Made for his ufe, all creatures if he call, Say what their use, had he the pow'rs of all : Each beaft, each infect, happy in its own; Is Heav'n unkind to Man, and Man alone; 180 185 Shall he alone, whom rational we call, Be pleas'd with nothing, if not bless'd with all? The blifs of Man (could Pride that bleffing find) Is not to act or think beyond mankind; No pow'rs of body or of foul to share, But what his nature and his ftate can bear. Why has not Man a microscopic eye? For this plain reafon, man is not a Fly. 190 Say what the ufe, were finer optics giv'n, 195. Tinfpect a mite, not comprehend the heav'n? To smart and agonize at ev'ry pore? NOTES. VER. 182. Here with degrees of fwiftness, &c.] It is a certain axiom in the anatomy of creatures, that in proportion as they are formed for ftrength, their swiftnefs is leffened; or, as they are formed for swiftnefs, their ftrength is abated. P. Or quick effluvia darting thro' the brain, If Nature thunder'd in his op'ning ears, 200 And stunn'd him with the mufic of the spheres, VII. Far as Creation's ample range extends, 201 The scale of fenfual, mental pow'rs afcends: Mark how it mounts, to Man's imperial race, From the green myriads in the peopled grafs: 210 What modes of fight betwixt each wide extreme, The mole's dim curtain, and the lynx's beam: Of fmell, the headlong lionefs between, And hound fagacious on the tainted green: NOTES. VER. 202. Stunn'd him with the music of the Spheres.] This inftance is poetical, and even fublime, but mifplaced. He is arguing philosophically in a cafe that required him to employ the real objects of fenfe only; and, what is worfe, he speaks of this as a real object. —if NATURE thunder'd, &c. The cafe is different where (in ver. 253.) he fpeaks of the motion of the heavenly bodies under the fublime Imagery of ruling Angels: For whether there be ruling Angels or no, there is real motion, which was all his argument wanted; but if there be no mufic of the Spheres, there was no real found, which his argument was obliged to find. VER. 213. The headlong lioness] The manner of the lions Of hearing, from the life that fills the flood, 215 225 hunting their prey in the deserts of Africa is this: At their first going out in the night time they fet up a loud roar, and then liften to the noise made by the beasts in their flight, pursuing them by the ear, and not by the noftril. It is probable the ftory of the Jackal's hunting for the lion, was occafioned by observation of this defect of fcent in that terrible animal. P. VER. 224. for ever fep'rate, &c.] Near, by the fimilitude of the operation; feparate, by the immenfe difference in the nature of the powers. VER. 226. What thin partitions, &c.] So thin, that the Atheistic philofophers, as Protagoras, held that thought was only fenfe; and from thence concluded, that every imagination or opinion of every man was true: Πᾶσα φαντασία riv annons. But the poet determines more philofophically, that they are really and effentially different, how thin foever the partition is by which they are divided. Thus (to illuftrate the truth of this observation) when a geometer confiders a triangle, in order to demonftrate the equality 230 And Middle natures, how they long to join, VARIATIONS. VER. 238. Ed. ift. Ethereal Effence, fpirit, fubftance, man. NOTES. 235 of its three angles to two right ones, he has the picture or image of fome fenfible triangle in his mind, which is fenfe; yet notwithstanding, he muft needs have the notion or idea of an intellectual triangle in his mind, which is thought; for this plain reafon, because every image or picture of a triangle muft needs be obtufangular, or rectangular, or acutangular: but that which, in his mind, is the fubject of this propofition, is the ratio of a triangle, undetermined to any of these species. On this account it was that Ariftotle faid, Νοήματα τινι διάσει, τῷ μὴ Φαλάσ ματα εἶναι, ἢ ἐδὲ ταῦτα φαλάσματα ἀλλ ̓ ἐκ ἄνευ φαλασμάτων. The conceptions of the Mind differ fomewhat from fenfible images; they are not fenfible images, and yet not quite free or difengaged from fenfible images. VER. 237. Vaft chain of Being!] Who will not ac Beast, bird, fish, infect, what no eye can fee, 240 Where, one flep broken, the great fcale's destroy'd: That fyftem only, but the Whole must fall. 250 knowledge, therefore, that fo harmonious a connexion in the difpofition of things as is here defcribed, is tranfcendently beautiful? But the Fatalifts suppose fuch an oneWhat then? Is the First Free Agent, is the great Cause of all things, debarred from a contrivance fo exquifite, becaufe fome Men, to fet up their idol, Fate, abfurdly reprefent it as prefiding over fuch a fyftem. VER. 243. Or in the full creation leave a void, &c.] This is only an illuftration, alluding to the Peripatetic plenum and vacuum; the full and void here meant, relating not to Matter, but to Life. VER. 247. And if each ffem in gradation roll.] The verb alludes to the motion of the planetary bodies of each fyftem; and to the figures defcribed by that motion. VER. 251. Let Earth unbalanc'd] i. e. Being no longer kept within its orbit by the different directions of its pro |