Chapter 35

[1077]The idea is in Locke's Essay, bk. iii. chap. 6, sect. 12, which Warton quotes. Bolingbroke, Fragment 49, copied Locke and others, and Pope copied Bolingbroke.[1078]Ed. 1st:Ethereal essence, spirit, substance, man.—Pope.[1079]This is a magnificent passage. Thomson had before said in Summer, ver. 333:Has any seenThe mighty chain of beings, lessening downFrom infinite perfection, to the brinkOf dreary nothing.—Warton.Kennet's Pascal, p. 166: "He will find himself hanging, in the material scale, between the two vast abysses of infinite and nothing."[1080]All that can be said of a scale of beings is to be found in the third chapter of King's Origin of Evil, and in a note ending with these emphatic words: "Whatever system God had chosen, there could have been but a determinate multitude of the most perfect creatures, 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.[1081]Suffer men, says Pope, to encroach upon superior powers, and either inferior powers must rise to the rank we have vacated, or by not moving forward into the gap, they will leave a void in creation.[1082]MS.:in nature what it hates, a void;Or leave a gap in the creation void;The scale is broken if a step destroyed.[1083]Dryden, Love Triumphant, Act iv. Sc. 1:Great nature, break thy chain, that links togetherThe fabric of this globe, and make a chaos.[1084]MS.:Yet more ev'n systems in gradation roll.[1085]Bolingbroke, Fragment 42: "We cannot doubt that numberless worlds, and systems of worlds, compose this amazing whole, the universe."[1086]Milton, Par. Lost, vii. 242:And earth self-balanced on her centre hung.The tendency of the earth to move in a straight line is balanced by the attraction of the sun, and Pope supposes this attraction to cease.[1087]I like the reading of earlier editions better;Planets and sunsrushlawless through the sky.—Wakefield.[1088]After Pope's death "tremble" was misprinted "trembles," and the error has been retained in most editions. The construction is, "Let planets and suns run lawless through the sky, let being be wrecked on being, world on world, let heaven's whole foundations nod to their centre, and let nature tremble to the throne of God!"[1089]These six lines, ver. 251-256, are added since the first edition.—Pope.Ruffhead says "there is no reading these lines without being struck with a momentary apprehension." Without quite allowing this, we cannot but feel their great beauty and force. Line rises upon line, with greater effect and nobler imagery, and in the conclusion the poet has touched the idea with propriety, as well as dignity and sublimity. If he had been more particular, the passage would have been unworthy the grandeur of the subject; had he been less it would have been obscure. He has at once evinced judgment and poetry. If there be a word or two not quite suitable, perhaps it is "run," and "foundations nod." I could have wished such a word as "rushed lawless," or "flamed lawless through the sky."—Bowles.[1090]The chief problem which Pope undertook to solve was the existence of moral evil. Yet, if man, in obedience to God's commands, became morally perfect, none of the disastrous effects the poet describes would ensue. Angels would not be hurled from their spheres; worlds would not be wrecked; nor would heaven's foundations nod to their centre. Reason and revelation unite in the conclusion that moral perfection would, on the contrary, be an unmitigated blessing. Consequently Pope's hypothesis explains nothing unless he had shown how it is that a system which rendered evil impossible would be inferior to our own.[1091]Plotinus, translated by Cudworth, Intellectual System, ed. Harrison, vol. iii., p. 479: "Some things in me partake only of being, some of life also, some of sense, some of reason, and some of intellect above reason. But no man ought to require equal things from unequal; nor that the finger should see, but the eye; it being enough for the finger to be a finger, and to perform its own office."—Warton.[1092]Bolingbroke, Fragment 66: "Nothing can be more absurd than the complaints of creatures who are in one of these orders, that they are not in another."[1093]Vid. the prosecution and application of this in Epist. iv. ver. 162.—Pope.[1094]"Soul," says Samuel Clarke, "signifies a part of a whole, whereof body is the other part, and they, being united, mutually affect each other as parts of the same whole. But God is present to every part of the universe, not as a soul, but as a governor, so as to act upon everything in what manner he pleases, himself being acted upon by nothing." Warburton quotes some passages from Sir Isaac Newton asserting the omnipresence of the Deity, and the commentator affirms that the poet expressed the identical doctrine of the philosopher. This is a misrepresentation. The extracts of Warbuton are from the scholium to the Principia, where Newton adds, "God governs all things, not as a soul of the world, but as the Lord of the universe. The Godhead of God is his dominion, a dominion not like that of a soul over its own body, but that of a Lord over his servants." The doctrine which Pope held in common with Sir Isaac Newton was the omnipresence of the Deity. The doctrine which Sir Isaac Newton repudiated, and which Pope maintained, was that the world was the body of God as the human frame is of man. The world in this sense was not the work of the Deity, but a portion of him. Pope abandoned his present creed, Epist. iii. ver. 229, where he says,The worker from the work distinct was known.[1095]Every ear must feel the ill effect of the monotony in these lines. The cause is obvious. When the pause falls on the fourth syllable, we shall find that we pronounce the six last in the same time that we do the four first, so that the couplet is not only divided into two equal lines, but each line, with respect to time, is divided into two equal parts.—Webb.[1096]Our poet is certainly indebted to the following verses of Mrs. Chandler on Solitude:He's all in all: his wisdom, goodness, pow'r,Spring in each blade, and bloom in ev'ry flow'r;}Smile o'er the meads, and bend in ev'ry hill,Glide in the stream, and murmur in the rill:All nature moves obedient to his will.Dryden, in the State of Innocence, Act v., was probably also in our poet's recollection:Where'er thou art, he is: th' eternal mindActs through all places, is to none confined;Fills ocean, earth, and air, and all above,And through the universal mass does move.—Wakefield.[1097]"Our mortal part," is put in opposition to "soul," and the antithesis is a recognition of the soul's immortality. The allusion was too slight to offend Bolingbroke, or, perhaps, to attract his notice.[1098]Dugald Stewart observes that everyone must be displeased with this line, because the triviality of the alliteration is at variance with the sublimity of the subject.[1099]First edition:As the rapt Seraphim that sings and burns.The name Seraphim, says Warburton, signifies burners, and Wakefield quotes, in illustration, from Spenser's Hymn of Heavenly Beauty, stanza 14:And those eternal burning SeraphimsWhich from their faces dart out fiery light.[1100]These are lines of a marvellous energy and closeness of expression.—Warton.The concluding lines appear to be a false jingle of words which neutralise the whole of Pope's argument. If there is to Providence "no high, no low, no great, no small," the gradation of beings is a delusion. What things are in the sight of God, that they are in reality, and since no one thing in creation is superior or inferior to any other thing, Pope's language throughout this epistle is unmeaning. The final phrase of the couplet is bathos. God is not only the "equal" of "all" his works, he is immeasurably beyond them.[1101]The "order" is the gradation of beings, and "what we blame" is our own rank in the scale of creation, whereas, says Pope, our "proper bliss depends upon it."[1102]MS.:Cease then, nor order imperfection callOn which depends the happiness of all.Reason, to think of God when she pretends,Begins a censor, an adorer ends.See and confess, this just, this kind degreeOf blindness, etc.[1103]Pope would not express a "sure and certain hope in a blessed resurrection." He used the same equivocal language as his "guide," who had no faith that "another sphere" existed for man. "Let the tranquillity of my mind," said Bolingbroke, Frag. 51, "rest on this immovable rock, that my future, as well as my present state, are ordered by an almighty and all-wise Creator."[1104]MS.:In the same hand, the same all-plastic pow'r.[1105]"Nature is the art whereby God governs the world," says Hobbes.—Warton.Sir T. Browne, Relig. Med. Part i. 16: "In brief all things are artificial; for nature is the art of God."[1106]Art, in the sense of design, is manifest in nature, and has been traced in endless particulars. Pope must mean by "unknown art" the ultimate principles to which the laws of nature owe their efficiency.[1107]From Fontenelle: "Everything is chance, provided we give this name to an order unknown to us."—Warton.[1108]Feltham's Resolves: "The world is kept in order by discord, and every part of it is but a more particular composed jar. And in all these it makes greatly for the Maker's glory that such an admirable harmony should be produced out of such an infinite discord."—Warton.[1109]This line ran thus in the first edition:And spite of pride, and in thy reason's spite.Pope afterwards, says Johnson, discovered, or was shown, that the "truth" which subsisted "in spite of reason" could not be very "clear."[1110]MS.:Learn we ourselves, not God presume to scan,But know the study, etc.[1111]Ed. 1.:The only science of mankind is man.Ed. 2.:The proper study, etc.—Pope."The true science and true study of man is man," says Charron in his treatise on Wisdom; and Pascal, in his thoughts translated by Dr. Kennet, 1727, p. 248, says, "The study of man is the proper employment and exercise of mankind." But Pascal is maintaining that man should study himself in preference to mathematics, and not to the exclusion of God, which is a doctrine that would have filled him with horror.[1112]From Cowley, who says of life, in his ode on Life and Fame:Vain, weak-built isthmus, which dost proudly riseUp betwixt two eternities.—Warton.[1113]Kennet's Pascal, p. 160: "We have an idea of truth, not to be effaced by all the wiles of the sceptic."[1114]The stoic took his stand upon virtue, and with a stern faith in the all-sufficiency of moral excellence he calmly defied the trials of life.[1115]Johnson, in his translation of Crousaz, says he cannot determine whether any one has discovered the true meaning of the words "in doubt to act or rest." The language is vague, and incapable of an interpretation which is generally true; but the probable sense seems to be that man is in doubt whether to embrace an active belief, or whether to resign himself to a passive, inert scepticism.[1116]First edition:To deem himself a part of God or beast.Kennet's Pascal, p. 30, furnished the hint for the line: "What, then, is to be the fate of man? Shall he be equal to God, or shall he not be superior to the beasts?"[1117]Man is not born only to die, but death has the present life on one side of it, and immortality on the other. Man does not reason only to err, but to establish a multitude of mighty truths.[1118]"Such is the reason of man that he is equally ignorant whether, etc."[1119]From Kennet's Pascal, p. 180: "If we think too little of a thing or too much, our head turns giddy, and we are at a loss to find out our way to truth."[1120]Kennet's Pascal, p. 162: "What a chimæra then is man! What a confused chaos! What a subject of contradiction!"[1121]"Abused" here means "deceived," a sense of the word which was once common. Lord Bacon, Essay on Cunning: "Some build upon the abusing of others, and, as we now say, putting tricks upon them." Bishop Hall, Contemplations upon the New Testament, bk. ii. cont. 6: "Crafty men and lying spirits agreed to abuse the credulous world."[1122]Kennet's Pascal, p. 162: "If he is too aspiring we can lower him; if too mean we can raise him."[1123]From Kennet's Pascal, p. 162: "A professed judge of all things, and yet a feeble worm of the earth; the great depositary and guardian of truth, and yet a mere huddle of uncertainty; the glory and the scandal of the universe."[1124]After ver. 18 in the MS.:For more perfection than this state can bearIn vain we sigh; heav'n made us as we are.[If gods wemustbecause wewouldbe, thenPray hard ye monkies, and ye may be men.]As wisely sure a modest ape might aimTo be like man, whose faculties and frameHe sees, he feels, as you or I to beAn angel thing we neither know nor see.Observe how near he edges on our race;What human tricks! how risible of face!"It must be so—why else have I the senseOf more than monkey charms and excellence?Why else to walk on two so oft essayed?And why this ardent longing for a maid?"So Pug might plead, and call his gods unkind,Till set on end, and married to his mind.Go, reas'ning thing! assume the Doctor's chair,As Plato deep, as Seneca severe:Fix moral fitness, and to God give rule,Then drop, etc.—Warburton.The couplet between brackets was omitted by Warburton. There is still another reading in the MS. of the couplet, "Observe how near," etc.Observe his love of tricks, his laughing face;An elder brother, too, to human race.[1125]MS.:Go, reas'ning man, go mount, etc.[1126]MS.:Instruct erratic planets where to run.[1127]Warburton says that the phrase "correct old Time" refers to Sir Isaac Newton's Chronology of Antient Kingdoms Amended, in which one of the main positions was based upon astronomical science. More probably Pope alluded to the familiar fact of the Gregorian reformation of the calendar by substituting new style for old. The change was adopted towards the close of the sixteenth century through the greater part of Europe, but the old style was retained in England till 1752. By "regulate the sun," Wakefield understands the use of equal mean for unequal apparent time.[1128]Ed. 4, 5.:Show by what rules the wand'ring planets stray,Correct old Time, and teach the sun his way.—Pope."Go, teach Eternal Wisdom how to rule," exclaims Pope, ver. 29, and Warburton correctly remarks that the sarcastic summary is "a conclusion from all that had been said before from ver. 18 to this effect." The illustrations which go before should consequently be examples of the wild attempts to show how the world might have been better contrived, and Pope points to such schemes when he says, "Instructthe planets in what orbs to run." But he has perplexed his meaning by improperly mixing up with instances of ignorant presumption, those real discoveries in science, which are the result of a patient investigation of God's works, and have no connection with the pretence of "teaching Eternal Wisdom how to rule."[1129]Bolingbroke, Fragment 58: "They soar up on Platonic wings to the first good and the first just." Plato taught that there was a good in itself, a just in itself, a beautiful in itself, etc. These ideas, as he called them, these faultless archetypes of earthly qualities, were not mere abstractions of the mind. They had a real existence, and all that was good, beautiful, and just in this world, was derived from them. The "empyreal sphere" was the outermost of the nine fictitious spheres of the ancients, and is "inhabited," says Cicero in his Vision of Scipio, "by that all-powerful God who controls the other spheres." Pope learned his contempt of Plato from Bolingbroke, who said of him with his usual intemperance, and more than his usual ignorance, that he was the "father of philosophical lying, and treated every subject like a bombast poet, and a mad theologian."[1130]MS.:And proudly rave of imitating God.Bolingbroke, Fragment 2: "I dare not use theological familiarity and talk of imitating God." Frag. 4: "I hold it to be worse than absurd to assert that man can imitate God." The Platonists taught that if we would know and imitate God we must withdraw the mind from the things of sense, and contemplate the spiritual and the perfect. Pope's object was to ridicule those who thought that the perfections of the Deity were to be the model for the imperfect efforts of man. The notion, he says, is not less preposterous than the Eastern absurdity of twisting in a circle to imitate the apparent revolution of the sun.[1131]MS.:So Eastern madmen in a circle run.[1132]Plutarch tells us, in his Life of Numa, that the followers of Pythagoras were enjoined to turn themselves round during the performance of their religious worship; and that this circumrotation was intended to imitate the revolution of the world. Pliny, in his Natural History, xxviii. 5, mentions the same practice.—Wakefield.Pope referred to the sacred dance of the Mahometan monks. "They turn on their left foot," says Thevenot, "like a wind-mill driven by a strong wind," and Lady Mary W. Montagu, who witnessed the ceremony, states that they whirled round with an amazing swiftness for above an hour without any of them showing the least appearance of giddiness, which, she adds, is not to be wondered at when it is considered they are all used to it from their infancy.[1133]MS.:Of moral fitness fix th' unerring rule.[1134]MS.:Angels themselves, I grant it, when they sawOne mighty man, etc.[1135]MS.:Admired an angel in a human shape.[1136]From the Zodiac of Palingenius:Simia cœlicolum, risusque jocusque deorum estTunc homo, cum temerè ingenio confidit, et audetAbdita naturæ scrutari, arcanaque divum.—Warton.This image gives an air of burlesque to the passage, notwithstanding all that can be said. It is degrading to the subject, to the idea of the "superior beings," and to the character on whom it is meant as a panegyric.—Bowles.The author of a Letter to Mr. Pope, 1735, says that the lines on Newton had been "generally admired and repeated." From this praise he justly dissents. Either the angels could not have "admired" Newton in the proper sense of the word, or they could not have "shown him as we show an ape," when he would have appeared a grotesque and ludicrous object. The idea is altogether a poor conceit, and was not worth borrowing. In the MS. an additional couplet followed ver. 34:Ah, turn the glass! it shows thee all alongAs weak in conduct, as in science strong.[1137]Ed. 4: The whirling comet.—Pope.[1138]Ed. 1:Could he who taught each planet where to roll,Describe or fix one movement of the soul?Who marked their points to rise or to descend,Explain his own beginning or his end?—Pope.[1139]Sir Isaac Newton showed the probability, converted into certainty by later observations, that comets travelled in elongated curves, and were subjected to the identical law of attraction which governed the motions of the planets. The laws of gravitation were the "rules" which "bound" the comets, and Pope contrasts these definite laws of matter with the variable "movements" of the human mind, which cannot be "fixed" or reduced to rule. The mind, however, has also its laws, which, notwithstanding the disturbing force of free-will, are sufficiently understood for the practical purposes of life.[1140]Ed. 4:Who saw the stars here rise, and here descend?—Pope.[1141]The comparison is pointless. Newton knew far more of his end,—of his mission and ultimate destiny,—than of the purpose and fate of comets, and did not know less of his own beginning than of the origin of the heavenly bodies. Man is incapable of conceiving the mode by which a single atom of the universe was called into being, nor can he penetrate to the essence of a single law or particle of matter any better than to the essence of mind. After ver. 38 there is this couplet in the MS.:Or more of God, or more of man can find,Than this that one is good, and one is blind?There is a kindred antithesis in the last verse of the Epistle, but the exaggeration of the statement is less strongly marked.[1142]"Alas," says Pope, "what wonder" that Newton should be unable to "explain his own beginning and end," since "what reason weaves is undone by passion." But this cannot be the cause of our inability to unfold the creative process, for when passion is not permitted to interfere with reason we make no advance towards an explanation of our "own beginning." Passion does often interfere with the just perception of our proper "end," and with the practice of the duties we perceive, only Pope should have known that to rise superior to passion is the daily discipline of hosts of men. "It seems," says Pascal, "to be the divine intention to perfect the will rather than the understanding," and of the two we can approximate nearer to moral perfection than to universal science.[1143]MS.:Unchecked may mount thy intellectual partFrom whim to whim,—at best from art to art.[1144]MS.:Joins truth to truth, or mountsThere mounts unchecked, and soars from art to art.[1145]An allusion to the web of Penelope in Homer's Odyssey.—Wakefield.[1146]That is, of all the studies which are dictated by the vices of pride and vanity. He followed Bolingbroke, who wrote long tirades against moralists, divines, and metaphysicians, for indulging, from hope of fame, in barren, chimerical speculations.[1147]This paragraph first appeared in the edition of 1743. In the preceding paragraph, we are told that, in physical science, man "may rise unchecked from art to art." Unless, therefore, Pope reckoned physical science among the worthless departments of knowledge, there was, by his own statement, one vast and important scientific region which was destined to unlimited extension, and of which it was not correct to say that a "little sum" must serve the future, as it had served the past.[1148]MS.:Two different principles our nature move;One spurs, one reins; this reason, that self-love.Cicero's Offices, i. 28: "The powers of the mind are twofold; one consists in appetite, by the Greeks called ὁρμη (impulse), which hurries man hither and thither; the other in reason, which teaches and explains what we are to do, and what we are to avoid."[1149]The MS. goes on thus:Of good and evil gods what frighted fools,Of good and evil, reason puzzled schools,Deceived, deceiving taught, to these refer;Know both must operate, or both must err.—Warburton.[1150]"Still" is thrust in to supply a rhyme. "Ascribe" is "we ascribe" carried on from "we call" at ver. 55.[1151]"Acts," in the signification of "incites to action" was formerly common. "Most men," says Barrow, "are greatly tainted with self-love; some are wholly possessed andactedby it."[1152]MS.:Self-love the spring of action lends the force;Reason's comparing balance states the course:The primal impulse, and controlling weightTo give the motion, and to regulate.Bolingbroke, Fragment 3, says that "appetite and passion are the spring of human nature; reason the balance to control and regulate it." The image is borrowed from the works of the watch, where the spring is the moving power, and the balance regulates the motion.[1153]Without self-love, that is, man would be like "a plant," and without reason like "a meteor,"—the slave of destructive passions. The first comparison is inconsiderate. The man who had no self-love, which means no moving principle, no affections or desires, would not even "draw nutrition, and propagate." The appetite for food, the sexual appetite, and the care for life, would all be wanting, and he would "rot" at once. Or if reason, without desires, could induce him to foster an existence to which he was totally indifferent, reason might equally impel him to other acts besides the preservation of himself, and the perpetuation of his race.[1154]Meteors may flame lawless through empty space, but man could not be flaming through a "void" when he was "destroying others."[1155]The objects, that is, of reason lie at a distance. MS.:Self-love yet stronger as its objects near;Reason's diminished as remote appear.[1156]From Lord Bacon: "The affections carry ever an appetite to good as reason doth. The difference is, that the affection beholdeth merely the present, reason beholdeth the future and sum of time."—Ruffhead."The sensual man," says Crousaz in illustration of the principle, "indulges in the pleasures of a luxurious table regardless of the diseases that may be the consequence of his gluttony, but the reasoner prefers a lasting tranquillity to transient enjoyment."[1157]Bolingbroke, Fragment 6: "Self-love is the original spring of human actions. Experience and observation require time; and reason that collects from them comes slowly to our assistance." Experience enlightens reason by showing us what is hurtful in practice, and what beneficial. Pope's line is badly expressed. "Attention gains habit," for "habits are acquired by attention," is barely English.[1158]MS.: "nature." "Grace" here signifies the Divine assistance vouchsafed to the natural powers of man in his efforts after goodness. Pope's original reading,—"grace and nature"—was a censure of the attempts to define the respective influences exerted by the nature of man, and the grace or intervention of God. The substitute of "virtue" for "nature," obscures the meaning, but the poet apparently had still in his mind the long controversies on the share which appertained to "grace" in the production of "virtue." He may have thought that it was needless to try and settle the precise part which belonged to grace, since nature and grace are both gifts of the same Almighty Being.[1159]Pythagoras, Socrates, and Plato divided the faculties into "sense and reason," and the classification passed from the ancients to the schoolmen. "Sense" comprised the five senses, with every act of the mind which was supposed to depend on bodily sensations. Under this head were included the passions and desires, and "sense," in its moral signification, was the equivalent of what Pope calls "self-love."

[1077]The idea is in Locke's Essay, bk. iii. chap. 6, sect. 12, which Warton quotes. Bolingbroke, Fragment 49, copied Locke and others, and Pope copied Bolingbroke.

[1078]Ed. 1st:Ethereal essence, spirit, substance, man.—Pope.

[1078]Ed. 1st:

Ethereal essence, spirit, substance, man.—Pope.

[1079]This is a magnificent passage. Thomson had before said in Summer, ver. 333:Has any seenThe mighty chain of beings, lessening downFrom infinite perfection, to the brinkOf dreary nothing.—Warton.Kennet's Pascal, p. 166: "He will find himself hanging, in the material scale, between the two vast abysses of infinite and nothing."

[1079]This is a magnificent passage. Thomson had before said in Summer, ver. 333:

Has any seenThe mighty chain of beings, lessening downFrom infinite perfection, to the brinkOf dreary nothing.—Warton.

Kennet's Pascal, p. 166: "He will find himself hanging, in the material scale, between the two vast abysses of infinite and nothing."

[1080]All that can be said of a scale of beings is to be found in the third chapter of King's Origin of Evil, and in a note ending with these emphatic words: "Whatever system God had chosen, there could have been but a determinate multitude of the most perfect creatures, 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.

[1081]Suffer men, says Pope, to encroach upon superior powers, and either inferior powers must rise to the rank we have vacated, or by not moving forward into the gap, they will leave a void in creation.

[1082]MS.:in nature what it hates, a void;Or leave a gap in the creation void;The scale is broken if a step destroyed.

[1082]MS.:

in nature what it hates, a void;Or leave a gap in the creation void;The scale is broken if a step destroyed.

[1083]Dryden, Love Triumphant, Act iv. Sc. 1:Great nature, break thy chain, that links togetherThe fabric of this globe, and make a chaos.

[1083]Dryden, Love Triumphant, Act iv. Sc. 1:

Great nature, break thy chain, that links togetherThe fabric of this globe, and make a chaos.

[1084]MS.:Yet more ev'n systems in gradation roll.

[1084]MS.:

Yet more ev'n systems in gradation roll.

[1085]Bolingbroke, Fragment 42: "We cannot doubt that numberless worlds, and systems of worlds, compose this amazing whole, the universe."

[1086]Milton, Par. Lost, vii. 242:And earth self-balanced on her centre hung.The tendency of the earth to move in a straight line is balanced by the attraction of the sun, and Pope supposes this attraction to cease.

[1086]Milton, Par. Lost, vii. 242:

And earth self-balanced on her centre hung.

The tendency of the earth to move in a straight line is balanced by the attraction of the sun, and Pope supposes this attraction to cease.

[1087]I like the reading of earlier editions better;Planets and sunsrushlawless through the sky.—Wakefield.

[1087]I like the reading of earlier editions better;

Planets and sunsrushlawless through the sky.—Wakefield.

[1088]After Pope's death "tremble" was misprinted "trembles," and the error has been retained in most editions. The construction is, "Let planets and suns run lawless through the sky, let being be wrecked on being, world on world, let heaven's whole foundations nod to their centre, and let nature tremble to the throne of God!"

[1089]These six lines, ver. 251-256, are added since the first edition.—Pope.Ruffhead says "there is no reading these lines without being struck with a momentary apprehension." Without quite allowing this, we cannot but feel their great beauty and force. Line rises upon line, with greater effect and nobler imagery, and in the conclusion the poet has touched the idea with propriety, as well as dignity and sublimity. If he had been more particular, the passage would have been unworthy the grandeur of the subject; had he been less it would have been obscure. He has at once evinced judgment and poetry. If there be a word or two not quite suitable, perhaps it is "run," and "foundations nod." I could have wished such a word as "rushed lawless," or "flamed lawless through the sky."—Bowles.

[1089]These six lines, ver. 251-256, are added since the first edition.—Pope.

Ruffhead says "there is no reading these lines without being struck with a momentary apprehension." Without quite allowing this, we cannot but feel their great beauty and force. Line rises upon line, with greater effect and nobler imagery, and in the conclusion the poet has touched the idea with propriety, as well as dignity and sublimity. If he had been more particular, the passage would have been unworthy the grandeur of the subject; had he been less it would have been obscure. He has at once evinced judgment and poetry. If there be a word or two not quite suitable, perhaps it is "run," and "foundations nod." I could have wished such a word as "rushed lawless," or "flamed lawless through the sky."—Bowles.

[1090]The chief problem which Pope undertook to solve was the existence of moral evil. Yet, if man, in obedience to God's commands, became morally perfect, none of the disastrous effects the poet describes would ensue. Angels would not be hurled from their spheres; worlds would not be wrecked; nor would heaven's foundations nod to their centre. Reason and revelation unite in the conclusion that moral perfection would, on the contrary, be an unmitigated blessing. Consequently Pope's hypothesis explains nothing unless he had shown how it is that a system which rendered evil impossible would be inferior to our own.

[1091]Plotinus, translated by Cudworth, Intellectual System, ed. Harrison, vol. iii., p. 479: "Some things in me partake only of being, some of life also, some of sense, some of reason, and some of intellect above reason. But no man ought to require equal things from unequal; nor that the finger should see, but the eye; it being enough for the finger to be a finger, and to perform its own office."—Warton.

[1092]Bolingbroke, Fragment 66: "Nothing can be more absurd than the complaints of creatures who are in one of these orders, that they are not in another."

[1093]Vid. the prosecution and application of this in Epist. iv. ver. 162.—Pope.

[1094]"Soul," says Samuel Clarke, "signifies a part of a whole, whereof body is the other part, and they, being united, mutually affect each other as parts of the same whole. But God is present to every part of the universe, not as a soul, but as a governor, so as to act upon everything in what manner he pleases, himself being acted upon by nothing." Warburton quotes some passages from Sir Isaac Newton asserting the omnipresence of the Deity, and the commentator affirms that the poet expressed the identical doctrine of the philosopher. This is a misrepresentation. The extracts of Warbuton are from the scholium to the Principia, where Newton adds, "God governs all things, not as a soul of the world, but as the Lord of the universe. The Godhead of God is his dominion, a dominion not like that of a soul over its own body, but that of a Lord over his servants." The doctrine which Pope held in common with Sir Isaac Newton was the omnipresence of the Deity. The doctrine which Sir Isaac Newton repudiated, and which Pope maintained, was that the world was the body of God as the human frame is of man. The world in this sense was not the work of the Deity, but a portion of him. Pope abandoned his present creed, Epist. iii. ver. 229, where he says,The worker from the work distinct was known.

The worker from the work distinct was known.

[1095]Every ear must feel the ill effect of the monotony in these lines. The cause is obvious. When the pause falls on the fourth syllable, we shall find that we pronounce the six last in the same time that we do the four first, so that the couplet is not only divided into two equal lines, but each line, with respect to time, is divided into two equal parts.—Webb.

[1096]Our poet is certainly indebted to the following verses of Mrs. Chandler on Solitude:He's all in all: his wisdom, goodness, pow'r,Spring in each blade, and bloom in ev'ry flow'r;}Smile o'er the meads, and bend in ev'ry hill,Glide in the stream, and murmur in the rill:All nature moves obedient to his will.Dryden, in the State of Innocence, Act v., was probably also in our poet's recollection:Where'er thou art, he is: th' eternal mindActs through all places, is to none confined;Fills ocean, earth, and air, and all above,And through the universal mass does move.—Wakefield.

[1096]Our poet is certainly indebted to the following verses of Mrs. Chandler on Solitude:

He's all in all: his wisdom, goodness, pow'r,Spring in each blade, and bloom in ev'ry flow'r;}Smile o'er the meads, and bend in ev'ry hill,Glide in the stream, and murmur in the rill:All nature moves obedient to his will.Dryden, in the State of Innocence, Act v., was probably also in our poet's recollection:Where'er thou art, he is: th' eternal mindActs through all places, is to none confined;Fills ocean, earth, and air, and all above,And through the universal mass does move.—Wakefield.

}

Dryden, in the State of Innocence, Act v., was probably also in our poet's recollection:

Where'er thou art, he is: th' eternal mindActs through all places, is to none confined;Fills ocean, earth, and air, and all above,And through the universal mass does move.—Wakefield.

[1097]"Our mortal part," is put in opposition to "soul," and the antithesis is a recognition of the soul's immortality. The allusion was too slight to offend Bolingbroke, or, perhaps, to attract his notice.

[1098]Dugald Stewart observes that everyone must be displeased with this line, because the triviality of the alliteration is at variance with the sublimity of the subject.

[1099]First edition:As the rapt Seraphim that sings and burns.The name Seraphim, says Warburton, signifies burners, and Wakefield quotes, in illustration, from Spenser's Hymn of Heavenly Beauty, stanza 14:And those eternal burning SeraphimsWhich from their faces dart out fiery light.

[1099]First edition:

As the rapt Seraphim that sings and burns.

The name Seraphim, says Warburton, signifies burners, and Wakefield quotes, in illustration, from Spenser's Hymn of Heavenly Beauty, stanza 14:

And those eternal burning SeraphimsWhich from their faces dart out fiery light.

[1100]These are lines of a marvellous energy and closeness of expression.—Warton.The concluding lines appear to be a false jingle of words which neutralise the whole of Pope's argument. If there is to Providence "no high, no low, no great, no small," the gradation of beings is a delusion. What things are in the sight of God, that they are in reality, and since no one thing in creation is superior or inferior to any other thing, Pope's language throughout this epistle is unmeaning. The final phrase of the couplet is bathos. God is not only the "equal" of "all" his works, he is immeasurably beyond them.

[1100]These are lines of a marvellous energy and closeness of expression.—Warton.

The concluding lines appear to be a false jingle of words which neutralise the whole of Pope's argument. If there is to Providence "no high, no low, no great, no small," the gradation of beings is a delusion. What things are in the sight of God, that they are in reality, and since no one thing in creation is superior or inferior to any other thing, Pope's language throughout this epistle is unmeaning. The final phrase of the couplet is bathos. God is not only the "equal" of "all" his works, he is immeasurably beyond them.

[1101]The "order" is the gradation of beings, and "what we blame" is our own rank in the scale of creation, whereas, says Pope, our "proper bliss depends upon it."

[1102]MS.:Cease then, nor order imperfection callOn which depends the happiness of all.Reason, to think of God when she pretends,Begins a censor, an adorer ends.See and confess, this just, this kind degreeOf blindness, etc.

[1102]MS.:

Cease then, nor order imperfection callOn which depends the happiness of all.Reason, to think of God when she pretends,Begins a censor, an adorer ends.See and confess, this just, this kind degreeOf blindness, etc.

[1103]Pope would not express a "sure and certain hope in a blessed resurrection." He used the same equivocal language as his "guide," who had no faith that "another sphere" existed for man. "Let the tranquillity of my mind," said Bolingbroke, Frag. 51, "rest on this immovable rock, that my future, as well as my present state, are ordered by an almighty and all-wise Creator."

[1104]MS.:In the same hand, the same all-plastic pow'r.

[1104]MS.:

In the same hand, the same all-plastic pow'r.

[1105]"Nature is the art whereby God governs the world," says Hobbes.—Warton.Sir T. Browne, Relig. Med. Part i. 16: "In brief all things are artificial; for nature is the art of God."

[1105]"Nature is the art whereby God governs the world," says Hobbes.—Warton.

Sir T. Browne, Relig. Med. Part i. 16: "In brief all things are artificial; for nature is the art of God."

[1106]Art, in the sense of design, is manifest in nature, and has been traced in endless particulars. Pope must mean by "unknown art" the ultimate principles to which the laws of nature owe their efficiency.

[1107]From Fontenelle: "Everything is chance, provided we give this name to an order unknown to us."—Warton.

[1108]Feltham's Resolves: "The world is kept in order by discord, and every part of it is but a more particular composed jar. And in all these it makes greatly for the Maker's glory that such an admirable harmony should be produced out of such an infinite discord."—Warton.

[1109]This line ran thus in the first edition:And spite of pride, and in thy reason's spite.Pope afterwards, says Johnson, discovered, or was shown, that the "truth" which subsisted "in spite of reason" could not be very "clear."

[1109]This line ran thus in the first edition:

And spite of pride, and in thy reason's spite.

Pope afterwards, says Johnson, discovered, or was shown, that the "truth" which subsisted "in spite of reason" could not be very "clear."

[1110]MS.:Learn we ourselves, not God presume to scan,But know the study, etc.

[1110]MS.:

Learn we ourselves, not God presume to scan,But know the study, etc.

[1111]Ed. 1.:The only science of mankind is man.Ed. 2.:The proper study, etc.—Pope."The true science and true study of man is man," says Charron in his treatise on Wisdom; and Pascal, in his thoughts translated by Dr. Kennet, 1727, p. 248, says, "The study of man is the proper employment and exercise of mankind." But Pascal is maintaining that man should study himself in preference to mathematics, and not to the exclusion of God, which is a doctrine that would have filled him with horror.

[1111]Ed. 1.:

The only science of mankind is man.

Ed. 2.:

The proper study, etc.—Pope.

"The true science and true study of man is man," says Charron in his treatise on Wisdom; and Pascal, in his thoughts translated by Dr. Kennet, 1727, p. 248, says, "The study of man is the proper employment and exercise of mankind." But Pascal is maintaining that man should study himself in preference to mathematics, and not to the exclusion of God, which is a doctrine that would have filled him with horror.

[1112]From Cowley, who says of life, in his ode on Life and Fame:Vain, weak-built isthmus, which dost proudly riseUp betwixt two eternities.—Warton.

[1112]From Cowley, who says of life, in his ode on Life and Fame:

Vain, weak-built isthmus, which dost proudly riseUp betwixt two eternities.—Warton.

[1113]Kennet's Pascal, p. 160: "We have an idea of truth, not to be effaced by all the wiles of the sceptic."

[1114]The stoic took his stand upon virtue, and with a stern faith in the all-sufficiency of moral excellence he calmly defied the trials of life.

[1115]Johnson, in his translation of Crousaz, says he cannot determine whether any one has discovered the true meaning of the words "in doubt to act or rest." The language is vague, and incapable of an interpretation which is generally true; but the probable sense seems to be that man is in doubt whether to embrace an active belief, or whether to resign himself to a passive, inert scepticism.

[1116]First edition:To deem himself a part of God or beast.Kennet's Pascal, p. 30, furnished the hint for the line: "What, then, is to be the fate of man? Shall he be equal to God, or shall he not be superior to the beasts?"

[1116]First edition:

To deem himself a part of God or beast.

Kennet's Pascal, p. 30, furnished the hint for the line: "What, then, is to be the fate of man? Shall he be equal to God, or shall he not be superior to the beasts?"

[1117]Man is not born only to die, but death has the present life on one side of it, and immortality on the other. Man does not reason only to err, but to establish a multitude of mighty truths.

[1118]"Such is the reason of man that he is equally ignorant whether, etc."

[1119]From Kennet's Pascal, p. 180: "If we think too little of a thing or too much, our head turns giddy, and we are at a loss to find out our way to truth."

[1120]Kennet's Pascal, p. 162: "What a chimæra then is man! What a confused chaos! What a subject of contradiction!"

[1121]"Abused" here means "deceived," a sense of the word which was once common. Lord Bacon, Essay on Cunning: "Some build upon the abusing of others, and, as we now say, putting tricks upon them." Bishop Hall, Contemplations upon the New Testament, bk. ii. cont. 6: "Crafty men and lying spirits agreed to abuse the credulous world."

[1122]Kennet's Pascal, p. 162: "If he is too aspiring we can lower him; if too mean we can raise him."

[1123]From Kennet's Pascal, p. 162: "A professed judge of all things, and yet a feeble worm of the earth; the great depositary and guardian of truth, and yet a mere huddle of uncertainty; the glory and the scandal of the universe."

[1124]After ver. 18 in the MS.:For more perfection than this state can bearIn vain we sigh; heav'n made us as we are.[If gods wemustbecause wewouldbe, thenPray hard ye monkies, and ye may be men.]As wisely sure a modest ape might aimTo be like man, whose faculties and frameHe sees, he feels, as you or I to beAn angel thing we neither know nor see.Observe how near he edges on our race;What human tricks! how risible of face!"It must be so—why else have I the senseOf more than monkey charms and excellence?Why else to walk on two so oft essayed?And why this ardent longing for a maid?"So Pug might plead, and call his gods unkind,Till set on end, and married to his mind.Go, reas'ning thing! assume the Doctor's chair,As Plato deep, as Seneca severe:Fix moral fitness, and to God give rule,Then drop, etc.—Warburton.The couplet between brackets was omitted by Warburton. There is still another reading in the MS. of the couplet, "Observe how near," etc.Observe his love of tricks, his laughing face;An elder brother, too, to human race.

[1124]After ver. 18 in the MS.:

For more perfection than this state can bearIn vain we sigh; heav'n made us as we are.[If gods wemustbecause wewouldbe, thenPray hard ye monkies, and ye may be men.]As wisely sure a modest ape might aimTo be like man, whose faculties and frameHe sees, he feels, as you or I to beAn angel thing we neither know nor see.Observe how near he edges on our race;What human tricks! how risible of face!"It must be so—why else have I the senseOf more than monkey charms and excellence?Why else to walk on two so oft essayed?And why this ardent longing for a maid?"So Pug might plead, and call his gods unkind,Till set on end, and married to his mind.Go, reas'ning thing! assume the Doctor's chair,As Plato deep, as Seneca severe:Fix moral fitness, and to God give rule,Then drop, etc.—Warburton.

The couplet between brackets was omitted by Warburton. There is still another reading in the MS. of the couplet, "Observe how near," etc.

Observe his love of tricks, his laughing face;An elder brother, too, to human race.

[1125]MS.:Go, reas'ning man, go mount, etc.

[1125]MS.:

Go, reas'ning man, go mount, etc.

[1126]MS.:Instruct erratic planets where to run.

[1126]MS.:

Instruct erratic planets where to run.

[1127]Warburton says that the phrase "correct old Time" refers to Sir Isaac Newton's Chronology of Antient Kingdoms Amended, in which one of the main positions was based upon astronomical science. More probably Pope alluded to the familiar fact of the Gregorian reformation of the calendar by substituting new style for old. The change was adopted towards the close of the sixteenth century through the greater part of Europe, but the old style was retained in England till 1752. By "regulate the sun," Wakefield understands the use of equal mean for unequal apparent time.

[1128]Ed. 4, 5.:Show by what rules the wand'ring planets stray,Correct old Time, and teach the sun his way.—Pope."Go, teach Eternal Wisdom how to rule," exclaims Pope, ver. 29, and Warburton correctly remarks that the sarcastic summary is "a conclusion from all that had been said before from ver. 18 to this effect." The illustrations which go before should consequently be examples of the wild attempts to show how the world might have been better contrived, and Pope points to such schemes when he says, "Instructthe planets in what orbs to run." But he has perplexed his meaning by improperly mixing up with instances of ignorant presumption, those real discoveries in science, which are the result of a patient investigation of God's works, and have no connection with the pretence of "teaching Eternal Wisdom how to rule."

[1128]Ed. 4, 5.:

Show by what rules the wand'ring planets stray,Correct old Time, and teach the sun his way.—Pope.

"Go, teach Eternal Wisdom how to rule," exclaims Pope, ver. 29, and Warburton correctly remarks that the sarcastic summary is "a conclusion from all that had been said before from ver. 18 to this effect." The illustrations which go before should consequently be examples of the wild attempts to show how the world might have been better contrived, and Pope points to such schemes when he says, "Instructthe planets in what orbs to run." But he has perplexed his meaning by improperly mixing up with instances of ignorant presumption, those real discoveries in science, which are the result of a patient investigation of God's works, and have no connection with the pretence of "teaching Eternal Wisdom how to rule."

[1129]Bolingbroke, Fragment 58: "They soar up on Platonic wings to the first good and the first just." Plato taught that there was a good in itself, a just in itself, a beautiful in itself, etc. These ideas, as he called them, these faultless archetypes of earthly qualities, were not mere abstractions of the mind. They had a real existence, and all that was good, beautiful, and just in this world, was derived from them. The "empyreal sphere" was the outermost of the nine fictitious spheres of the ancients, and is "inhabited," says Cicero in his Vision of Scipio, "by that all-powerful God who controls the other spheres." Pope learned his contempt of Plato from Bolingbroke, who said of him with his usual intemperance, and more than his usual ignorance, that he was the "father of philosophical lying, and treated every subject like a bombast poet, and a mad theologian."

[1130]MS.:And proudly rave of imitating God.Bolingbroke, Fragment 2: "I dare not use theological familiarity and talk of imitating God." Frag. 4: "I hold it to be worse than absurd to assert that man can imitate God." The Platonists taught that if we would know and imitate God we must withdraw the mind from the things of sense, and contemplate the spiritual and the perfect. Pope's object was to ridicule those who thought that the perfections of the Deity were to be the model for the imperfect efforts of man. The notion, he says, is not less preposterous than the Eastern absurdity of twisting in a circle to imitate the apparent revolution of the sun.

[1130]MS.:

And proudly rave of imitating God.

Bolingbroke, Fragment 2: "I dare not use theological familiarity and talk of imitating God." Frag. 4: "I hold it to be worse than absurd to assert that man can imitate God." The Platonists taught that if we would know and imitate God we must withdraw the mind from the things of sense, and contemplate the spiritual and the perfect. Pope's object was to ridicule those who thought that the perfections of the Deity were to be the model for the imperfect efforts of man. The notion, he says, is not less preposterous than the Eastern absurdity of twisting in a circle to imitate the apparent revolution of the sun.

[1131]MS.:So Eastern madmen in a circle run.

[1131]MS.:

So Eastern madmen in a circle run.

[1132]Plutarch tells us, in his Life of Numa, that the followers of Pythagoras were enjoined to turn themselves round during the performance of their religious worship; and that this circumrotation was intended to imitate the revolution of the world. Pliny, in his Natural History, xxviii. 5, mentions the same practice.—Wakefield.Pope referred to the sacred dance of the Mahometan monks. "They turn on their left foot," says Thevenot, "like a wind-mill driven by a strong wind," and Lady Mary W. Montagu, who witnessed the ceremony, states that they whirled round with an amazing swiftness for above an hour without any of them showing the least appearance of giddiness, which, she adds, is not to be wondered at when it is considered they are all used to it from their infancy.

Pope referred to the sacred dance of the Mahometan monks. "They turn on their left foot," says Thevenot, "like a wind-mill driven by a strong wind," and Lady Mary W. Montagu, who witnessed the ceremony, states that they whirled round with an amazing swiftness for above an hour without any of them showing the least appearance of giddiness, which, she adds, is not to be wondered at when it is considered they are all used to it from their infancy.

[1133]MS.:Of moral fitness fix th' unerring rule.

[1133]MS.:

Of moral fitness fix th' unerring rule.

[1134]MS.:Angels themselves, I grant it, when they sawOne mighty man, etc.

[1134]MS.:

Angels themselves, I grant it, when they sawOne mighty man, etc.

[1135]MS.:Admired an angel in a human shape.

[1135]MS.:

Admired an angel in a human shape.

[1136]From the Zodiac of Palingenius:Simia cœlicolum, risusque jocusque deorum estTunc homo, cum temerè ingenio confidit, et audetAbdita naturæ scrutari, arcanaque divum.—Warton.This image gives an air of burlesque to the passage, notwithstanding all that can be said. It is degrading to the subject, to the idea of the "superior beings," and to the character on whom it is meant as a panegyric.—Bowles.The author of a Letter to Mr. Pope, 1735, says that the lines on Newton had been "generally admired and repeated." From this praise he justly dissents. Either the angels could not have "admired" Newton in the proper sense of the word, or they could not have "shown him as we show an ape," when he would have appeared a grotesque and ludicrous object. The idea is altogether a poor conceit, and was not worth borrowing. In the MS. an additional couplet followed ver. 34:Ah, turn the glass! it shows thee all alongAs weak in conduct, as in science strong.

[1136]From the Zodiac of Palingenius:

Simia cœlicolum, risusque jocusque deorum estTunc homo, cum temerè ingenio confidit, et audetAbdita naturæ scrutari, arcanaque divum.—Warton.

This image gives an air of burlesque to the passage, notwithstanding all that can be said. It is degrading to the subject, to the idea of the "superior beings," and to the character on whom it is meant as a panegyric.—Bowles.

The author of a Letter to Mr. Pope, 1735, says that the lines on Newton had been "generally admired and repeated." From this praise he justly dissents. Either the angels could not have "admired" Newton in the proper sense of the word, or they could not have "shown him as we show an ape," when he would have appeared a grotesque and ludicrous object. The idea is altogether a poor conceit, and was not worth borrowing. In the MS. an additional couplet followed ver. 34:

Ah, turn the glass! it shows thee all alongAs weak in conduct, as in science strong.

[1137]Ed. 4: The whirling comet.—Pope.

[1138]Ed. 1:Could he who taught each planet where to roll,Describe or fix one movement of the soul?Who marked their points to rise or to descend,Explain his own beginning or his end?—Pope.

[1138]Ed. 1:

Could he who taught each planet where to roll,Describe or fix one movement of the soul?Who marked their points to rise or to descend,Explain his own beginning or his end?—Pope.

[1139]Sir Isaac Newton showed the probability, converted into certainty by later observations, that comets travelled in elongated curves, and were subjected to the identical law of attraction which governed the motions of the planets. The laws of gravitation were the "rules" which "bound" the comets, and Pope contrasts these definite laws of matter with the variable "movements" of the human mind, which cannot be "fixed" or reduced to rule. The mind, however, has also its laws, which, notwithstanding the disturbing force of free-will, are sufficiently understood for the practical purposes of life.

[1140]Ed. 4:Who saw the stars here rise, and here descend?—Pope.

[1140]Ed. 4:

Who saw the stars here rise, and here descend?—Pope.

[1141]The comparison is pointless. Newton knew far more of his end,—of his mission and ultimate destiny,—than of the purpose and fate of comets, and did not know less of his own beginning than of the origin of the heavenly bodies. Man is incapable of conceiving the mode by which a single atom of the universe was called into being, nor can he penetrate to the essence of a single law or particle of matter any better than to the essence of mind. After ver. 38 there is this couplet in the MS.:Or more of God, or more of man can find,Than this that one is good, and one is blind?There is a kindred antithesis in the last verse of the Epistle, but the exaggeration of the statement is less strongly marked.

Or more of God, or more of man can find,Than this that one is good, and one is blind?

There is a kindred antithesis in the last verse of the Epistle, but the exaggeration of the statement is less strongly marked.

[1142]"Alas," says Pope, "what wonder" that Newton should be unable to "explain his own beginning and end," since "what reason weaves is undone by passion." But this cannot be the cause of our inability to unfold the creative process, for when passion is not permitted to interfere with reason we make no advance towards an explanation of our "own beginning." Passion does often interfere with the just perception of our proper "end," and with the practice of the duties we perceive, only Pope should have known that to rise superior to passion is the daily discipline of hosts of men. "It seems," says Pascal, "to be the divine intention to perfect the will rather than the understanding," and of the two we can approximate nearer to moral perfection than to universal science.

[1143]MS.:Unchecked may mount thy intellectual partFrom whim to whim,—at best from art to art.

[1143]MS.:

Unchecked may mount thy intellectual partFrom whim to whim,—at best from art to art.

[1144]MS.:Joins truth to truth, or mountsThere mounts unchecked, and soars from art to art.

[1144]MS.:

Joins truth to truth, or mountsThere mounts unchecked, and soars from art to art.

[1145]An allusion to the web of Penelope in Homer's Odyssey.—Wakefield.

[1146]That is, of all the studies which are dictated by the vices of pride and vanity. He followed Bolingbroke, who wrote long tirades against moralists, divines, and metaphysicians, for indulging, from hope of fame, in barren, chimerical speculations.

[1147]This paragraph first appeared in the edition of 1743. In the preceding paragraph, we are told that, in physical science, man "may rise unchecked from art to art." Unless, therefore, Pope reckoned physical science among the worthless departments of knowledge, there was, by his own statement, one vast and important scientific region which was destined to unlimited extension, and of which it was not correct to say that a "little sum" must serve the future, as it had served the past.

[1148]MS.:Two different principles our nature move;One spurs, one reins; this reason, that self-love.Cicero's Offices, i. 28: "The powers of the mind are twofold; one consists in appetite, by the Greeks called ὁρμη (impulse), which hurries man hither and thither; the other in reason, which teaches and explains what we are to do, and what we are to avoid."

[1148]MS.:

Two different principles our nature move;One spurs, one reins; this reason, that self-love.

Cicero's Offices, i. 28: "The powers of the mind are twofold; one consists in appetite, by the Greeks called ὁρμη (impulse), which hurries man hither and thither; the other in reason, which teaches and explains what we are to do, and what we are to avoid."

[1149]The MS. goes on thus:Of good and evil gods what frighted fools,Of good and evil, reason puzzled schools,Deceived, deceiving taught, to these refer;Know both must operate, or both must err.—Warburton.

[1149]The MS. goes on thus:

Of good and evil gods what frighted fools,Of good and evil, reason puzzled schools,Deceived, deceiving taught, to these refer;Know both must operate, or both must err.—Warburton.

[1150]"Still" is thrust in to supply a rhyme. "Ascribe" is "we ascribe" carried on from "we call" at ver. 55.

[1151]"Acts," in the signification of "incites to action" was formerly common. "Most men," says Barrow, "are greatly tainted with self-love; some are wholly possessed andactedby it."

[1152]MS.:Self-love the spring of action lends the force;Reason's comparing balance states the course:The primal impulse, and controlling weightTo give the motion, and to regulate.Bolingbroke, Fragment 3, says that "appetite and passion are the spring of human nature; reason the balance to control and regulate it." The image is borrowed from the works of the watch, where the spring is the moving power, and the balance regulates the motion.

[1152]MS.:

Self-love the spring of action lends the force;Reason's comparing balance states the course:The primal impulse, and controlling weightTo give the motion, and to regulate.

Bolingbroke, Fragment 3, says that "appetite and passion are the spring of human nature; reason the balance to control and regulate it." The image is borrowed from the works of the watch, where the spring is the moving power, and the balance regulates the motion.

[1153]Without self-love, that is, man would be like "a plant," and without reason like "a meteor,"—the slave of destructive passions. The first comparison is inconsiderate. The man who had no self-love, which means no moving principle, no affections or desires, would not even "draw nutrition, and propagate." The appetite for food, the sexual appetite, and the care for life, would all be wanting, and he would "rot" at once. Or if reason, without desires, could induce him to foster an existence to which he was totally indifferent, reason might equally impel him to other acts besides the preservation of himself, and the perpetuation of his race.

[1154]Meteors may flame lawless through empty space, but man could not be flaming through a "void" when he was "destroying others."

[1155]The objects, that is, of reason lie at a distance. MS.:Self-love yet stronger as its objects near;Reason's diminished as remote appear.

[1155]The objects, that is, of reason lie at a distance. MS.:

Self-love yet stronger as its objects near;Reason's diminished as remote appear.

[1156]From Lord Bacon: "The affections carry ever an appetite to good as reason doth. The difference is, that the affection beholdeth merely the present, reason beholdeth the future and sum of time."—Ruffhead."The sensual man," says Crousaz in illustration of the principle, "indulges in the pleasures of a luxurious table regardless of the diseases that may be the consequence of his gluttony, but the reasoner prefers a lasting tranquillity to transient enjoyment."

"The sensual man," says Crousaz in illustration of the principle, "indulges in the pleasures of a luxurious table regardless of the diseases that may be the consequence of his gluttony, but the reasoner prefers a lasting tranquillity to transient enjoyment."

[1157]Bolingbroke, Fragment 6: "Self-love is the original spring of human actions. Experience and observation require time; and reason that collects from them comes slowly to our assistance." Experience enlightens reason by showing us what is hurtful in practice, and what beneficial. Pope's line is badly expressed. "Attention gains habit," for "habits are acquired by attention," is barely English.

[1158]MS.: "nature." "Grace" here signifies the Divine assistance vouchsafed to the natural powers of man in his efforts after goodness. Pope's original reading,—"grace and nature"—was a censure of the attempts to define the respective influences exerted by the nature of man, and the grace or intervention of God. The substitute of "virtue" for "nature," obscures the meaning, but the poet apparently had still in his mind the long controversies on the share which appertained to "grace" in the production of "virtue." He may have thought that it was needless to try and settle the precise part which belonged to grace, since nature and grace are both gifts of the same Almighty Being.

[1159]Pythagoras, Socrates, and Plato divided the faculties into "sense and reason," and the classification passed from the ancients to the schoolmen. "Sense" comprised the five senses, with every act of the mind which was supposed to depend on bodily sensations. Under this head were included the passions and desires, and "sense," in its moral signification, was the equivalent of what Pope calls "self-love."

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