145 "No ('tis reply'd) the first Almighty Cause Then Nature deviates; and can Man do lefs? 150 COMMENTARY. That is, if Nature, or the inanimate system (on which God hath impofed his laws, which it obeys as a machine obeys the hand of the workınan) may in courfe of time deviate from its first direction, as the best philofophy fhews it may; where is the wonder that Man, who was created a free Agent, and hath it in his power every moment to tranfgrefs the eternal rule of Right, fhould fometimes go out of Order? VER. 151. As much that end &c.] Having thus fhown how moral evil came into the world, namely, by Man's abufe of his own free-will; he comes to the point, the confirmation of his thefis, by fhewing how moral evil promotes good; and employs the fame conceffions of his adverfaries, concerning natural evil, to illuftrate it. 1. He fhews it tends to the god of the whole, or Univerfe (from 151 to 164) and this by analogy. You own, fays he, that storms and tempefts, clouds, rain, heat, and variety of fea NOTES. VER. 150. Then Nature deviates; &c.] "While comets "move in very eccentric orbs, "in all manner of pofitions, "blind Fate could never make "all the planets move one and "the fame way in orbs con"centric; fome inconfidera"ble irregularities excepted, As much eternal fprings and cloudlefs fkies, COMMENTARY. 156 fons are neceffary (notwithstanding the accidental evil they bring with them) to the health and plenty of this Globe; why then should you suppose there is not the fame use, with regard to the Univerfe, in a Borgia and a Catiline? But you fay you can fee the one and not the other. You fay right: one terminates in this fyftem, the other refers to the whole of which none are capable of judging but the great Author of it himfelf: For, fays the poet, in another place, of this Frame the bearings, and the ties, The strong connections, nice dependencies, Gradations just, has thy pervading foul Look'd thro' ? or can a part contain the whole? 29, & feq. Own therefore, fays he, here, that From Pride, from Pride, our very Reas'ning Springs; Why charge we Heav'n in thofe, in these acquit ? NOTES. VER. 155. If plagues, &c.] | What hath misled fome perfons in this paffage, is their fuppofing the comparison to be between the effects of two things in this fublunary world; when not only the elegancy, but the juftnefs of it, confifts in its being between the effects Refpecting Man, whatever wrong we call, 51. of partial moral evil in a particular fyftem, by that of partial natural evil in the fame Who knows but he, whofe hand the light'ning forms, Who heaves old Ocean, and who wings the ftorms; Better for Us, perhaps, it might appear, COMMENTARY. 165 VER. 165. Better for us, &c.] But, fecondly, to ftrengthen the foregoing analogical argument, and to make the wisdom and goodness of God ftill more apparent, he observes (from y 165 NOTES. fyftem, while he leaves his pofition in the lurch. But the poet reasons at another rate: The way to prove his point, he knew, was to illuftrate the effect of partial moral evil in the universe, by partial natural evil in a particular fyftem. Whether partial moral evil tend to the good of the univerfe, being a question which, by reafon of our ignorance of many parts of that univerfe, we cannot decide, but from known effects; the rules of argument require that it be proved by analogy, i. e. fetting it by, and comparing it with, a thing certain; and it is a thing certain, that partial natural evil tends to the good of our particular fyftem. VER. 157. Who knows but he, &c.] The fublimity with which the great Author of Nature is here characterised, is but the fecond beauty of this fine paffage. The greatest is the making the very dif penfation objected to, the paraphrafis of his Title. That never air or ocean felt the wind; That never paffion discompos'd the mind. COMMEMTARY. to 172) that moral evil is not only productive of good to the whole, but is even productive of good in our own fyftem. It might, fays he, perhaps, appear better to us, that there were nothing in this world but peace and virtue: That never air or ocean felt the wind; That never paffion difcompos'd the mind. But then confider, that as our material system is supported by the strife of its elementary particles; so is our intellectual fyftem by the conflict of our Paffions, which are the elements of human action. In a word, as without the benefit of tempeftuous winds, both air and ocean would ftagnate, corrupt, and spread universal contagion throughout all the ranks of animals that inhabit, or are fupported by, them; fo, without the benefit of the Paffions, fuch virtue as was merely the effect of the absence of those Paffions, would be a lifeless calm, a ftoical Apathy: Contracted all, retiring to the breaft: But health of Mind is Exercise, not Reft. Ep. ii. 103. Therefore, inftead of regarding the Conflict of the elements, and the Paffions of the mind as diforders, you ought to confider them as part of the general order of Providence: And that they are so, appears from their always preferving the fame unvaried course, throughout all ages, from the creation to the present time: The gen❜ral order, fince the Whole began, Is kept in Nature, and is kept in Man. We fee, therefore, it would be doing great injuftice to our author to fufpect that he intended, by this, to give any encouragement to Vice. His fyftem, as all his Ethic Epiftles fhew, is this: That the Paffions, for the reasons given above, are neceffary to the support of Virtue; That, indeed, the Paffions in excefs produce Vice, which is, in its own Nature, the greatest of all Evils, and comes into the world from the abufé of Man's freewill; but that God, in his infinite wisdom and goodness, devi But ALL fubfifts by elemental ftrife; And Paffions are the elements of Life. The gen'ral ORDER, fince the whole began, 170 VI. What would this Man? Now upward will he foar, And little less than Angel, would be more ; 174 COMMENTARY. ously turns the natural bias of its malignity to the advancement of human happiness, and makes it productive of general Good: TH'ETERNAL ART EDUCES GOOD FROM ILL. Ep. ii. 175. This fet against what we have observed of the Poet's doctrine of a future State, will furnifh us with an inftance of his fteering (as he well expresses it in his preface) between Do&rines feemingly oppofite: If his Effay has any merit, he thinks it is in this. And doubtless it is uncommon merit to reject the extravagances of every Syftem, and take in only what is rational and real. The Characteristics and the Fable of the Bees are two seemingly inconfiftent fyftems; the extravagancy of the first is in giving a scheme of Virtue without Religion; and of the latter, in giving a scheme of Religion without Virtue. These our Poet leaves to Any that will take them up; but agrees however fo far with the firft, that " Virtue would be worth having, though "itself was its only reward ;" and fo far with the latter, that "God makes Evil, against its nature, productive of Good.” VER. 173. What would this Man? &c.] Having thus juftified Providence in its permiffion of partial MORAL EVIL, he employs the remaining part of his Epiftle in vindicating it from the im |