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1. From his grand Principle, That God acts by general Laws: The Confequence of which is, that Happiness, which fupports the well-being of every System, muft needs be Univerfal, and not Partial, as the Philofophers conceived:.

Remember, Man! The univerfal Caufe,
Acts not by partial, but by gen'ral Laws;
And makes, what Happiness we justly call,
Subfift not in the Good of One, but All.

2. From Fact, That Man inftinctively concurs with this Defignation of Providence, to make Happiness univerfal, by his having no Delight in any thing uncommunicated or uncommunicable:

There's not a Bleffing Individuals find,

But fome way leans and hearkens to the kind. No Bandit fierce, no Tyrant mad with Pride, No cavern'd Hermit refts self-satisfied. Abstract what others feel, what others think, All Pleasures ficken, and all Glories fink.

II. The Poet, in the fecond Place [from 1. 46 to 65] confutes the POPULAR Error concerning Happiness, namely, that it confifts in Externals: which he does,

1. By inquiring into the Reasons of the present providential Difpofition of external Goods: A Topic of Confutation chosen with the greatest Accuracy and Penetration. For, if it appears they were diftributed in the Manner we see them, for Reafons different from the Happiness of Individuals, it

is

is abfurd to think that they fhould make Part of that Happiness.

He fhews therefore, that Disparity of external Poffeffions among Men was for the fake of Society, 1. to promote the Harmony and Happiness of a System:

Order is Heav'n's firft Law; and, this confeft, Some are, and muft be, greater than the reft, More rich, more wife,

Because the Want of external Goods in fome, and the Abundance in others, increafe general Harmony in the Obliger and Obliged.

Yet here (fays he) mark the impartial Wifdom of Heaven; this very Inequality of Externals, by contributing to general Harmony and Order, produceth an Equality of Happiness amongst Individuals; and, for that very reason,

Heav'n to Mankind impartial we confess, If all are equal in their Happiness: But mutual Wants this Happiness increase, All Nature's Diff'rence keeps all Nature's Peace. Condition, Circumftance is not the Thing: Blifs is the fame, in Subject, or in King; In who obtain Defence, or who defend; In him who is, or him who finds, a Friend. Heav'n breaths thro' ev'ry Member of the Whole One common Bleffing as one common Soul. 2. This Disparity was neceffary, because, if external Goods were equally diftributed, they would occafion

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occafion perpetual Discord amongst Men all equal in Power :

But Fortune's Gifts if each alike possest,

And each were equal, must not all contest ?

From hence he concludes, That, as External Goods were not given for the Reward of Virtue, but for many different Purposes, God could not, if he intended Happiness for all, place it in the Enjoyment of Externals :

If then to all Men Happiness was meant,

God in Externals could not place Content.

2. His fecond Argument [from 1. 64 to 71] against the popular Error of Happiness's being placed in Externals, is, that the Poffeffion of them is infeparably attended with Fear, the Want of them with Hope; which directly croffing all their Pretenfions to making happy, evidently fhew that God had placed Happiness elsewhere:

Fortune her Gifts may variously dispose,
And these be happy call'd, unhappy those;
But Heav'n's juft Balance equal will appear,
While thofe are plac'd in HOPE, and these in FEAR:
Not present Good or Ill, the Joy or Curse,
But future Views of better or of worse.

Hence, in concluding this Argument, he takes occafion [from 1. 70 to 75] to upbraid the defperate Folly and Impiety of thofe, who, in fpite of God and Nature, will yet attempt to place Happinefs in Externals.

O Sons

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O Sons of Earth! attempt ye ftill to rife,
By Mountains pil'd on Mountains, to the Skies?
Heav'n ftill with Laughter the vain Toil surveys,
And buries Madmen in the Heaps they raise.

I must not here omit to obferve, that the Tranflator (unconscious of all this fine Reasoning between the 32 and 75 Lines, where the Poet first confutes the Philofophic Errors concerning Happiness, and next the Popular) hath strangely jumbled together and confounded his different Arguments on these two different Heads. But this is not the Poet's Words to a

worft; he hath perverted the

horrid and fenfelefs Fatalifm, foreign to the Argument in hand, and directly contrary to Mr. Pope's general Principles.

The Poet fays,

Remember, Man! the univerfal Caufe Acts not by partial, but by gen'ral Laws. His Tranflator,

Une Loi generale

Determine toûjours la Cause Principale.

That is, a general Law ever determines the principal Caufe, which is the very Fate of the ancient Pagans, who fupposed that Destiny gave Law to the Father of Gods and Men.

The Poet fays again,

Order is Heav'n's firft Law:

That is, the first Law made by God, relates to Order, which is a beautiful Allufion to the Scripture

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History

Hiftory of the Creation, when God first appeased the Disorders of Chaos, and feparated the Light from the Darkness. Let us now hear his Tranflator:

L'Ordre, cet inflexible et grand Legislateur,

Qui des decrets du Ciel eft le premier Auteur : Order, that inflexible and grand Legiflator, who is the first Author of the Laws of Heaven. A Propofition abominable in most Senfes, and abfurd in all.

But now what says Mr. De Croufaz to this, who is perpetually crying out, Fate! Fate! as Men in Distraction call out Fire? The Reader will be furprized to hear him pass this cool Reflexion on two fo obnoxious Paffages." This Order, the first Author of Laws, prefents us with very harsh Expreffions, and bold Ideas, which Mr. Pope elsewhere condemns as rafh and unjustifiable. But this is his Moderation, when Mr. L'Abbé comes under his Critique: And we know, the excellent Profe Tranflation gave him the Advantage of knowing whom he had to do with.

To proceed, the Poet having thus confuted the two Errors concerning Happiness, PHILOSOPHICAL and POPULAR, and proved that true Happiness was neither Solitary and Partial, nor yet placed in Externals; goes on [from 1. 74 to 91] to fhew in what it doth confift. He had before faid in general, and repeated it, that Happiness lay in com

a Commentaire, p. 282.

mon

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