The fame Self-love, in all, becomes the caufe What ferves one will, when many wills rebel? His fafety must his liberty restrain: All join to guard what each defires to gain. Ev'n Kings learn'd justice and benevolence: 280 And found the private in the public good. 'Twas then, the ftudious head or gen'rous mind, Follow'r of God or friend of human-kind, COMMENTARY. There is not any where fhewn greater addrefs in the difpofition of this work than with regard to the inference before us; which not only giveth a proper and timely support to what was before advanced, in the fecond epiftle, concerning the nature and effects of Self-love; but is a neceffary introduction to what follows, concerning the reformation of Religion and Society, as we shall fee prefently. VER. .283. 'Twas then, the ftudious head &c.] The poet hath now described the rife, perfection, and decay of civil Policy and NOTES. VER. 283. 'Twas then, &c.] The poet feemeth here to mean the polite and flourishing age of Greece; and thofe benefactors to Mankind, which he had principally in view, were Socrates and Ariftotle; who, of all the pagan world, fpoke beft of God, and wrote beft of Government. Poet or Patriot, rofe but to reftore 285 The Faith and Moral, Nature gave before; That touching one must strike the other too; COMMENTARY. 291 Religion, in the more early times. But the defign had been imperfect, had he here dropt his difcourfe: there was, in after ages, a recovery from their several corruptions. Accordingly, he hath chofen that happy Æra for the conclufion of his fong. But as good and ill Governments and Religions fucceed one another without ceafing, he now leaveth facts, and turneth his discourse (from 282 to 295) to speak of a more lafting reform of mankind, in the Invention of those philofophic Principles, by whose observance a Policy and Religion may be for ever kept from finking into Tyranny and Superftition: 'Twas then, the ftudious head or gen'rous mind, The Faith and Moral, Nature gave before; &c. The eafy and juft tranfition into this fubject from the foregoing, is admirable. In the foregoing he had defcribed the effects of Self-love; and now, with great art, and high probability, he maketh Mens obfervations on thefe effects the occafion of those discoveries which they have made of the true principles of Policy and Religion, defcribed in the present paragraph; and this hẹ evidently hinteth at in that fine transition, 'Twas then, the Audious head, &c. Such is the World's great-harmony, that springs COMMENTARY. 296 VER.295. Such is the World's great harmony, &c.] Having thus defcribed the true principles of civil and ecclefiaftical Policy, he proceedeth (from 294 to 303) to illuftrate his account by the fimilar harmony of the Universe: Such is the World's great harmony, that springs Thus, as in the beginning of this epiftle he supported the great principle of mutual Love or Affociation in general, by confiderations drawn from the properties of Matter, and the mutual dependence between vegetable and animal life; fo, in the conclufion, he hath inforced the particular principles of Civil and Religious Society, from that universal Harmony which springs, in part, from those properties and dependencies. NOTES. VER. 295. Such is the World's great harmony, &c.] An harmony very different from the pre-established_harmony of the celebrated Leibnitz, which eftablifheth a Fatality destructive of all Religion and Morality. Yet hath the poet been accused of efpoufing that impious whimfy. The pre-established harmony was built upon, and is an outrageous extenfion of a conception of Plato; who, combating the atheistical objections about the origin of Evil, employs this argument in defence of Providence; "That amongst "an infinite number of pof fible worlds in God's idea, "this, which he hath created " and brought into being, and “which admits of a mixture “ of Evil, is the best. But if “the best, then Evil conse"quently is partial, compara"tively small, and tendeth to "the greater perfection of the "whole." This Principle is espoused and supported by Mr. Pope with all the power of reafon and poetry. But neither was Plato a Fatalist, noṛ is there any fatalism in the argument. As to the truth of the notion, that is another queftion; and how far it cleareth up the very difficult controverfy about the origin of Evil, is ftill another. That it Where small and great, where weak and mighty, made To serve, not suffer, ftrengthen, not invade; NOTES. is a full folution of all difficulties, I cannot think, for reafons too long to be given in this place. Perhaps we shall never have a full folution in this world: and it may be no great matter though we have not, as we are demonftrably certain of the moral attributes of the Deity. However, Mr. Pope may be justified in receiving and inforcing this Platonic notion, as it hath been adopted by the most celebrated and orthodox divines both of the ancient and modern church. This doctrine, we own then, was taken up by Leibnitz; but it was to ingraft upon it a moft pernicious fatalifm. Plato faid, God chofe the beft: Leibnitz faid, he could not but chuse the beft. Plato fuppofed freedom in God to chufe one of two things equally good: Leibnitz held the fuppofition to be abfurd; but however, admitting the cafe, he maintained that God could not chufe one of two things equally good. Thus it appears, the first went on the fyftem of Freedom; and that the latter, notwithftanding the most artful difguifes in his Theodicée, was a thorough Fatalift: For we cannot well fuppofe he would give that freedom to Man which he had taken away from God. The truth of the matter feems to be this; he faw, on the one hand, the monftrous abfurdity of fuppofing with Spinoza, that blind Fate was the author of a coherent Universe; but yet, on the other, could not conceive with Plato, that God could forefee and conduct, according to an archetypal idea, a World, of all poffible Worlds the beft, inhabited by free Agents. This difficulty therefore, which made the Socinians take Prefcience from God, difpofed Leibnitz to take Free-will from Man: And thus he fashioned his fantastical hypothefis; he fuppofed that when God made the body, he imprefied on his new created Ma chine a certain feries or fuite of motions; and that when he made the fellow foul, a correfpondent feries of ideas; whofe operations, throughout the whole duration of the union, fo exactly jumped, that whenever an idea was excited, a concordant motion was ever 300 More pow'rful each as needful to the reft, Сом MENTAR Y. VER. 303. For Forms of Government let fools conteft;] But now the poet, having fo much commended the invention and inventors of the philofophic principles of Religion and Government, left an evil ufe fhould be made of this, by Mens refting in theory and speculation, as they have been always too apt to do in matters whofe practice makes their happiness, he cautions his reader (from 302 to 311) against this error. The feafonableness of this reproof will appear evident enough to those who know, that mad difputes about Liberty and Prerogative had once well nigh overturned our Conftitution; and that others about Mystery and Church Authority had almost destroyed the very fpirit of our Religion. |