Annual for me, the grape, the rose, renew The ridicule of imagining the greater portions of the material system were solely for the use of Man, philosophy has sufficiently exposed: and common sense, as the Poet shews, instructs us to know that our fellow-creatures, placed by Providence the joint inhabitants of this globe, are designed by Providence to be joint sharers with us of its blessings. Has God, thou fool! work'd solely for thy good, Having thus given a general idea of the goodness and wisdom of God, and the folly and ingratitude of Man, the great Author comes next (after this necessary preparation) to the confirmation of his thesis, That partial Moral Evil is universal Good: but introduceth it with a proper argument to abate our wonder at the phænomenon of moral evil, which argument he builds on a concession of his adversaries." If we ask you," says he, [from 1. 136 to 147.] "whether Nature doth not err from the gracious end of its Creator, when plagues, earthquakes, and tempests, unpeople whole regions at a time? you readily answer, No. For that God acts by general and not by particular laws; and that "the course of matter and motion must be necessarily "subject to some irregularities, because nothing created "is perfect." Say you so? I then ask, why you should expect this perfection in Man? If you own that the great 66 16 end end of God (notwithstanding all this deviation) be general happiness, then it is Nature, and not God that deviates ; and do you expect greater constancy in Man? Then Nature deviates, and can Man do less? i. e. if Nature, 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 philosophy shews it may*; where is the wonder that Man, who was created a free agent, and hath it in his power every moment to transgress the eternal Rule of Right, should sometimes go out of order? Having thus shewn how Moral Evil came into the world, namely, by Man's abuse of his own free-will, he comes to the point, the confirmation of his thesis, by shewing how moral Evil promotes Good; and employs the same concession of his adversaries, concerning natural Evil, to illustrate it. 1. He shews it tends to the good of the whole, or universe [from l. 146 to 157.] and this by analogy. "You own, says he, that storms and tempests, clouds, rain, "heat, and variety of seasons are necessary (notwith"standing the accidental evils they bring with them) to "the health and plenty of this globe; why then should you suppose there is not the same use, with regard to "the universe, in a Borgia and a Catiline?" But you say, you can see the one and not the other. You say right. One terminates in this system, the other refers to the whole. But, says the Poet, in another place, of this frame, the bearings and the ties, The strong connexions, nice dependencies, Gradations just, has thy pervading sout Look'd thro'? Or can a part contain the whole? 1. 29, et seq. While Comets move in very eccentric orbs, in all manner of positions, blind Fate could never make all the Planets move one and the same way in orbs concentric, some inconsiderable irregularities excepted, which may have risen 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 Is. Newt. Optics, Quest. ult. Own Own therefore, says he, here, that, From pride, from pride our very reasoning springs; Why charge we Heaven in those, in these acquit? 2. But secondly, to strengthen the foregoing analogical argument, and to make the wisdom and goodness of God still more apparent, he observes next [from 1. 156 to 165] that moral evil is not only productive of good to the whole, but is even productive of good in our own system. It might, says he, perhaps appear better to us, that there were nothing in this world but peace and virtue, That never air nor ocean felt the wind, That never passion discompos'd the mind. But then consider, that as our material system is supported by the strife of its elementary particles, so is our intellectual system by the conflict of our passions, which are the elements of human action. Love, hope, and joy, fair pleasure's smiling train, These mix'd with art, and to due bounds confin'd, Ep. 2. 1. 107, et seq. For (as he says again in his second Epistle, where he illustrates this observation at large) What crops of wit and honesty appear From spleen, from obstinacy, hate or fear! 1. 175. In a word, as without the benefit of tempestuous winds, both air and ocean would stagnate, and corrupt, and spread universal contagion throughout all the ranks of animals that inhabit, or are supported, by them; so, without the benefit of the passions, that harmony, and virtue, the effects of the absence of those passions, would be a lifeless calm, a stoical apathy, Contracted all, retiring to the breast : But health of mind is exercise, not rest. Ep. 2. 1. 93. Therefore, concludes the Poet, instead of regarding the conflict of elements, and the passions of the mind, as disVOL. XI.. D orders; orders; you ought to consider them as what they are, part of the general order of Providence: and that they are so, appears from their always preserving the same unvaried course, throughout all ages, from the creation, to the present time: The general order, since the whole began, Is kept in Nature, and is kept in Man. We see therefore it would be doing great injustice to our Author to suspect that he intended, by this, to give any encouragement to vice; or to insinuate the necessity of it to a happy life, on the equally execrable and absurd scheme of the Author of the Fable of the Bees. His system, as all his Ethic Epistles shew, is this, That the passions, for the reasons given above, are necessary to the support of virtue: That indeed the passions in excess, produce vice, which is, in its own nature, the greatest of all evils; and comes into the world from the abuse of Man's free-will; but that God, in his infinite wisdom, and goodness, deviously turns the natural bias of its malignity to the advancement of human happiness, and makes it productive of general good: TH'ETERNAL ART EDUCES GOOD FROM ILL. Ep. 2. 1. 165. This, set against what we have observed of the Poet's doctrine of a future state, will furnish us with an instance of his steering (as he well expresses it in his Preface) between doctrines seemingly opposite: If his Essay has any merit, he thinks it is in this. And doubtless it is uncommon merit to reject the extravagances of every system, and take in only what is rational and real. The Characteristics, and the Fable of the Bees, are two seemingly inconsistent systems: The extravagancy of the first is in giving a scheme of Virtue without Religion; and of the latter, in giving a scheme of Religion without Virtue. These our Poet leaves to any body that will take them up; but agrees however so far with the first, that virtue would be worth having, though itself was its only reward; and so far with the latter, that God makes evil, against its nature, productive of good. The Poet having thus justified Providence in its permission of partial MORAL EVIL, employs the remaining part part of this Epistle in vindicating it from the imputation of certain supposed NATURAL EVILS. For now he shews, that though the complaint of his Adversaries against Providence be on pretence of real moral evils, yet, at bottom, it all proceeds from their impatience under imaginary natural ones, the issue of a depraved appetite for visionary advantages, which if Man had, they would be either useless or pernicious to him, as unsuitable to his state, or repugnant to his condition [from l. 164 to 199.] "Though "God (says he) hath so bountifully bestowed on Man, "faculties little less than angelic, yet he ungratefully grasps at higher; and then, extravagant in another extreme, with a passion as ridiculous as that is impious, "envies even the peculiar accommodations of Brutes. "But here his own principles shew his folly." He supposes them all made for his use: Now what use could he have of them, when he had robbed them of all their qualities. Qualities, as they are at present divided, distributed with the highest wisdom: But which, if bestowed according to the froward humour of these childish complainers, would be found to be every where either wanting or superfluous. But even with these brutal qualities Man would not only be no gainer, but a con→ siderable loser, as the Poet shews, in explaining the consequences that would follow from his having his sensations in that exquisite degree in which this or that animal is observed to possess them. He tells us next [from 1. 198 to 225] that the complying with such extravagant desires would not only be useless and pernicious to Man, but would be breaking the order, and deforming the beauty, of God's Creation. In which this animal is subject to that, and all to Man; whọ by his reason enjoys the benefit of all their powers: Far as Creation's ample range extends, The scale of sensual, mental powers ascends: Mark how it mounts, to Man's imperial race, From the green myriads in the peopled grass! Without this just gradation, could they be Subjected these to those, or all to thee? The powers of all subdued by thee alone, Is not thy reason all those powers in one? |