be answerable, that he has extracted a doctrine from it which our POET did not design to gloe; who, when he had answered the atheistical objection about positive evil, supposes the Objector to reply to this effect :-It may be true, what you say, that partial evil tends to universal good: But why, then, has not God let me clearly into this secret, and acquainted me with the manner how? The Poet replies, "For very good reasons. You were "sent into the world on a task and duty to be performed (6 by you. And as the knowing these things might "distract you, or draw you from your station; it was in mercy that God hath hid these things from you: Heav'n from all creatures hides the book of fate, All but the page prescrib'd, their present state, From brutes what Men, from Men what spirits know; Or who would suffer Being here below? 1. 73, & seq. "To illustrate this by a familiar instance; how kindly "hath Nature acted by the lamb, in hiding its death from 66 it; the knowledge of which would have imbitter'd all "its life?" This is the force of the Poet's argument; and nothing can be better connected, or more beautiful. But our great Logician, instead of attending to the argument of a very close reasoner (whose thread of reasoning, therefore, one should have imagined might have conducted a mathematician too, as he is, to the true sense of the passage) rambles after a meaning that could not possibly be Mr. Pope's; because it both disagrees with the context, and directly opposes what he lays down in express words in this very essay. Mr. De Crousaz, we see, imagines that this instance of the lamb was given to shew how hurtful a gift God bestowed upon us, when he gave us the knowledge of our end. Mr. Pope says expressly, that it was a friendly gift; 66 To each unthinking being Heav'n a friend, Ep. iii. 1. 75, & seq. i. e. "Heaven, which is not only friendly to Man, but beast, gives not this latter the knowledge of its end; "because such knowledge (which is necessarily attended "with anxiety) would be useless to it. On the other hand, He gives it to Man; because it is of the highest advantage to him, who, being to exist in a future state, may, by this means, make a fitting preparation for his good reception there; which preparation will temper, "and, at length, quite subdue the anxiety necessarily "attendant (as is said) on the knowledge of our end, by "the certain hope of a happy immortality." After these extraordinary fruits of our Logician's long application to the art of thinking, he goes on, for four pages together*, to shew how useful and necessary it is for Man to cultivate his understanding. You ask whom he contradicts in this? He absurdly supposes, Mr. Pope; while he is indeed but quarrelling with his own imaginations. Here we must recollect what we observed above of the subject of the Poem; which is a vindication of Providence against impious complainers. As these will not acknowledge it just and good, because they cannot comprehend it, and as this argument is only supported by pride, the Poet thought proper to mortify that pride; which could not be done more effectually, than by shewing them, that even a savage Indian reasoned better : Lo! the poor Indian, whose untutor'a mind Sees God in clouds, and hears him in the wind; His soul proud science never taught to stray Far as the solar walk, or milky way; Yet simple nature to his hope has giv'n, Behind the cloud-topt hill, an humbler heav'n; To be contents his natural desire, He asks no angel's wing, or seraph's fire, &c. 1. 95, & seq. What are we to conclude from hence? That Mr. Pope intended to discourage all improvements of the human understanding? or that it was only his design to deter men from impiety, and from presuming to rejudge the justice of their Creator? Mr. Crousas, contrary to common sense, and the whole tenor of the Epistle, has chosen the former part; though Mr. Pope had immediately added, Commentaire, p. 66 to 70, Ga Go wiser thou, and in thy scale of sense But to this, the Commentator:-" To whom does "Mr. Pope address himself in this long period? Is it "to those presumptuous men, who are continually confounding themselves, and abusing the fruitful"ness of their imaginations, to teaze good Christians "with objections against Providence? Their rashness "and impatience well deserve, in my opinion, the cen"sures Mr. Pope here inflicts upon them."-Wonderful! Our Logician has, at length, discovered the subject of Mr. Pope's Epistle. Why then did he not do justice to truth, by striking out all the rest of his remarks? For if this be right, all the rest must, of consequence, be wrong. Mr. Pope says, speaking of the end of Providence, On which the Examiner, "A continual spring and a "heaven without clouds would be fatal to the earth and "its inhabitants; but can we regard it as a misfortune "that men should be always sage, calm and temperate? "I am quite in the dark as to this comparisont." Let us try if we can drag him into light, as unwilling as he is to see. The argument stands thus :-Presumptuous Man complains of moral evil; Mr. Pope checks and informs him thus: The evil, says he, you complain of, tends to universal good; for as clouds, and rain, and tempest, are necessary to preserve health and plenty in this sublunary. world, so the evils that spring from disorder'd passions are necessary. To what? Not to Man's happiness here, + Examen de l'Essai, &c. * Commentaire, p. 79. but but to the perfection of the universe in general. So that, If plagues or earthquakes break not Heaven's design, Why then a Borgia or a Catiline? On which the Examiner thus descants," These lines "have no sense but on the system of Leibnitz, which "confounds morals with physics; and in which, all that "we call pleasures, grief, contentment, inquietude, wis dom, virtue, truth, error, vices, crimes, abominations, "are the inevitable consequence of a fatal chain of "things as ancient as the world. But this is it which "renders the system so horrible, that all honest men must shudder at it. It is, indeed, sufficient to humble "human nature, to reflect that this was invented by a "man, and that other men have adopted it*." This is, indeed, very tragical; but we have shewn above, that it hath its sense on the Piatonic, not the Leibnitzian system; and besides, that the context confines us to that sense. What hath misled the Examiner is his supposing the comparison to be between the effects of two things in this sublunary world; when not only the elegancy, but the justness of it consists in its being between the effects of a thing in the universe at large, and the familiar and known effects of one in this sublunary world. For the position inforced in these lines is this, that partial evil tends to the good of the whole: Respecting Man, whatever wrong we call, May, must be right, as relative to all. 1. 51. How does the Poet inforce it? Why, if you will believe the Examiner, by illustrating the effects of partial moral evil in a particular system, by that of partial natural evil in the same system, and so leaves his position in the lurch; but we must never believe the great Poet reasons like the Logician. 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 system. 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 Examen de l'Essai, &c. from from known effects; the rules of argument require that it be proved by analogy, i. e. setting it by, and comparing it with a thing certain; and it is a thing certain, that partial natural evil tends to the good of our particular system. This is his argument: And thus, we see, it stands clear of Mr. De Crousaz's objection, and of Leibnitz's fatalism. After having inforced this analogical position, the Poet then indeed, in order to strengthen and support it, employs the same instance of natural evil, to shew that, even here to Man, as well as to the whole, moral evil is productive of good, by the gracious disposition of Providence, who turns it deviously from its natural tendency. Mr. Pope then adds, From pride, from pride, our very reasoning springs; Why charge we Heaven in those, in these acquit? In both, to reason right, is to submit. 1. 153, & seq. Our Commentator asks-" Why, then, does Mr. Pope <6 pretend to reason upon the matter, and rear his head "so high, and decide so dogmatically, upon the most "important of all subjects*?" This is indeed pleasant. Suppose Mr. De Crousaz should undertake to shew the folly of pretending to penetrate into the mysteries of revealed religion, as here Mr. Pope has done of natural, must he not employ the succours of reason? And could he conclude his reasonings with greater truth and modesty, than in the words of Mr. Pope?-To reason right, is to submit. But he goes on, "If you will believe "him [Mr. Pope] the sovereign perfections of the "Eternal Being have inevitably determined him to create "this Universe, because the idea of it was the most "perfect of all those which represented many possible "worlds. Notwithstanding, there is nothing perfect in "this part, which is assigned for our habitation: it "swarms with imperfections; it is God who is the cause. "of them, and it was not in his power to contrive matters "otherwise. The Poet had not the caution to recur to "Man's abuse of his own free-will, the true source of "all our miseries, and which are agreeable to that state * Commentaire, p. 94. " of |