Destroy all Creatures for thy sport or gust,
Yet cry, If Man's unhappy, God's unjust;
If Man alone engross not Heav'n's high care,
Alone made perfect here, immortal there:
Snatch from his hand the balance and the rod,
Re-judge his justice, be the GOD of GOD.
In Pride, in reas'ning Pride, our error lies;
All quit their sphere, and rush into the skies.
Pride still is aiming at the blest abodes,

Men would be Angels, Angels would be Gods.
Aspiring to be Gods, if Angels fell,

Aspiring to be Angels, Men rebel:

And who but wishes to invert the laws

120

125

Of ORDER, sins against th' Eternal Cause.

135

V. Ask for what end the heav'nly bodies shine,

Earth for whose use? Pride answers, "Tis for mine:

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;
For me, the mine a thousand treasures brings;
For me, health gushes from a thousand springs;
Seas roll to waft me, suns to light me rise;
My foot-stool earth, my canopy the skies1."

135

140

But errs not Nature from this gracious end 2,
From burning suns when livid deaths descend,

When earthquakes swallow, or when tempests sweep
Towns to one grave, whole nations to the deep"?
"No, ('tis reply'd) the first Almighty Cause
Acts not by partial, but by gen'ral laws;

145

Th' exceptions few; some change since all began:
And what created perfect?”—Why then Man?
If the great end be human Happiness,
Then Nature deviates; and can Man do less1?
As much that end a constant course requires
Of show'rs and sun-shine, as of Man's desires;

150

1 Warburton compares Ep. III. v. 27.

2 Bayle was the person who, by stating the difficulties concerning the Origin of Evil, in his Dictionary, 1695, with much acuteness and ability, revived the Manichean controversy that had been long dormant. He was soon answered by Le Clerc in his Parrhasiana, and by many articles in his Bibliothèques. But by no writer was Bayle so powerfully attacked, as by the excellent Archbishop King, in his Treatise De Origine Mali, 1702.... Lord Shaftesbury... in 1709, wrote the famous Dialogue, entitled The Moralists, as a direct confutation of the opinions of Bayle... In 1710, Leibnitz wrote his famous Theodicée... In 1720, Dr John Clarke published his Enquiry into the Cause and Origin of Evil, a work full of sound reasoning; but almost every argument on this most difficult of all subjects had been urged many years before any of the above-named treatises appeared, viz. 1678, by that truly great

scholar and divine, Cudworth, in that inestimable treasury of learning and philosophy, his Intellectual System of the Universe, to which so many authors have been indebted, without owning their obligations. Warton.

3 [Such doubts arose in the mind of Goethe, in his sixth year, at the very time when they were being agitated by Voltaire, on the occasion of the great earthquake at Lisbon. See Lewes' Life of Goethe, Bk. 1. chap. 3.1

4 Ver. 150. Then Nature deviates &c.] "While comets move in very eccentric orbs, in all manner of positions, blind fate could never make all the planets move one and the same way in orbs concentric; some inconsiderable irregularities excepted, which may have risen from mutual actions of comets and planets upon one another, and which will be apt to increase, 'till this system wants a reformation." Sir Isaac Newton's Optics, Quest. ult. Warburton.

As much eternal springs and cloudless skies,

As Men for ever temp'rate, calm, and wise.

If plagues or earthquakes break not Heav'n's design,
Why then a Borgia, or a Catiline?

155

Who knows but he, whose hand the lightning forms,
Who heaves old Ocean, and who wings the storms;
Pours fierce Ambition in a Cæsar's mind,

Or turns young Ammon loose to scourge mankind1?
From pride, from pride, our very reas'ning springs;
Account for moral, as for natʼral things:
Why charge we Heav'n in those, in these acquit?
In both, to reason right is to submit.

160

165

Better for Us, perhaps, it might appear,
Were there all harmony, all virtue here;
That never air or ocean felt the wind;
That never passion discompos'd the mind.
But ALL subsists by elemental strife2;
And Passions are the elements of Life.

170

The gen'ral ORDER, since the whole began,

Is kept in Nature, and is kept in Man.

VI. What would this Man? Now upward will he soar,

And little less than Angel3, would be more;

Now looking downwards, just as griev'd appears

175

To want the strength of bulls, the fur of bears.
Made for his use all creatures if he call,
Say what their use, had he the pow'rs of all?
Nature to these, without profusion, kind,
The proper organs, proper pow'rs assign'd;
Each seeming want compensated of course,

Here with degrees of swiftness, there of force1;
All in exact proportion to the state;
Nothing to add, and nothing to abate.
Each beast, each insect, happy in its own:

180

185

Is Heav'n unkind to Man, and Man alone?

Shall he alone, whom rational we call,

Be pleas'd with nothing, if not bless'd with all?

The bliss of Man (could Pride that blessing find)

Is not to act or think beyond mankind;

190

No pow'rs of body or of soul to share,

But what his nature and his state can bear.

Why has not Man a microscopic eye 5?
For this plain reason, Man is not a Fly.
Say what the use, were finer optics giv'n,

[Alexander the Great, who was saluted as of divine origin by the priests of the Libyan Zeus Ammon; cf. Temple of Fame, v. 154.]

2 But all subsists &c.] See this subject extended in Ep. ii. from v. 90 to 112, 155, &c. Warburton.

3 And little less than Angel, &c.] Thou hast made him a little lower than the Angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour. Psalm viii. 9. Warburton.

195

4 Here with degrees of swiftness, &c.] It is a certain axiom in the anatomy of creatures, that in proportion as they are formed for strength, their swiftness is lessened; or as they are formed for swiftness, their strength is abated. P.

5 That particular expression, microscopic eye, and the whole reasoning of this astonishing piece of poetry, is taken from Locke's Essay on the Human Understanding, Bk. 11. chap. 3. sec. 12. Wakefield.

T'inspect a mite, not comprehend the heav'n?
Or touch, if tremblingly alive all o'er,
To smart and agonize at every pore?
Or quick effluvia darting thro' the brain,
Die of a rose in aromatic pain?

230

If nature thunder'd in his op'ning ears,

And stunn'd him with the music of the spheres1,
How would he wish that Heav'n had left him still
The whisp'ring Zephyr, and the purling rill?
Who finds not Providence all good and wise,
Alike in what it gives, and what denies?

235

VII. Far as Creation's ample range extends,
The scale of sensual, mental pow'rs ascends:
Mark how it mounts, to Man's imperial race,
From the green myriads in the peopled grass:
What modes of sight betwixt each wide extreme,
The mole's dim curtain, and the lynx's beam :
Of smell, the headlong lioness between2,
And hound sagacious on the tainted green:
Of hearing, from the life that fills the Flood,
To that which warbles thro' the vernal wood:
The spider's touch, how exquisitely fine!
Feels at each thread, and lives along the line:
In the nice bee, what sense so subtly true
From pois'nous herbs extracts the healing dew?
How Instinct varies in the grov'lling swine,
Compar'd, half-reas'ning elephant, with thine!
'Twixt that, and Reason, what a nice barrier3,
For ever sep'rate, yet for ever near!
Remembrance and Reflection how ally'd;

What thin partitions Sense from Thought divide*:
And Middle natures, how they long to join,
Yet never pass th' insuperable line!
Without this just gradation, could they be.
Subjected, these to those, or all to thee?
The pow'rs of all subdu'd by thee alone,
Is not thy Reason all these pow'rs in one?

210

215

220

225

230

VIII. See, thro' this air, this ocean, and this earth,

All matter quick, and bursting into birth.
Above, how high, progressive life may go!
Around, how wide! how deep extend below!

235

stunn'd him with the music of the spheres,] This instance is poetical and even sublime, but misplaced. He is arguing philosophically in a case that required him to employ the real objects of sense only: And what is worse, he speaks of this as a real object. Warburton.

2 the headlong lioness] The manner of the Lions hunting their prey in the deserts of Africa is this: At their first going out in the night-time they set up a loud roar, and then listen to the noise made by the beasts in their flight, pursuing them by the ear, and not by the nostril. It is

Vast chain of Being! which from God began,
Natures ethereal, human, angel, man1,

Beast, bird, fish, insect, what no eye can see,
No glass can reach; from Infinite to thee,
From thee to Nothing.-On superior pow'rs2
Were we to press, inferior might on ours:
Or in the full creation leave a void,

240

Where, one step broken, the great scale's destroy'd:

From Nature's chain whatever link you strike 3,

245

Tenth or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike.
And, if each system in gradation_roll

Alike essential to th' amazing Whole,
The least confusion but in one, not all
That system only, but the Whole must fall.
Let Earth unbalanc'd from her orbit fly,
Planets and Suns run lawless thro' the sky;
Let ruling Angels from their spheres be hurl'd,
Being on Being wreck'd, and world on world;
Heav'n's whole foundations to their centre nod,
And Nature tremble to the throne of God.

250

255

All this dread ORDER break-for whom? for thee?

Vile worm!-Oh Madness! Pride! Impiety!

IX. What if the foot, ordain'd the dust to tread 5,

Or hand, to toil, aspir'd to be the head?

260

What if the head, the eye, or ear repin'd

To serve mere engines to the ruling Mind?
Just as absurd for any part to claim
To be another, in this gen'ral frame:
Just as absurd, to mourn the tasks or pains,
The great directing MIND of ALL ordains.

All are but parts of one stupendous whole,
Whose body Nature is, and God the soul?,
That, chang'd thro' all, and yet in all the same;
Great in the earth, as in th' ethereal frame;
Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze,
Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees,
Lives thro' all life, extends thro' all extent,
Spreads undivided, operates unspent;

:1-Ver. 238, Ed. 1,
'Ethereal essence, spirit, substance, man.'
Warburton.

2 Warton compares:
'Has any seen
The mighty chain of beings, lessening down
From infinite Perfection, to the brink
Of dreary Nothing, desolate abyss!
From which astonished Thought recoiling turns?
Thomson [Seasons, Summer].
[The whole of this passage was added by Thom-
son in the second edition of his poem.]

3 Almost the words of Marcus Aurelius, 1. v. c. 8; as also v. 265 from the same. Warton.

Let ruling angels &c.] The poet, throughout this poem, with great art uses an advantage, which his employing a Platonic principle for the

265

270

foundation of his Essay had afforded him; and that is the expressing himself (as here) in Platonic notions; which, luckily for his purpose, are highly poetical, at the same time that they add a grace to the uniformity of his reasoning. Warburton.

5 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 [1 Cor. xii. 15-21].

6 Just as absurd, &c.] See the Prosecution and application of this in Ep. iv. P.

7 [Warburton has a long and ingenious note on this passage, intended to vindicate Pope from the charge of having given vent to a pantheistical and 'Spinozist' conception, by adducing other passages from the Essay in which a personal God is acknowledged.]

Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part,
As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart:
As full, as perfect, in vile Man that mourns,
As the rapt Seraph that adores and burns1:
To him no high, no low, no great, no small;
He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all.

X. Cease then, nor ORDER Imperfection name:
Our proper bliss depends on what we blame 2.
Know thy own point: This kind, this due degree
Of blindness, weakness, Heav'n bestows on thee.
Submit. In this, or any other sphere,
Secure to be as blest as thou canst bear:
Safe in the hand of one disposing Pow'r,
Or in the natal, or the mortal hour3.

275

280

285

All Nature is but Art, unknown to thee;

All Chance, Direction, which thou canst not see;
All Discord, Harmony not understood;
All partial Evil, universal Good:

200

And, spite of Pride, in erring Reason's spite,

One truth is clear, WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT 4.

ARGUMENT OF EPISTLE II.

Of the Nature and State of Man with respect to Himself, as an Individual.

I. THE business of Man not to pry into God, but to study himself. His Middle Nature; his Powers and Frailties, v. 1 to 19. The Limits of his Capacity, v. 19, &c. II. The two Principles of Man, Self-love and Reason, both necessary, v. 53, &c. Self-love the stronger, and why, v. 67, &c. Their end the same, v. 81, &c. III. The PASSIONS, and their use, v. 93 to 130. The predominant Passion, and its force, v. 132 to 160. Its Necessity, in directing Men to different purposes, v. 165, &c. Its providential Use, in fixing our Principle, and ascertaining our Virtue, v. 177. IV. Virtue and Vice joined in our mixed Nature; the limits near, yet the things separate and evident: What is the Office of Reason, v. 202 to 216. V. How odious Vice in itself, and how we deceive ourselves into it, v. 217. VI. That, however, the Ends of Providence and general Good are answered in our Passions and Imperfections, v. 238, &c. How usefully these are distributed to all Orders of Men, v. 241. How useful they are to Society, v. 251. state, and every age of life, v. 273, &c.

1 As the rapt Seraph, &c.] Alluding to the name Seraphim, signifying burners. Warbur

ton.

2 After v. 282, in the MS. 'Reason, to think of God when she pretends, Begins a Censor, an Adorer ends.' Warburton. 3 [What Bolingbroke says in the fine passage quoted by Warton (with the pious wish Si sic omnia dixisset') was more briefly, but as finely expressed by the child Goethe (v. ante): God knows very well that an immortal soul can receive

And to the Individuals, v. 263. In every

no injury from a mortal accident.']

4 [Warburton thus explains the conclusion deduced from the argument of the Epistle: That Nature being neither a blind chain of Causes and Effects, nor yet the fortuitous result of wandering atoms, but the wonderful Art and Direction of an all-wise, all-good, and free Being; WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT, with regard to the Disposition of God, and its ultimate Tendency; which once granted, all complaints against Providence are at an end:]