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"No ('tis reply'd) the first Almighty Cause "Acts not by partial, but by gen'ral laws

NOTES.

145

"Th'

fand other arts too many to enumerate, had man been born a selffufficient animal, fuperior to the fenfations of want or evil? Where had been that noble activity, that never-ceafing energy of all his various powers, had not the poignancy of evil awakened them from the very birth, and dispelled all symptoms of lethargy and drowfinefs? Nay more; courage, magnanimity, prudence, and wife indifference; patience, long-fuffering, and acquiefcence in our lot; a calm and manly refignation to the will of God, whatever he difpenfes, whether good or bad; these heroic virtues could never have had existence, had not those things called evils first established them into habit, and afterwards given occa-fion for them to energize, and become confpicuous. But the most important circumstance of all is, that the very being and effence of fociety itself is derived from the wants and infirmities of human nature. 'Tis thefe various infirmities, fo much more numerous and lafting in man than in other animals, which make human focieties fo eminently neceffary; which extend them fo far beyond all other animal afsociations, and knit them together with fuch indiffoluble bands. Let each individual be supposed selffufficient, and fociety at once is diffolved and annihilated. For why affociate without a caufe? And what need of fociety, if each can fupport himself? But mark the confequence; if society be loft, with it we lose the energy of every focial affection ; a lofs, in which every man loses something, but in which a good man lofes his principal and almoft his only happinefs: For what then becomes of friendship, benevolence, love of country, hofpitality, generofity, forgiveness, with all the charities

Of father, son, and brother?

A man detached from human connections and relations (if such a monster may indeed be supposed) is no better than an ignorant inhuman favage; a mere Cyclops, devoid of all that is amiable and good."

In another part of the fame manuscripts he adds, "But a few days ago, and 'twas a lovely world. All was florid, cheerful, and gay. Yesterday my friend's houfe was burnt. To-day ar

rived

"Th' exceptions few; fome change fince all began: "And what created perfect?-Why then Man?

NOTES.

If

rived the news of the death of an old fervant, who was diligent, careful, and of long-approved fidelity. Now 'tis all difaftrous, black, and difmal. Wretched man! Wretched univerfe! how miferable a manfion, and how helpless its inhabitants! Happy existence may indeed well be defired; but what value in existence only pregnant with anxiety? Wifely murmured! cries the leading principle, the god-like particle of reafon and common fenfe. The events which thou lamenteft are ftrange and unheard of. Thou never kneweft before that thy fpecies was mortal, or that fire could do any thing but prepare thee thy food. Murmur on, and grieve thee with a laudable obftinacy. "Twill infallibly cancel what is gone and over; render paft, not past; and done, not done: For what fo easy, so practicable, and obvious? Befides thou, for thy part, haft no defire to acquire thofe virtues which none can learn, but who have been partakers of the pains, the croffes, and calamities, and difafters of human life. Man-like conftancy, brave fteady endurance, a cheerful acquiefcence in the univerfal difpenfation, are to thee but trifles of mean importance. They are only of use in a bustling world, when the winds rage, the ftorms defcend, thunders roll,

"With terror thro' the dark aerial hall."

Thou haft never dreamt of a world like this: thou haft never framed thyself but for a fine Elyfian one, where spring perpetual fmiles with verdant flowers; where sunshine and zephyrs are happily blended; juft exactly such a spot as thou haft ever found old England, where never was a froft, never a fog, never a day but was delicious and ferene. But hold, Reafon! we have never found old England that paradife which thou defcribeft.-Fools then, and idiots! why act you as though you had? Why are your tempers and manners adapted to one kind of world, while your real fituation is found to be in another?-Would you travel to Greenland in your shirt, and not be cold?-to Guinea in your cloak, and not be warm? Muft things fubmit to you, or you to things? Or is it not as abfurd to fuppofe that the world should be new-modelled, that it might correfpond to the weakness and ca. prices of mankind, as that the foot should be fitted to the shoe,

and,

If the great end be human Happiness,

Then Nature deviates; and can Man do lefs? 150
As much that end a conftant course requires

Of fhow'rs and fun-fhine, as of Man's defires;
As much eternal fprings and cloudlefs fkies,

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

If plagues or earthquakes break not Heaven's de

fign,

Why then a Borgia, or a Catiline?

155

NOTES.

Who

and not the fhoe to the foot; the horse to the faddle, and not the faddle to the horse?-Be thankful rather to that Divine Providence, who hath given thee powers to make even this life a happy one; who hath wifely contrived, that, where proper care is had, from the greatest of calamities may be learnt, if thou wilt endeavour, the nobleft of all virtues.”

VER. 148. And what created perfect?] No pofition can be more true and folid; for perfect happiness is as incommunicable as omnipotence. But the objector will not be equally fatisfied by being told, that there can be any exceptions or any change under the guidance of a gracious and powerful Creator. Bayle is for ever repeating, in answer to his antagonists, "I only maintain, that the objections concerning the origin of evil cannot be folved by the mere strength of reason; and I always believed that this was faying no more than what all our divines confefs concerning the incomprehenfibility of predeftination."

in

VER. 150. Then Nature deviates, &c.] "While comets move very eccentric orbs, in all manner of pofitions, blind Fate could never make all the planets move one and the fame way in orbs concentric; fome inconfiderable irregularities excepted, which may have rifen from the mutual actions of comets and planets upon one another, and which will be apt to increase, till this system wants a reformation." Sir Ifaac Newton's Optics, Quaft. ult.

VER. 155. If plagues, &c.] What hath misled Mr. De Croufaz in his cenfure of this paffage, is his fuppofing the comparison to be between the effects of two things in this fublunary world; when not only the elegancy, but the juftness of it, confifts in its being be

tween

Who knows but He, whofe hand the light'ning

forms,

Who heaves old Ocean, and who wings the storms; Pours

NOTES.

tween the effects of a thing in the universe at large, and the familiar known effects of one in this fublunary world. For the pofition inforced in these lines is this, that partial evil tends to the good of the whole:

"Refpecting Man, whatever wrong we call,

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How does the Poet inforce it? If you will believe this Critic, in illustrating the effects of partial moral evil in a particular system, by that of partial natural evil in the same system, and so he leaves his pofition in the lurch. But the Poet reasons at another rate: The way to prove his point, he knew, was to illustrate the effect of partial moral evil in the universe, by partial natural evil in a particular fyftem. Whether partial moral evil tend to the good of the Universe, being a question which, by reason of our ignorance of many parts of that Universe, we cannot decide but from known effects; the rules of good reafoning require that it be proved by analogy, i. e. fetting it by, and comparing it with, a thing clear and certain; and it is a thing clear and certain, that partial natural evil tends to the good of our particular system.

W.

"All ills arife from the order of the universe, which is abfolutely perfect. Would you wish to difturb fo divine an order for the fake of your own particular intereft? What if the ills I fuffer arife from malice or oppreffion? But the vices and imperfections of men are also comprehended in the order of the universe.

"If plagues," &c.

Let this be allowed, and my own vices will be also a part of the fame order."

Such is the commentary of the academist on these famous lines. Voltaire, having written his poem on the dreadful earthquake at Lisbon, in direct oppofition to the maxim of "Whatever is, is right," speaks of it thus in a letter to his friend, M. de Cideville, 1756: "Comme je ne fuis pas en tout de l'avis de Pope, malgrè l'amitié que j'ai eue pour fa perfonne, et l'eftime fincere que je conferverai toute ma vie pour fes ouvrages, j'ai cru devoir lui rendre justice dans ma preface, auffi-bien qu'à notre illuftre ami M. l'Abbé

Pours fierce Ambition in a Cæfar's mind,

Or turns young Ammon loofe to fcourge man

kind?

160

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 reafon right is to submit.

Better for Us, perhaps, it might appear,
Were there all harmony, all virtue here;
That never air or ocean felt the wind;
That never paffion difcompos'd the mind.

NOTES.

165

But

l'Abbé du Refnel, qui lui a fait l'honneur de le traduire, et souvent lui a rendu le service d'adoucir les duretés des fes fentimens." VER. 157. Who knows but He, &c.] The fublimity with which the great Author of Nature is here characterised, is but the second beauty of this fine paffage. The greatest is the making the very difpenfation objected to, the periphrafis of his title. W.

VER. 162. Account for moral,] Their natures are so very diffimilar, that they cannot, and ought not, to be accounted for by the fame arguments. Men fuffer and feel; elements, and unconscious inanimate beings, cannot. Evil must be felt before it is evil. Such different objects require different treatment. "If Nature," fays the commentator, "or the inanimate system on which God hath imposed his laws, which it obeys, as a machine obeys the hand of the workman, may, in course of time, deviate from its first direction, as the best philofophy fhews it may, where is the wonder that man, who was created a free agent, and hath it in his power every moment to tranfgrefs the eternal rule of right, fhould fometimes go out of order?" Are free agents, and beings accountable, because they are free, to be put on the fame footing as the inanimate fyftem? The infidel is for ever asking, Why was man endowed with a faculty fo dangerous, and fo eafily abused?

VER. 167. That never air or ocean] An acute critic asks if it fhould not be That never earth or ocean?-not air.

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