The foul, uneafy and confin'd from home, Lo, the poor Indian! whofe untutor'd mind Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind; 100 COMMENTARY. VER 99. Lo, the poor Indian! &c.] The poet, as we said, having bid Man comfort himself with expectation of future happiness, fhewn him that this HOPE is an earnest of it, and put in one very neceffary caution, Hope humbly then, with trembling pinions foar ; provoked at those miscreants whom he afterwards (Ep. iii. 263) defcribes as building Hell on Spite, and Heaven on Pride, NOTES. our idea of divine wifdom to the highest religious purposes. Then, as to the good man's hopes of a retribution, thofe ftill remain in their original force: For our idea of God's juftice, and how far that justice is engaged to a retribution, is exactly and invariably the fame on either hypothefis. For though the fyftem of the best fuppofes that the evils themselves will be fully compenfated by the good they produce to the whole, yet this is fo far from fuppofing that particulars fhall fuffer for a general good, that it is ef fential to this fyftem to conclude, that, at the completion of things when the whole is arrived to the state of utmost perfection, particular and univerfal good fhall coincide. Such is the World's great harmony, that springs Where fmall and great, where weak and mighty, made To serve, not fuffer, ftrengthen, not invade, &c. Ep. iii. ✯ 295. Which coincidence can never be, without a retribution to good men for the evils fuffered here below. VER. 97. from home,] By these words, it was the poet's purpose to teach, that the prefent life is only a state of probation for another, more suitable to the effence of the foul, and to the free exercise of its qualities. His foul, proud Science never taught to stray Yet fimple Nature to his hope has giv❜n, Where flaves once more their native land behold, He asks no Angel's wing, no Seraph's fire; IV. Go, wiser thou! and, in thy fcale of fenfe, Weigh thy Opinion against Providence; After VARIATIONS. 108. in the first Ed. But does he fay the maker is not good, COMMENTARY. he upbraids them ( from ✯ 99 to 112) with the example of the poor Indian, to whom alfo Nature hath given this common HOPE of Mankind: But, tho' his untutored mind had betrayed him into many childifh fancies concerning the nature of that future ftate, yet he is so far from excluding any part of his own fpecies (a vice which could proceed only from vain science, which puffeth up) that he humanely admits even his faithful dog to bear him company. VER. 113. Go, wifer thou! &c.] He goes on with thefe ac Call imperfection what thou fancy'st such, COMMENTARY. 115 120 cufers of providence (from 112 to 122) and fhews them, that complaints against the established order of things begin in the highest abfurdity, from mifapplied reafon and power, and end in the highest impiety, in an attempt to degrade the God of heaven, and affume his place: Alone made perfect here, immortal there : That is, be made God, who only is perfect and hath immortality: Snatch from his hand the balance and the rod, VER. 123. In Pride, in reas'ning Pride, our error lies ; &c.] Pride ftill is aiming at the bleft abodes, Men would be Angels, Angels would be Gods. Afpiring to be Gods, if Angels fell, Afpiring to be Angels, Men rebel: And who but wishes to invert the laws Of ORDER, fins against th'Eternal Cause. 125 130 V. Ask for what end the heav'nly bodies fhine, Earth for whose use? Pride answers, ""Tis for mine: COMMENTARY. From these men the poet now turns to his friend, and (from 123 to 130) remarks, that the ground of all this extravagance is Pride; which, more or less, infects the whole Species; shews the ill effects of it, in the cafe of the fallen Angels; and observes, that even wishing to invert the laws of Order, is a lower fpecies of their crime: Then brings an inftance of one of the effects of Pride, which is the folly of thinking every thing made folely for the ufe of Man; without the leaft regard to any other of God's creatures: Ask for what end the heav'nly bodies shine, &c. The ridicule of imagining the greater portions of the material fyftem to be folely for the ufe of Man, Philofophy has fufficiently expofed And Common fenfe, as the poet fhews, inftructs us to know that our fellow-creatures, placed by Providence the jointinhabitants of this globe, are defigned by Providence to be jointfharers with us of its bleffings: Has God, thou fool! work'd folely for thy good, NOTES. VER. 131. Afk for what end, &c.] If there be any fault in these lines, it is not in the general fentiment, but a want of exactnefs in expreffing it.-It is the highest abfurdity to think that Earth is man's foot-ftool, his canopy the Skies, and the heavenly bodies lighted up principally for his ufe; yet not fo, to fuppofe fruits and minerals given for this end. "For me kind Nature wakes her genial pow'r, "Suckles each herb, and spreads out ev'ry flow'r; "Annual for me, the grape, the rose renew "The juice nectareous, and the balmy dew; 135 "For me, the mine a thousand treasures brings; "For me, health gufhes from a thousand fprings; "Seas roll to waft me, funs to light me rife; My foot-ftool earth, my canopy the skies." 140 But errs not Nature from this gracious end, From burning funs when livid deaths defcend, When earthquakes swallow, or when tempests sweep Towns to one grave, whole nations to the deep? COMMENTARY. Who for thy table feeds the wanton fawn, For him as kindly Spreads the flow'ry lawn. Ep. iii. 27. VER. 141. But errs not Nature from this gracious end,] The author comes next to the confirmation of his Thefis, That partial moral Evil is univerfal Good; but introduceth it with a proper argument to abate our wonder at the phænomenon of moral Evil, which argument he builds on a conceffion of his adverfaries: If we afk you, fays he (from 140 to 150) whether Nature doth not err from the gracious purpose of its creator, when plagues, earthquakes, and tempefts unpeople whole regions at a time; you readily anfwer No. For that God acts by general, and not by particular laws; and that the course of matter and motion must be neceffarily fubject to fome irregularities, because nothing is created perfect. I then afk why you should expect this perfection in Man? If you own that the great end of God (notwithstanding all this deviation) be general happiness, then 'tis Nature, and not God, that deviates; and do you expect greater conftancy in Man? Then Nature deviates; and can Man do lefs? |