Page images
PDF
EPUB

Page 26. God hath not made a creature that can comprehend him, &c.] Mr. Pope, after confidering man in the abstract, and in relation to God and the world, comes to this conclufion ;

Know then thyself; prefume not God to fcan.

The proper ftudy of mankind is man.

Pope's effay on man, Ep. 2. v. 1.

Page 27. I wonder how Ariftotle could conceive the world eternal, &c.] Ariftotle ftands almoft fingular in this tenet among the ancient philofophers. It was indeed, many ages after, revived by Manilius in his Aftron. lib. 1.

Hac aterna manet divifque fimillima forma ; Cui neque principium eft ufquam, neque finis in ipfo:

Sed fimilis toto remanet, perque omnia

eft.

And afterwards he says,

par

At manet incoluniis mundus, fuaque omnia. verfat,

Que non longa dies auget, minuitque fenectus,

Nec motus puncto currit, curfuque fatigat.
Idem femper erit, quoniam femper fuit
idem

Non alium videre patres, aliumve nepotes
Afpiciunt, &c.

sf

.:

But

But to these may be oppofed the names
of Orpheus, Thales, Hefiod, Plato, Euripi-
des, Sophocles, and almost every name
known in the more ancient philofophy: be-
fides, the Phenicians, Egyptians, Indians,
and other nations remarkable for improve-
ments in philofophy. And in the later an-
tiquity, Cicero, Seneca, Epictetus, Iambly-
chus, &c. among the philofophers; and a-
mong the poets, Virgil, Ovid, and, (to in-
stance no more) the Epicurean poet, Lucre-
tius, whose argument is fufficiently definitive
in the point.

Præterea fi nulla fuit genitalis origo
Terrai & cali, femperque aterna fuere;
Cur fupra bellum Thebanum, aut funera
Troje,

Non alias alii quoque res cecinere poeta.

Lib. 5. v. 325. Vid. etiam Hug. Grot. de verit. rel. chrift. lib. 1. c. 7. & ibi annotat.

*

Page 28. For there is in us not three, but a trinity of fouls, &c.] The Doctor here alludes to the common divifion of the foul, by the fcholaftick philofophers, into the vegetative, fenfitive and rational foul. This fubject has given occafion for much wrangling in the schools, and no lefs commotion in the church, where it has been the fub

jęc These believed the matter eternal but not the form. The "rudis

ject of inquiry of general councils, and object of anathemas thundered out against it.

Page 34. There is but one first cause, and four fecond caufes of all things.] The first he mantains in oppofition to the Manichees, who, in order to account for the existence of apparent moral and natural evil, imagined two fupreme beings, independent of one another; the one, the author of all the good, the other of all the evil in the univerfe. The fecond he advances agreeable to the fcholaftick philofophy, which maintained four fecond causes, viz. the material, efficient, formal and final; and in oppofition to the Platonists who added a fifth, viz. the idea or exemplar in the mind of God. As Boetius,

----Tu cuncta fuperno
Ducis ab exemplo, pulchrum pulcherrimus
ipfe
Mundum mente gerens, fimilique in ima-
gine formans,

Perfectafque jubens perfectum abfolvere par

teis.

De conf. philof. lib. 3. met. 9.

Page 36. There are no grotesks in nature. Il n'y a rien d'inutil en nature, non pas inutilites memes ; rien ne s'eft ingere

indigestaque moles

chaos

[ocr errors]

en

divere

quem was as ancient as th

en cet univers que n'y tienne place opportune, Les eff. de Montaigne, lib, 3. c. 1.

This is a neceffary confequence of the world's being framed by an infinitely wife, rand all powerful being, whofe work must undoubtedly be the beft; and as Mr. Pope

fays,

Where all muft full, or not coherent be, And all that rifes, rife in due degree. Page 36. 1. 17. Indeed what reafon may not go to school to the wisdom of bees, ants and Spiders? &c.] This thought is very beautifully expreffed and enlarged by Mr. Pope. See him from nature rifing flow to art! To copy instinct then was reafon's part; Thus then to man the voice of nature fpake...

"Go! from the creatures thy inftructions take;

"Learn from the birds, what food the thickets yield;

"Learn from the beafts, the phyfick of the field;

"Thy arts of building from the bee receive;

"Learn of the mole to plow, the worm

to weave;

"Learn of the little Nautilus to fail,

"Spread the thin oar, and catch the driving gale.

"Here

hat were not de 242 th Internal Orge

Paradise Lon, vi

"Here too all forms of focial union

find;

"And hence let reafon, late, inftru&t mankind:

"Here fubterranean works and cities fee, "There towns aerial on the waving tree. "Learn each fmall people's genius, poli

cies;

"The ants republick, and the realm of

bees.

"How thofe in common all their stores bestow,

"And anarchy without confufion know; "And these for ever, tho' a monarch reign,

"Their fep'rate cells and properties

⚫ maintain.

"Mark what unvari'd laws preferve their state;

"Laws wife as nature, and as fix'd as fate.

"In vain thy reafon finer webs fhall draw,

"Entangle justice in her net of law, "And right too rigid harden into wrong, "Still for the ftrong too weak, the weak too ftrong.

"Yet go! and thus o'er all the creatures fway,

"Thus let the wifer make the reft obay,

And

« PreviousContinue »