"On mutual wants built mutual happiness." And Bolingbroke observes, "We are destined to be social, not solitary creatures. Mutual wants unite us, and natural benevolence and political order, on which our happiness depends, are founded in them." Who had these fine things first, is the point in dispute. Pope had the priority in publication; but might not his "guide, philosopher, and friend "—ever eager to communicate and to proselytize-have dropped the seed in the garden at Twickenham ? The stamina of Pope's philosophy appears at first sight to be exactly the same as Bolingbroke's. "The subject of the Essay," as Warton explains it, "is a vindication of Providence; in which the poet proposes to prove, that of all possible systems, Infinite Wisdom has formed the best: that in such a system, coherence, union, subordination, are necessary; and if so, that appearances of evil, both moral and natural, are also necessary, and unavoidable that the seeming defects and blemishes in the universe conspire to its general beauty: that as all parts in an animal are not eyes; and, as in a city, comedy, or picture, all ranks, characters, and colours are not alike; even so excesses and contrary qualities contribute to the proportion and harmony of the universal system, that it is not strange that we should not be able to discover perfection and order in every instance; because in an infinity of things mutually relative, a mind which sees not infinitely, can see nothing fully. This doctrine was inculcated by Plato and the Stoics, but more amply and particularly by the latter Platonists, and by Antoninus and Simplicius." Bolingbroke went no further than the ancients, and the sceptical moral philosophers. With him whatever is, is right, because our moral world is a system complete in itself, and we have "no occasion to call in the notion of a future state to vindicate the ways of God to man, because they are fully and sufficiently benevolent and just in the present." Pope extended his moral vision ""Tis but a part we see, and not the whole." And he embraced the prospect of a future state, pictured by hope"Till lengthen'd on to FAITH, and unconfined, It pours the bliss that fills up all the mind." These glimpses of immortality are, however, but faintly seen in the poem, through the mists of metaphysics, and hence a charge of fatalism and necessity was brought against Pope. A Swiss Professor, M. de Crousaz, attacked the philosophy of the Essay, and the orthodox clergy were loud in its condemnation. Warburton came to the rescue of the poet, and the delight with which Pope hailed this volunteer effort shows that he had unintentionally carried his doctrine further than he intended, and that he shrunk from the accusation of infidelity. When the commentaries of Warburton appeared, Pope wrote to him, "You have made my system as clear as I ought to have done, and could not." "The generosity of your conduct deserves esteem; your zeal for truth deserves affection from every candid man.' "I am greatly obliged to you for your zeal to demonstrate me no irreligious man.". "You understand my work (the Essay on Man) better than I do myself," &c. Warburton had, by great ingenuity and learned labour-straining the interpretation of some passages, and assigning marked prominence to others-reconciled the poem to Christianity, and vindicated and explained what the author left doubtful and obscure. With posterity, these commentaries have done little for the Essay on Man, but they are of importance towards the biography of Pope, in elucidating his intellectual character and religious opinions. Johnson charged the poem with "penury of knowledge and vulgarity of sentiment,"-using vulgarity, however, to express only what was trite and common. The real value of the work lies in its poetry, and Pope never surpassed the best passages of the Essay in concise, forcible, and elegant expression, or in the variety, grandeur, and appropriateness of its imagery and illustrations. These are the "varying rays," and "painted clouds," with which he gilds and beautifies opinion, and adds a grace and lustre even to obsolete metaphysics, and to common-place philosophy.] THE DESIGN. HAVING proposed to write some pieces on human life and manners, such as (to use my Lord Bacon's expression) "come home to men's business and bosoms," I thought it more satisfactory to begin with considering man in the abstract, his nature and his state; since, to prove any moral duty, to enforce any moral precept, or to examine the perfection or imperfection of any creature whatsoever, it is necessary first to know what condition and relation it is placed in, and what is the proper end and purpose of its being. The science of human nature is, like all other sciences, reduced to a few clear points: there are not many certain truths in this world. It is therefore in the Anatomy of the mind as in that of the body: more good will accrue to mankind by attending to the large, open, and perceptible parts, than by studying too much such finer nerves and vessels, the conformations and uses of which will for ever escape our observation. The disputes are all upon these last, and I will venture to say,' they have less sharpened the wits than the hearts of men against each other, and have diminished the practice more than advanced the theory, of morality. If I could flatter myself that this Essay has any merit, it is in steering betwixt the extremes of doctrines seemingly opposite, in passing over terms utterly unintelligible, and in forming a temperate yet not inconsistent, and a short yet not imperfect, system of ethics. This I might have done in prose; but I chose verse, and even rhyme, for two reasons. The one will appear obvious; that principles, maxims, or precepts so written, both strike the reader more strongly at first, and are more easily retained by him afterwards: the other may seem odd, but it is true; found I could express them more shortly this way than in prose itself; and nothing is more certain, than that much of the force as well as grace of arguments or instructions, depends on their conciseness. I was unable to treat this part of my subject more in detail, without becoming dry and tedious; or more poetically, without sacrificing perspicuity to ornament, without wandering from the precision, or breaking the chain of reasoning: if any man can unite all these without diminution of any of them, I freely confess he will compass a thing above my capacity. What is now published, is only to be considered as a general map of man, marking out no more than the greater parts, their extent, their limits, and their connection, but leaving the particular to be more fully delineated in the charts which are to follow. Consequently, these epistles in their progress (if I have health and leisure to make any progress) will be less dry, and more susceptible of poetical ornament. I am here only opening the fountains, and clearing the passage. To deduce the rivers, to follow them in their course, and to observe their effects, may be a task more agreeable. [The design to continue these moral disquisitions is seen in the title given to the Essay in the collected edition of Pope's Works, vol. ii. 1735. It there stands, "An ESSAY ON MAN, being the First Book of ETHIC EPISTLES," &c.] 249 EPISTLE I. ARGUMENT OF EPISTLE I. OF THE NATURE AND STATE OF MAN WITH RESPECT TO THE UNIVERSE. Of man in the abstract.-I. That we can judge only with regard to our own system, being ignorant of the relation of systems and things, ver. 17, &c. II. That man is not to be deemed imperfect, but a being suited to his place and rank in the creation, agreeable to the general order of things, and conformable to ends and relations to him unknown, ver. 35, &c. III. That it is partly upon his ignorance of future events, and partly upon the hope of a future state, that all his happiness in the present depends, ver. 77, &c. IV. The pride of aiming at more knowledge, and pretending to more perfection, the cause of man's error and misery. The impiety of putting himself in the place of God, and judging of the fitness or unfitness, perfection or imperfection, justice or injustice, of his dispensations, ver. 109, &c. V. The absurdity of conceiting himself the final cause of the creation, or expecting that perfection in the moral world, which is not in the natural, ver. 131, &c. VI. The unreasonableness of his complaints against Providence, while on the one hand he demands the perfections of the angels, and on the other the bodily qualifications of the brutes; though, to possess any of the sensitive faculties in a higher degree, would render him miserable, ver. 173, &c. VII. That throughout the whole visible world, an universal order and gradation in the sensual and mental faculties is observed, which causes a subordination of creature to creature, and of all creatures to Man. The gradations of sense, instinct, thought, reflection, reason; that reason alone countervails all the other faculties, ver. 207. VIII. How much farther this order and subordination of living creatures may extend, above and below us; were any part of which broken, not that part only, but the whole connected creation, must be destroyed, ver. 233. IX. The extravagance, madness, and pride of such a desire, ver. 250. X. The consequence of all the absolute submission due to Providence, both as to our present and future state, ver 221, &c., to the end. AWAKE, my St. John! leave all meaner things Let us (since life can little more supply Expatiate free o'er all this scene of man; A mighty maze! but not without a plan:1 I. Say first, of God above, or man below, What can we reason, but from what we know? 5 10 15 20 Through worlds unnumbered, though the God be known, "Tis ours to trace him only in our own. He, who through vast immensity can pierce, 25 See worlds on worlds compose one universe, Look'd through? or can a part contain the whole ? And drawn, supports, upheld by God or thee? 30 II. Presumptuous man! the reason wouldst thou find, 35 Why form'd so weak, so little, and so blind? First, if thou canst, the harder reason guess, Why form'd no weaker, blinder, and no less? Ask of thy mother earth, why oaks are made Taller and stronger than the weeds they shade? 40 1 [In the first Edition, "A mighty maze of walks without a plan." The name of the poet's friend, St. John, was not given in this edition, the poem opening with," Awake, my Lælius," &c.] |