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Above, how high, progreffive life

may go! 235 Around, how wide! how deep extend below! Vast chain of Being! which from God began, Natures æthereal, human, angel, man, Beast, bird, fish, infect, what no eye can fee, No glass can reach; from Infinite to thee, From thee to Nothing.-On fuperior pow'rs Were we to prefs, inferior might on ours: Or in the full creation leave a void,

240

Where, one step broken, the great scale's destroy'd: From Nature's chain whatever link you ftrike, 245

Tenth,

or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike. And, if each fyftem in gradation roll

Alike effential to th' amazing Whole,

VARIATIONS.

VER. 238. Ed. Ift.

Ethereal effence, fpirit, fubftance, man.

COMMENTARY,

connection in the disposition of things, as is here defcribed, is tranfcendently beautiful? But the Fatalifts fuppofe fuch an one. What then? Is the Firft Free Agent, the great Cause of all things, debarred from a contrivance fo exquifite, because fome Men, to fet up their idol, Fate, abfurdly represent it as prefiding over fuch a system?

NOTES.

VER. 243. Or in the full creation leave a void, &c.] This is only an illustration, alluding to the Peripatetic plenum and vacuum; the full and void here meant, relating not to Matter, but to Life.

VER. 247. And, if each system in gradation roll] The verb

The least confufion but in one, not all

That system only, but the Whole must fall. 250
Let Earth unbalanc'd from her orbit fly,
Planets and Suns run lawless thro' the sky;
Let ruling Angels from their spheres be hurl'd,
Being on Being wreck'd, and world on world;
Heav'ns whole foundations to their centre nod, 255
And Nature trembles to the throne of God.
All this dread ORDER break-for whom? for thee?
Vile worm!-oh Madness! Pride! Impiety!
IX. What if the foot, ordain'd the duft to tread,
Or hand, to toil, afpir'd to be the head?
What if the head, the eye, or ear repin'd

To ferve mere engines to the ruling Mind?

NOTES.

260

alludes to the motion of the planetary bodies of each system; and to the figures defcribed by that motion.

VER. 251. Let earth unbalanc'd] i. e. Being no longer kept within its orbit by the different directions of its progreffive and attractive motions; which, like equal weights in a balance, keep it in an equilibre.

VER. 253. Let ruling Angels &c.] The poet, throughout this poem, with great art ufes an advantage, which his employing a Platonic principle for the foundation of his Effay had afforded him; and that is the expreffing himfelf (as here) in Platonic notions; which, luckily for his purpose, are highly poetical, at the fame time that they add a grace to the uniformity of his reasoning.

VER. 259. What if the foot, &c.] This fine illuftration in defence of the Syftem of Nature, is taken from St. Paul, whọ employed it to defend the System of Grace.

Juft as abfurd for any part to claim

To be another, in this gen'ral frame :

Just as abfurd, to mourn the tasks or pains, 265 The great directing MIND of ALL ordains.

All are but parts of one ftupendous whole, Whose body Nature is, and God the foul;

COMMENTARY.

VER. 267. All are but parts of one fupendous whole,] Having thus given a reprefentation of God's creation, as one entire whole, where all the parts have a necessary dependence on, and relation to each other, and where every Particular works and concurs to the perfection of the whole; as fuch a fyftem would be thought above the reach of vulgar ideas; to reconcile it to common conceptions, he fhews (from ✯ 266 to 281) that God is equally and intimately present to every fort of fubftance, to every particle of matter, and in every inftant of being; which eafes the labouring imagination, and makes it expect no less, from fuch a Prefence, than fuch a Difpenfation.

NOTES.

VER. 265. Just as abfurd, &c.] See the Profecution and application of this in Ep. iv. P.

VER. 266. The great directing Mind &c.] "Veneramur "autem & colimus ob dominium. Deus enim fine domi"nio, providentia, & caufis finalibus, nihil aliud eft quam "FATUM & NATURA." Newtoni Princip. Schol. gener. fub finem.

VER. 268. Whofe body Nature is, &c.] A certain examiner remarks, on this line, that " A Spinozift would exprefs him"felf in this Manner." I believe he would, and fo, we know, would St. Paul too, when writing on the same subject, namely the omniprefence of God in his Providence, and in his Subftance. In him we live and move and have our being; i. e. we are parts of him, his offspring, as the Greek poet, a pantheift quoted by the Apoftle, obferves: And the reafon is, becaufe a religious theift and an impious pantheist both profefs to believe the omniprefence of God. But would Spinoza, as Mr. Pope does, call God the great directing Mind VOL. III. E

That, chang'd thro' all, and yet in all the same; Great in the earth, as in th' æthereal frame; 270

NOTES.

of all, who hath intentionally created a perfect Univerfe? Or would a Spinozift have told us,

The workman from the work diftinct was known,

a line that overturns all Spinozism from its very foundations. But this fublime defcription of the Godhead contains not only the divinity of St. Paul; but, if that will not fatisfy the men he writes againft, the philofophy likewise of Sir Ifaac Newton.

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The Poet fays,

All are but parts of one ftupendous whole,
Whole body Nature is, and God the foul,
That, chang'd thro' all, and yet in all the fame,
Great in the earth, as in th' æthereal frame,
refreshes in the breeze,

Warms in the fun,

Glows in the stars,

and bloffoms in the trees, Lives thro' all life, extends thro' all extent, Spreads undivided, operates unfpent.

The Philofopher:-" In ipfo continentur & moventur uni"verfa, fed abfque mutua paffione. Deus nihil patitur ex illa nullam fentiunt refiftentiam ex ommotibus ; corporum "nipræfentia Dei.-Corpore omni & figura corporea deftituitur.---Omnia regit & omnia cognofcit.---Çum unaquæque Spatii particula fit femper, & unumquodque Durationis "indivifibile momentum, ubique certe rerum omnium Fa-. "bricator ac Dominus non erit nunquam, nufquam.

Mr. Pope:

Breathes in our foul, informs our mortal part,
As full, as perfect, in a hair, as heart;
As full, as perfect, in vile Man that mourns,
As the rapt Seraph that adores and burns:
To him no high, no low, no great, no fmall;
He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all.

Sir Ifaac Newton:---" Annon ex phænomenis conftat esse entem incorporeum, viventem, intelligentem, omnipræfentem, qui

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Spreads undivided, operates unfpent;

Breathes in our foul, informs our mortal part, 275 As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart;

NOTES.

"in fpatio infinito, tanquam fenforio fuo, res ipfas intime cernat, penitufque perfpiciat, totafque intra fe præfens præ"fentes complectatur.'

But now admitting, there was an ambiguity in these expreffions, fo great, that a Spinozift might employ them to exprefs his own particular principles; and fuch a thing might well be, because the Spinozifts, in order to hide the impiety of their principle, are wont to exprefs the Omnipresence of God in terms that any religious Theift might employ. In this cafe, I fay, how are we to judge of the poet's meaning? Surely by the whole tenor of his argument. Now take the words in the fenfe of the Spinozifts, and he is made, in the conclufion of his epiftle, to overthrow all he has been advancing throughout the body of it: For Spinozism is the destruction of an Universe, where every thing tends, by a foreseen contrivance in all its parts, to the perfection of the whole. But allow him to employ the paffage in the sense of St. Paul, That we and all creatures live and move and have our being in God; and then it will be feen to be the moft logical fupport of all that had preceded. For the poet having, as we say, laboured through his epiftle to prove, that every thing in the Univerfe tends, by a foreseen contrivance, and a present direction of all its parts, to the perfection of the whole; it might be objected, that fuch a difpofition of things implying in God a painful, operofe, and inconceivable extent of Providence, it could not be supposed that fuch care extended to all, but was confined to the more noble parts of the creation. This grofs. conception of the Firft Caufe the poet expofes, by fhewing that God is equally and intimately prefent to every particle of Matter, to every fort of Substance, and in every inftant af Being.

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