stranger,

Thought wanders up and down,

Surpris'd, aghast, and wond'ring at her own.'

1. 99. Lo, the poor Indian! &c. These fourteen lines have always been justly admired for their exquisite taste and finish. The same illustration recurs Essay 4. 177.

1. 102. solar walk-ecliptic; called The sun's path.'

1. III. Alger, Critical Hist. of Doctrine of a Future Life, p. 73: 'Amid the mass of whimsical conceptions entering into the faith of the North American tribes, we find a ruling agreement concerning a future state of existence. Those who have reported their opinions to us, from the earliest Jesuit missionaries to the latest investigators, concur in ascribing to them a deep trust in a life to come, a cheerful view of its conditions, and a freedom from the dread of dying. On the basis of an account written by William Penn, Pope composed the famous passage in his Essay on Man.'

1. 112. His faithful dog. Critics have objected to this, that the dog was not a native of the new world. (Warton, Genius, &c., 2. 65.) This is an error. Columbus found two kinds of dog in the West Indies, and Fernandez describes three in Mexico. See Darwin, Animals and Plants under Domestication, c. I, p. 23.

(ed. 1762), 'They They still love the

Cf. Macpherson; Ossian, War of Inisthona, p. 117 pursue deer formed of clouds, and bend their airy bow. sport of their youth, and mount the wind with joy.' 1. 126. Men would be angels, angels would be gods. Lord Brooke, Poems (ap. Southey, p. 529):

Which yet falls more by striving to climb higher;
Men would be tyrants, tyrants would be gods.'

1. 127. Aspiring to be gods if angels fell. The fall of the angels has been variously ascribed by the fathers to envy, unbelief, lust, curiosity, &c.

G

The several opinions are enumerated by S. Bonaventura, in Lib. II Sent. art. i. q. I. But the prevailing opinion of the majority of the fathers is, that it was occasioned by pride, though they are not agreed as to the mode in which that vice was exhibited. See Petavius, De Dogmat. 3.2.

11. 126-128. These lines are cited by Campbell, Philosophy of Rhetoric, 3. 2, as an instance of antithesis happily carried through three sentences, where the sentences are not contrasted with one another, but where the same words are contrasted in the different members of each sentence somewhat differently.'

1. 131.

Ask for what end the heav'nly bodies shine,

Earth for whose use? pride answers, 'tis for mine. This is a topic on which Bolingbroke is constantly insisting-the error, viz., of assuming that man is the final cause of the universe; e. g. Works, 8. 169, Man is the principal inhabitant of this planet. But will it follow from hence, that the system wherein this planet rolls, or this planet alone, was made for the sake of man? Will it follow, that infinite wisdom had no other end in making man, than that of making a happy creature? Surely not. The supposition is arbitrary, and the consequences absurd.' From Bolingbroke Pope perhaps derived the stricture. But it was widely diffused through the philosophic writings of the day, having been embodied by Descartes in his Principia Philosophiae, pars 2a. 2 (Edinburgh transl., p. 168): Though as far as regards morals it may be a pious thought to believe that God made all things for us, and though it is even in some sense true, because there is no created thing of which we cannot make some use, it is yet by no means probable that all things were created for us in this way, that God had no other end in their creation. This supposition would be plainly ridiculous and inept in physical reasoning.' The position was originally derived from the Stoics, see Seneca De Beneficiis, 4. 23, and references ap. Zeller, Philos. der Griechen, 4. 269. To the same effect Leibnitz, Théodicée, § 194; Ray, Wisdom of God in Works of Creation, p. 167. Cf. Prior, Solomon, pt. 1, 'But do these worlds display their beams, or guide Their orbs to serve thy use, to please thy pride?' Pope repeats the remark, Essay 3. 27,

'Has God, thou fool, work'd solely for thy good?'

1. 140. My foot-stool earth, my canopy the skies. Warton thinks this illustration faulty. It might be said in its defence, that the poet purposely puts an exaggeration into the expression of that pride which he is censuring. But we can hardly acquit of bad taste a line, which compels us to remember that Isaiah, 66. 1, had put the same words into the mouth of Jehovah: Thus saith the Lord, the heaven is my throne, the earth is my foot-stool.' The blemish is the more unfortunate, as it occurs in one of the most vivid passages of the poem. Boileau is very inferior, Sat. 8. 57,

• Lui

Seul de la nature est la base et l'appui,

Et le dixième ciel ne tourne que pour lui.'

1. 141. The art of Pope's lines will be felt if they are compared with the feeble imitation of Voltaire, Poéme sur la Loi Naturelle, 2e partie,

Direz vous que jamais le ciel en son courroux
Ne laissa la santé séjourner parmi nous?'

II. 142-144. Warton, Genius and Writings, &c., 2. 65. These lines are an example of energy of style, and of Pope's manner of compressing together many images without confusion, and without superfluous epithets.'

1. 143. When earthquakes swallow, or when tempests sweep, &c. Pope refers to the recent earthquakes in Chili. In Feb. 1732, Chili was visited by an earthquake that lasted twenty-seven days, and swallowed up the whole city of St. Jago, and persons innumerable. The inundation overflowed the city of Conception, and reached as far as Callao, where it mounted the walls and filled the square with water. Toone, Chronolog. Hist. Towns and districts swallowed by the sea form the subject of a chapter in Pliny's Nat Hist., 2. 94.

1. 147. Th' exceptions few. This theory was advocated by Malebranche, see his Entretiens Métaphys. 9e Entr. God,' he said, 'as perfectly wise, must govern the universe by general laws. The application of these general laws to particular cases may produce what is useless or mischievous, without any impeachment of the goodness or wisdom of the author of the law. He instances rain. It is for the good of the vegetable creation that the rain is distributed over the surface of the globe in obedience to the general laws of mechanics. Yet how often does it fall on deserts, or overflow in destructive inundations.' This is, indeed, the standard doctrine of the schools, S. Thomas Aq. Sum. c. Gent. 3. 71, 'contingit in his quae aguntur et gubernantur a Deo, aliquem defectum et aliquod malum inveniri propter defectum secundorum agentium, licet in ipso Deo nullus sit defectus.'

some change since all began. A little awkward: 'some change there has been since all began.'

11. 155-170. The doctrine of these lines has been severely censured; by M. de Crousaz on the first publication of the poem, and by others since. The objections may be reduced to three heads. (1) The permission of wicked men cannot be defended by alleging the permission of physical evil. What is required is to reconcile the existence of both with the goodness of God. (2) The lines seem to ascribe moral evil directly to the First Cause. (3) Hume varies objection 2 thus, Essays, vol. 1, p. 187: The vices and imperfections of men are comprehended in the order of the universe. Let this be allowed, and my own vices will be also a part of the same order.' To (1) it was replied by Warburton, Whether partial moral evil tend to the good of the universe, being a question which, by reason of our ignorance of many parts of that universe, we cannot decide, we can but reason from analogy. It is a thing clear and certain, that partial natural evil tends to the good of our particular system.' On (2) we may say that the mystery of the origin of evil is one which has never been solved. But in ascribing the existence of wicked men to the direct permission of God, Pope is in strict accordance with the language of catholic theology. See the commentators on Prov. 16. 4, Isaiah, 45. 7, Exod. 9. 16. To (3) it has been answered by moralists in all ages, that, however vice may be related to the order of the universe, it is in the individual an object of avoidance, and will be punished both by society and in the way of natural consequence. Dugald Stewart remarks on this passage, Philos. of the Active and Moral Powers, Works, 7. 132, 'The attempt which Voltaire and other sceptics have made to ridicule the scheme of