All serv'd, all serving: nothing stands alone; The chain holds on, and where it ends, unknown. 25 Has God, thou fool! work'd solely for thy good, For him as kindly spread the flow'ry lawn: Know, Nature's children all divide her care; 30 35 40 NOTES. son; which made an old schoolman say with great elegance, "Deus est anima brutorum:" "In this 'tis God directs" W. Ver. 43. Know, Nature's children all] The poetry of these lines is as beautiful as the philosophy is solid. "They who imagine that all things in this world were made for the immediate use of Man alone, run themselves into inextricable difficulties. Man, indeed, is the head of this lower part of the creation; and perhaps it was designed to be absolutely under his command. But that all things here tend directly to his own use, is, I think, neither easy nor necessary to be proved. Some manifestly serve for the food and support of others, whose souls may be necessary to prepare and their bodies for that purpose, and may at the preserve While Man exclaims, "See all, things for my use!" "See man for mine!" replies a pamper'd goose: 46 And just as short of reason he must fall, Who thinks all made for one, not one for all. Grant that the pow'rful still the weak control; Be Man the Wit and Tyrant of the whole : VARIATIONS. After Ver. 46, in the former Editions, What care to tend, to lodge, to cram, to treat him! 50 NOTES. same time be happy in a consciousness of their own existence. It is probable they are intended to promote each other's good reciprocally: nay, Man himself contributes to the happiness, and betters the condition, of the brutes in several respects, by cultivating and improving the ground; by watching the seasons; by protecting and providing for them, when they are unable to protect and provide for themselves." These are the words of Dr. Law, in his learned Commentary on King's Origin of Evil, first published in Latin, 1701, a work of penetration and close reasoning; which, it is remarkable, Bayle had never read, but only some extracts from it, when he first wrote his famous article of the Paulicians, in his Dictionary. Ver. 45. See all things for my use!] On the contrary, the wise man hath said, The Lord hath made all things for himself. Prov. xvi. 4. W. Ver. 46. Replies a pamper'd goose:] Taken from Peter Charron; but such a familiar and burlesque image is improperly introduced among such solid and serious reflections. Ver. 50. Be Man the Wit and Tyrant of the whole :] Alluding to the witty system of that Philosopher, which made animals mere Machines, insensible of pain or pleasure; and so encouraged Men in the exercise of that Tyranny over their fellow-creatures, consequent on such a principle. W. 55 Nature that Tyrant checks; He only knows, He saves from famine, from the savage saves ; And, till he ends the being, makes it blest; To each unthinking being, Heav'n a friend, NOTES. 65 70 Ver. 51. Nature that Tyrant checks ;] What an exquisite assemblage is here (down to Ver. 70) of deep reflection, humane sentiments, and poetic imagery! It is finely observed, that compassion is exclusively the property of Man alone. Ver. 68. Than favour'd Man, &c.] Several of the ancients, and many of the Orientals since, esteemed those who were struck by lightning as sacred persons, and the particular favourites of Hea Ver. 68. By touch ethereal slain.] The expression is from Milton's Comus. EPISTLE III. The hour conceal'd, and so remote the fear, II. Whether with Reason or with Instinct blest, Know, all enjoy that pow'r which suits them best; 80 To bliss alike by that direction tend, And find the means proportion'd to their end. Cares not for service, or but serves when prest, While still too wide or short is human Wit; 85 90 95 VARIATIONS. After Ver. 84 in the MS. While Man, with op'ning views of various ways NOTES. Ver. 97. And Reason raise o'er Instinct] Charron, of whom Who taught the nations of the field and wood To shun their poison, and to choose their food? 100 NOTES. Pope and Bolingbroke were so fond, has treated this subject with so much freedom of thought, and endeavoured to raise Instinct so much above Reason, that Stanhope, his translator, deemed it necessary to obviate the tendency of his tenets, by a long Appendix to the 34th chapter of the first book. It appears a little strange, that so orthodox a divine as Stanhope should translate two books that are supposed to favour libertinism and scepticism-the Wisdom of Charron and the Maxims of Rochefoucault. Bayle has stated the difficulties, that arise in accounting for the actions of brutes, with his usual acuteness and force of argument. 66 Hume has gone farther than any other writer on the subject; Though animals," he says, "learn many parts of their knowledge from observation and experience, there are also many parts of it which they derive from the original hand of Nature, which much exceed the share of capacity they possess on ordinary occasions, and in which they improve little or nothing by the longest practice and experience. These we denominate Instincts, and are so apt to admire as something very extraordinary and inexplicable by all the disquisitions of human understanding. But our wonder will perhaps cease or diminish, when we consider that the experimental reasoning itself, which we possess in common with beasts, and on which the whole conduct of life depends, is nothing but a species of Instinct, or mechanical power, that acts in us unknown to ourselves; and, in its chief operations, is not directed by any such relations or comparisons of ideas as are the proper objects of our intellectual faculties. Though the Instinct be different, yet still it is an Instinct which teaches a man to avoid the fire; as much as that which teaches a bird with such exactness the art of incubation, and the whole economy and order of its nursery." Of the Reason of Animals, Essay, p. 432. Father Bougeant's little treatise on the Language of Beasts is an amusing work; in which he has placed the notion of Des Cartes, that they are mere machines, in a strong light, as well as the difficulties that arise from the opinion of their having immortal souls. Bougeant was severely censured by his brother jesuits for this little work. He had better have kept to politics. |