While Man exclaims, "See all things for my use!" "See man for mine!" replies a pamper'd goofe: 46 And just as short of reason he must fall,

Who thinks all made for one, not one for all.
Grant that the pow'rful still the weak controul;
Be Man the Wit and Tyrant of the whole :

50

Nature

VARIATIONS.

After Ver. 46. in the former Editions,

What care to tend, to lodge, to cram, to treat him!
All this he knew; but not that 'twas to eat him.
As far as Goofe could judge, he reafon'd right;
But as to Man, mistook the matter quite.

NOTES.

deed, is the head of this lower part of the creation; and perhaps it was defigned to be abfolutely under his command. But that all things here tend directly to his own ufe, is, I think, neither eafy nor neceffary to be proved. Some manifestly serve for the food and support of others, whose fouls may be neceffary to prepare and preserve their bodies for that purpose, and may at the fame time be happy in a confcioufnefs of their own exiftence. It is probable they are intended to promote each other's good reciprocally: Nay, Man himself contributes to the happiness, and betters the condition of the brutes in feveral respects, by cultivating and improving the ground; by watching the feafons; by protecting and providing for them, when they are unable to protect and provide for themfelves." Thefe are the words of Dr. Law, in his learned Commentary on King's Origin of Evil, firft publifhed in Latin, 1701, a work of penetration and close reasoning; which, it is remarkable, Bayle had never read, butonly fome extracts from it, when he firft wrote his famous article of the Paulicians, in his Dictionary.

VER. 45. See all things for my ufe!] On the contrary, the wife man hath faid, The Lord hath made all things for himfelf. Prov.

xvi. 4.

W..

VER. 46. Replies a pamper'd goofe:] Taken from Peter Charron; but fuch a familiar and burlefque image is improperly introduced among fuch folid and serious reflections.

VER. 50. Be Man the Wit and Tyrant of the whole :] Alluding to the witty system of that Philofopher, which made Animals

mere

Nature that Tyrant checks; He only knows,

And helps, another creature's wants and woes.
Say, will the falcon, ftooping from above,
Smit with her varying plumage, fpare the dove?
Admires the jay the infect's gilded wings?
Or hears the hawk when Philomela fings?
Man cares for all: to birds he gives his woods,
To beasts his pastures, and to fish his floods;
For fome his int'reft prompts him to provide,
For more his Pleasure, yet for more his Pride :
All feed on one vain patron, and enjoy

55

60

Th' extenfive bleffing of his luxury.

That very life his learned hunger craves,

He faves from famine, from the favage faves;

65

Nay, feafts the animal he dooms his feast,
And, till he ends the being, makes it bleft;
Which fees no more the stroke, or feels the pain,
Than favour'd Man by touch ethereal flain.
The creature had his feast of life before;
Thou too must perish, when thy feast is o'er!

NOTES.

76

To

mere Machines, infenfible of pain or pleasure; and fo encouraged Men in the exercise of that Tyranny over their fellow-creatures, confequent on fuch a principle.

W.

VER. 51. Nature that Tyrant checks ;] What an exquisite affemblage is here (down to Ver. 70.) of deep reflection, humane fentiments, and poetic imagery! It is finely observed, that compaffion is exclufively the property of Man alone.

VER. 68. Than favour'd Man, &c.] Several of the ancients, and many of the Orientals fince, efteemed those who were ftruck by lightning as facred perfons, and the particular favourites of Heaven.

P.

VER. 68. By touch ethereal flain.] The expreffion is from Milton's Comus.

To each unthinking being, Heav'n a friend,
Gives not the useless knowledge of its end:
To Man imparts it, but with fuch a view
As, while he dreads it, makes him hope it too:
The hour conceal'd, and fo remote the fear,
Death ftill draws nearer, never seeming near.
Great ftanding miracle! that Heav'n affign'd
Its only thinking thing this turn of mind.

75

II. Whether with Reason or with Instinct bleft, Know, all enjoy that pow'r which fuits them best; 80 To blifs alike by that direction tend,

And find the means proportion'd to their end.
Say, where full Instinct is th' unerring guide,

What Pope or Council can they need befide?
Reason, however able, cool at best,

Cares not for fervice, or but ferves when prest,
Stays till we call, and then not often near;
But honest Instinct comes a volunteer,

Sure never to o'ershoot, but just to hit ;

While still too wide or fhort is human Wit;
Sure by quick Nature happiness to gain,
Which heavier Reafon labours at in vain.
This too ferves always, Reason never long;
One must go right, the other may go wrong.
See then the acting and comparing pow'rs
One in their nature, which are two in ours;

VARIATIONS.

After Ver. 84. in the MS..

While Man, with op'ning views of various ways
Confounded, by the aid of knowledge ftrays.
Too weak to chufe, yet chufing still in hafte,
One moment gives the pleasure and distaste.

And

And Reafon raise o'er Instinct as you can,
In this 'tis God directs, in that 'tis Man.

NOTES.

Who

VER. 97. And Reafon raife o'er Inftina] Charron, of whom Pope and Bolingbroke were fo fond, has treated this fubject with fo much freedom of thought, and endeavoured to raise Instin& fo much above Reason, that Stanhope, his translator, deemed it neceffary to obviate the tendency of his tenets, by a long Appendix to the 34th chapter of the first book. It appears a little strange, that fo orthodox a divine as Stanhope should translate two books that are supposed to favour libertinism and scepticism-the Wifdom of Charron and the Maxims of Rochefoucault. Bayle has stated the difficulties, that arife in accounting to the actions of brutes, with his usual acutenefs and force of argument.

Hume has gone farther than any other writer on the subject : “Though animals," he says, " learn many parts of their knowledge from obfervation and experience, there are also many parts of it which they derive from the original hand of Nature, which much exceed the fhare of capacity they poffefs on ordinary occasions, and in which they improve little or nothing by the longest practice and experience. These we denominate Inftincts, and are fo apt to admire as fomething very extraordinary and inexplicable by all the difquifitions of human understanding. But our wonder will perhaps cease or diminish, when we confider that the experimental reasoning itself, which we poffefs in common with beafts, and on which the whole conduct of life depends, is nothing but a species of Instinct, or mechanical power, that acts in us unknown to ourselves; and, in its chief operations, is not directed by any fuch relations or comparisons of ideas as are the proper objects of our intellectual faculties. Though the Instinct be different, yet still it is an Inftinct which teaches a man to avoid the fire ; as much as that which teaches a bird with fuch exactness the art of incubation, and the whole economy and order of its nursery." Of the Reason of Animals, Effay, p. 432.

Father Bougeant's little treatise on the Language of Beasts is an amufing work; in which he has placed the notion of Des Cartes, that they are mere machines, in a strong light, as well as the difficulties that arise from the opinion of their having immortal fouls. Bougeant was feverely cenfured by his brother jefuits for this little work. He had better have kept to politics. He wrote the His

tory

Who taught the nations of the field and wood
To fhun their poison, and to chuse their food?
Prescient, the tides or tempefts to withstand,
Build on the wave, or arch beneath the fand?
Who made the spider parallels defign,
Sure as De-moivre, without rule or line?

Who bid the ftork, Columbus-like, explore

100

105

Heav'ns not his own, and worlds unknown before?
Who calls the council, ftates the certain day,
Who forms the phalanx, and who points the way?
III. God, in the nature of each being, founds
Its proper blifs, and fets its

proper bounds:

NOTES.

110

But

tory of the Treaty of Weftphalia. Pofterity will look on this ast a curious work: the ftate of Europe being now fo totally changed, this hiftory will read like a romance.

VER. 99. Who taught] This paffage is highly finished: such objects are more fuited to the nature of poetry than abstract ideas. Every verb and epithet has here a descriptive force. We find more imagery from these lines to the end of the epistle, than in any other parts of this Effay. The origin of the connections in focial life, the account of the state of nature, the rise and effects of fuperftition and tyranny, and the restoration of true religion and just government; all these ought to be mentioned as paffages that deferve high applause, nay, as fome of the most exalted pieces of English poetry.

VER. 109. God, in the nature of each being, &c.] The Author now cometh to the main subject of his epiftle, the proof of Man's SOCIABILITY, from the two general focieties compofed by him; the natural, fubject to paternal authority; and the civil, fubject to that of a magiftrate. This he hath the address to introduce, from what had preceded, in so easy and natural a manner, as fheweth him to have the art of giving all the grace to the dryness and severity of Method, as well as wit to the ftrength and depth of

VOL. III.

H

Reason.