To bliss alike by that direction tend, And find the means proportion'd to their end. COMMENTARY. mit (says he) that Nature hath endowed all animals, whether human or brutal, with such faculties as admirably fit them to promote the general good: yet, in its care for this, hath not Nature neglected to provide for the private good of the individual? We have cause to think she hath; and we suppose, it was on this exclusive consideration, that she kept back from brutes the gift of Reason (so necessary a means of private happiness), because Reason, as we find in the case of Man, where there is occasion for all the complicated contrivance you have described above, to make the effects of his Passions counter-work the immediate powers of his Reason, in order to keep him subservient to the general system; Reason, we say, naturally tendeth to draw Beings into a private independent system." This the Poet answers, by shewing (from ver. 78 to 109.), that the happiness of animal and that of human life are widely different: the happiness of human life consisting in the improvement of the mind, can be procured by Reason only; but the happiness of animal life consisting in the gratifications of sense, is best promoted by Instinct. And, with regard to the regular and constant operation of each, in that, Instinct hath plainly the advantage; for here God directs immediately, there only mediately through Man. NOTES. and many of the Orientals since, esteemed those who were struck by lightning as sacred persons, and the particular favourites of Heaven. Pope. Ver. 68. by touch ethereal slain.] The expression is from Milton. Warton. VARIATIONS. After ver, 84. in the MS. While Man, with op'ning views of various ways 1 Reason, however able, cool at best, 85 Cares not for service, or but serves when press'd, But honest Instinct comes a volunteer, While still too wide or short is human wit; NOTES. 90 95 Ver. 97. And Reason raise o'er Instinct] Charron, of whom 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. 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. He wrote the History of the Treaty of Westphalia. Posterity will look on this as a curious work: the state of Europe being now so totally changed, this history will read like a romance. Warton. Who taught the nations of the field and wood To shun their poison, and to choose their food? 100 Prescient, the tides or tempests to withstand, Build on the wave, or arch beneath the sand? Who made the spider parallels design, Sure as Demoivre, without rule or line? Who bade the stork, Columbus-like, explore 105 Heavens not his own, and worlds unknown before? Who calls the council, states the certain day, Who forms the phalanx, and who points the way? III. God, in the nature of each being, founds proper bliss, and sets its proper bounds: 110 Its COMMENTARY. Ver. 109. God, in the nature of each being, &c.] The author now cometh to the main subject of his Epistle, the proof of Man's SOCIABILITY, from the two general Societies composed by him; the natural, subject to paternal authority; and the civil, subject to that of a magistrate. This he hath the address to introduce, from what had preceded, in so easy and natural a manner, as sheweth him to have the art of giving all the grace to the dryness and severity of Method, as well as wit to the strength and depth of Reason. The philosophic nature of his work requiring he should shew by what means those Societies were introduced, this affords him an opportunity of sliding gracefully and easily from the preliminaries NOTES. Ver. 99. Who taught] This passage is highly finished: such objects are more suited to the nature of poetry than abstract ideas. Every verb and epithet has here a descriptive force. We find more imagery from these lines to the end of the Epistle, than in any other parts of this Essay. The origin of the connexions in social life, the account of the state of nature, the rise and effects of superstition and tyranny, and the restoration of true religion and just government; all these ought to be mentioned as passages that deserve high applause, nay, as some of the most exalted pieces of English poetry. Warton. But as he fram'd the whole, the whole to bless, So from the first, eternal ORDER ran, 115 And creature link'd to creature, man to man. Each sex desires alike, till two are one. 2 120 Nor ends the pleasure with the fierce embrace; They love themselves, a third time, in their race. COMMENTARY. minaries into the main subject; and so of giving his work that perfection of method, which we find only in the compositions of great writers. For having just before, though to a different purpose, described the power of bestial Instinct to attain the happiness of the Individual, he goeth on, in speaking of Instinct as it is serviceable both to that, and to the Kind (from ver. 108 to 147.) to illustrate the original of Society. He sheweth, that though, as he had before observed, God had founded the proper bliss of each creature in the nature of its own existence; yet these not being independent individuals, but parts of a Whole, God, to bless that Whole, built mutual happiness on mutual wants. Now, for the supply of mutual wants, creatures must necessarily come together, which is the first ground of Society amongst men. He then proceeds to that called natural, subject to paternal authority, and arising from the union of the two sexes; describes the imperfect image of it in brutes; then explains it at large in all its causes and effects. And lastly shews, that, as in fact, like mere animal Society, it is founded and preserved by mutual wants, the supplial of which causeth mutual happiness; so it is likewise in right, as a rational Society, by equity, gratitude, and the observance of the relation of things in general. Thus beast and bird their common charge attend, The mothers nurse it, and the sires defend; The young dismiss'd to wander earth or air, There stops the Instinct, and there ends the care; The link dissolves, each seeks a fresh embrace, Another love succeeds, another race. 130 A longer care Man's helpless kind demands; Still as one brood, and as another rose, These natural love maintain'd, habitual those: 140 trod; The State of Nature was the reign of God: COMMENTARY. Ver. 147. Nor think, in NATURE'S STATE they blindly trod;] But the Atheist and Hobbist, against whom Mr. Pope argueth, deny the principle of Right, or of natural Justice, before the invention of civil compact; which, they say, gave being to it; and accordingly have had the effrontery publicly to declare, that a state of Nature was a state of War. This quite subverteth the Poet's natural |