Beast, bird, fish, insect, what no eye can see, 240 Where, one step broken, the great scale's destroy'd: 245 And if each system in gradation roll, Alike essential to th' amazing Whole, That system only, but the Whole must fall. 250 NOTES. From infinite Perfection, to the brink Of dreary Nothing, desolate abyss! From which astonish'd Thought recoiling turns? THOMSON.-Warton. The passage in Locke on this topic is so eloquent, that the reader will pardon its insertion : That there should be more species of intelligent creatures above us, than there are of sensible and material below us, is probable to me from hence That in all the visible corporeal world we see no chasms, or gaps. All quite down from us, the descent is by easy steps, and a continued series of things, that in each remove differ very little one from the other. And when we consider the infinite power and wisdom of the Maker, we have reason to think that it is suitable to the magnificent harmony of the Universe, and the great design and infinite goodness of the Architect, that the species of creatures should also, by gentle degrees, ascend upwards from us towards his infinite Perfection, as we see from us they gradually descend downward." Vol. ii. p. 4.-Bowles. Ver. 240. No glass can reach ;]" There are," says Hooke, the naturalist, “8,280,000 animalculæ in one drop of water."" Nature, in many instances," says Themistius, “appears to make her transitions so imperceptibly, and by little and little, that in some beings it may be doubted whether they are animal or vegetable."-Warton. 66 Ver. 244. the great scale's destroy'd:] All that can be said of the supposition of a scale of beings gradually descending from perfection to nonentity, and complete in every rank and degree, is to be found in the third chapter of King's Origin of Evil, and in a note of the Archbishop, marked G, p. 137, of Law's Translation, ending with these emphatical words: Whatever system God had chosen, all creatures in it could not have been equally perfect; and there could have been but a certain determinate multitude of the most perfect; and, when that was completed, there would have been a station for creatures less perfect, and it would still have been an instance of goodness to give them a being as well as others." -Warton. Ver. 245. From Nature's chain] Almost the words of Marcus Antoninus, l. v. c. 8; as also v. 265, from the same.-Warton. Let Earth unbalanc'd from her orbit fly, IX. What if the foot, ordain'd the dust to tread, 255 260 NOTES. Ver. 251. Let Earth unbalanc'd] i. e. Being no longer kept within its orbit by the different directions of its progressive and attractive motions; which, like equal weights in a balance, keep it in an equilibre.— Warburton. It is observable, that these noble lines were added after the first folio edition. It is a pleasing and useful amusement to trace out the alterations that a great and correct writer gradually makes in his works. At first it ran, How instinct varies! What a hog may want, And again; What the advantage if his finer eyes How instinct varies in the grov'ling swine, At present; No self-confounding faculties to share, No pow'rs of body or of soul to share, It appeared at first very exceptionably; Expatiate far o'er all this scene of Man, A mighty maze! of walks without a plan. Which contradicted his whole system, and it was altered to, A mighty maze! but not without a plan!-Warton. Ver. 253. Let ruling angels, &c.] The Poet, throughout this Work, has, with great art, used an advantage which his employing a Platonic principle for the foundation of his Essay, had afforded him; and that is, the expressing himself (as here) in Platonic language; which, luckily for his purpose, is highly poetical, at the same time that it adds a grace to the uniformity of his reasoning.-Warburton. Ver. 259. What if the foot, &c.] This fine illustration in defence of the System of Nature, is taken from St. Paul, who employed it to defend the System of Grace.-Warburton. What if the head, the eye, or ear repin'd All are but parts of one stupendous whole, COMMENTARY. 265 Ver. 267. All are but parts of one stupendous whole,] Our author having thus given a representation of God's work, as one entire whole, where all the parts have a necessary dependence on, and relation to each other, and where each particular part works and concurs to the perfection of the Whole, as such a system transcends vulgar ideas, to reconcile it to common conceptions he shows (from ver. 266 to 281), that God is equally and intimately present to every sort of substance, to every particle of matter, and in every instant of being; which eases the labouring imagination, and makes us expect no less from such a Presence, than such a Dispensation. NOTES. Ver. 265. Just as absurd, &c.] See the prosecution and application of this in Ep. iv. Pope. Ver. 266. The great directing MIND, &c.] ob dominium. Deus enim sine dominio, nihil aliud est quam FATUM et NATURA." sub finem.-Warburton. "Veneramur autem et colimus providentiâ, et causis finalibus, Newtoni Princip. Schol. gener. Ver. 267. All are but parts] These are lines of a marvellous energy and closeness of expression. They are exactly like the old Orphic verses quoted in Aristotle, De Mundo, Edit. Lugd. folio, 1590, p. 378; and line 289 as minutely resembles the doctrine of the sublime hymn of Cleanthes the Stoic; not that I imagine Pope or Bolingbroke ever read that hymn, especially the latter, who was ignorant of Greek.-Warton. Ver. 268. Whose body Nature is, &c.] Mr. de Crousaz remarks, on this line, that " A Spinozist would express himself in this manner." I believe he would; for so the infamous Toland has done, in his Atheist's Liturgy, called PANTHEISTICON. But so would St. Paul likewise, who, writing on this subject, the omnipresence of God in his Providence, and in his Substance, says, in the words of a pantheistical Greek Poet, In him we live, and move, and have our being; i. e. we are parts of him, his offspring: And the reason is, because a religious theist and an impious pantheist both profess to believe the omnipresence of God. But would Spinoza, as Mr. Pope does, call God the great directing mind of all, who hath intentionally created a perfect Universe? Or would a Spinozist have told us, "The workman from the work distinct was known?" a line that overturns all Spinozism from its very foundations. But this sublime description of the Godhead contains not only the divinity of St. Paul; but, if that will not satisfy the men he writes against, the philosophy likewise of Sir Isaac Newton. The Poet says, "All are but parts of one stupendous whole, Whose body Nature is, and God the soul;" &c. That, chang'd through all, and yet in all the same; NOTES. 270 The Philosopher :-"In ipso continentur et moventur universa, sed absque mutuâ passione. Deus nihil patitur ex corporum motibus ; illa nullam sentiunt resistentiam ex omnipræsentiâ Dei.-Corpore omni et figurâ corporeâ destituitur.-Omnia regit et omnia cognoscit.-Cum unaquæque Spatii particula sit semper, et unumquodque Durationis indivisibile momentum, ubique certe rerum omnium Fabricator ac Dominus non erit nunquam, nusquam." Mr. Pope: "Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part, As full, as perfect, in vile Man that mourns, Sir Isaac Newton :-" Annon ex phænomenis constat esse entem incorporeum, viventem, intelligentem, omnipræsentem, qui in spatio infinito, tanquam sensorio suo, res ipsas intime cernat, penitusque perspiciat, totasque intra se præsens præsentes complectatur ?" But now, admitting there were an ambiguity in these expressions, so great that a Spinozist might employ them to express his own particular principles; and such a thing might well be, because the Spinozists, in order to hide the impiety of their principle, are wont to express the omnipresence of God in terms that any religious Theist might employ; in this case, I say, how are we to judge of the Poet's meaning? Surely by the whole tenor of his argument. Now, take the words in the sense of the Spinozists, and he is made, in the conclusion of his epistle, to overthrow all he had been advancing throughout the body of it: for Spinozism is the destruction of an Universe, where every thing tends, by a foreseen contrivance in all its parts, to the perfection of the Whole. But allow him to employ the passage in the sense of St. Paul, That we, and all creatures, live, and move, and have our being in God; and then it will be seen to be the most logical support of all that had preceded. For the Poet having, as we say, laboured through his Epistle to prove, that every thing in the Universe tends, by a foreseen contrivance, and a present direction of all its parts, to the perfection of the Whole; it might be objected, that such a disposition of things implying in God a painful, operose, and inconceivable extent of Providence, it could not be supposed that such care extended to all, but was confined to the more noble parts of the creation. This gross conception of the First Cause the Poet exposes, by showing that God is equally and intimately present to every particle of Matter, to every sort of Substance, and in every instant of Being.-Warburton. Ver 270. Great in the earth,] It is remarkable, that perhaps the most solid refutation of Spinoza is in the fifth volume of Bayle's Dictionary, p. 199.-Warton. Ver. 274. operates unspent ;] To Lucretius, who, in these very bold and magnificent lines, has asked, [Quis Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part, 275 280 NOTES. "Quis regere immensi summam ; quis habere profundi Omnibus inque locis esse omni tempore præstó?" To this question, I say, we may answer, "That Great Being who is so powerfully described by Pope in this passage." See on this subject the fine and convincing Discourse of Socrates with Aristodemus, in the first book of Xenophon's Memorabilia.-Warton. Ver. 276. in a hair as heart;] How much superior to a conceit of Cowley, addressed to J. Evelyne, Esq. 66 If we could open and intend our eye, We all, like Moses, should espy, Very sublime is the idea of the Great First Cause in a Fragment of Empedocles : Φρὴν ἱερὴ, καὶ ἀθέσφατος ἔπλετο μοῦνον, Ammonius, p. 199. M. du Resnel has translated all this passage of Pope unfairly and absurdly. Our author strove hard to excel four fine lines of his master Dryden, and has succeeded in the attempt; they are in a speech of Raphael, in the "State of Innocence," amidst much trash: "Where'er thou art, he is; th' eternal Mind Acts thro' all places; is to none confin'd: And thro' the universal mass does move."-Warton. Ver. 277. As full, as perfect, &c.] Which M. Du Resnel translates thus, "Dans un homme ignoré sous une humble chaumière, Que dans le Séraphin, rayonnant de lumière." i. e. As well in the ignorant man, who inhabits a humble cottage, as in the Seraph encompassed with rays of light. The translator, in good earnest thought, that a vile man that mourn'd could be no other than some poor Country Cottager. Which has betrayed M. de Crousaz into this important remark." For all that, we sometimes find in persons of the lowest rank, a fund of probity and resignation which preserves them from contempt; their minds are, indeed, but narrow, yet fitted to their station," &c. Comm. p. 120. But Mr. Pope had no such childish idea in his head. was here opposing the human species to the angelic; and so spoke of the first, when compared to the latter, as vile and disconsolate. The force and beauty of the reflection depend upon this sense; and, what is more, the propriety of it.-Warburton. He Ver. 280. He fills, He bounds,] This is a noble passsage. Akenside VOL. IV. E |