See plastic Nature working to this end,
The fingle atoms each to other tend,
Attract, attracted to, the next in place.
Form'd and impell'd its neighbour to embrace.
See Matter next, with various life endu'd,

Press to one centre ftill, the gen'ral Good.
See dying vegetables life sustain,

See life diffolving vegetate again:

COMMENTARY.

19

15

dictate of the Creator; and that Man, in this, did but follow the example of general Nature, which is united in one close fyftem of benevolence.

VER. 9. See plastic Nature working to this end,] This he proveth, firft (from 8 to 13) on the noble theory of Attraction, from the œconomy of the material world; where there is a general confpiracy in all the particles of Matter to work for one end; the ufe, beauty, and harmony of the whole mass.

VER. 13. See Matter next, &c.] The Second argument (from 12 to 27 ) is taken from the vegetable and animal world; whofe Beings ferve mutually for the production, support, and fuftentation of each other.

But this part of the argument, in which the poet tells us, that God

Connects each being, greatest with the leaft;

Made Beast in aid of Man, and Man of Beaft;
All ferv'd, all ferving-

NOTES.

to be wisdom, wit, learning, honesty, and, in short, all the virtues in their turns.

VER. 12. Form'd and impell'd, &c.] To make Matter fo cohere as to fit it for the ufes intended by its Creator, a proper configuration of its infenfible parts, is as neceffary as that quality fo equally and univerfally conferred upon it, called Attraction. To exprefs the first part of this thought, our Author fays form'd; and to exprefs the latter, impell'd.

All forms that perifh other forms fupply,

(By turns we catch the vital breath, and die)
Like bubbles on the fea of Matter born,'

They rife, they break, and to that fea return. 20
Nothing is foreign; Parts relate to whole;
One all-extending, all-preferving Soul

Connects each being, greatest with the least;
Made Beast in aid of Man, and Man of Beaft;
All ferv'd, all ferving: nothing stands alone; 25
The chain holds on, and where it ends, unknown.
Has God, thou fool! work'd folely for thy good,
Thy joy, thy paftime, thy attire, thy food?

COMMENTARY.

awaking again the old pride of his adverfaries, who cannot bear that Man fhould be thought to be ferving as well as ferved; he takes this occafion again to humble them (from 26 to 49) by the fame kind of argument he had fo fuccefsfully employed in the first epiftle, and which our comment on that epiftle hath confidered at large.

NOTES.

VER. 22. One all-extending, all-preferving Soul] Which, in the language of Sir Ifaac Newton, is, "Deus omnipræfens eft, "non per virtutem folam, fed etiam per fubftantiam: nam "virtus fine fubftantia fubfiftere non poteft. Newt. Princ. fchol. gen. fub fin.

VER. 23. Greatest with the leaft;] As acting more strongly and immediately in beafts, whofe inftinct is plainly an external reafon; which made an old fchool-man fay, with great elegance, "Deus eft anima brutorum :"

In this 'tis God directs

Who for thy table feeds the wanton fawn,

For him as kindly spread the flow'ry lawn: 30
Is it for thee the lark ascends and fings?
Joy tunes his voice, joy elevates his wings.
Is it for thee the linnet pours his throat?
Loves of his own and raptures fwell the note.
The bounding steed you pompously bestride, 35
Shares with his lord the pleasure and the pride.
Is thine alone the feed that ftrews the plain?
The birds of heav'n fhall vindicate their grain.
Thine the full harvest of the golden year?
Part pays, and justly, the deserving steer:
The hog, that plows not nor obeys thy call,
Lives on the labours of this lord of all.

40

Know, Nature's children fhall divide her care; The fur that warms a monarch, warm'd a bear. 44 While Man exclaims, "See all things for my ufe!" " See man for mine!" replies a pamper'd goose:

VARIATIONS.

After 46, in the former Editions,

What care to tend, to lodge, to cram, to treat him!
All this he knew; but not that 'twas to eat him.
As far as Goofe could judge, he reason'd right;
But as to Man, mistook the matter quite.

NOTES.

VER. 45. See all things for my ufe !] On the contrary, the wife man hath faid, The Lord hath made all things for himself, Prov. xvi. 4.

Andjuft as fhort of reafon He muft fall,
Who thinks all made for one, not one for all.
Grant that the pow'rful ftill the weak controul;
Be Man the Wit and Tyrant of the whole:
Nature that Tyrant checks; He only knows,
And helps, another creature's wants and woes.

COMMENTARY.

50

VER. 49. Grant that the pow'rful still the weak controul;1 However, his adverfaries, loth to give up the queftion, will reafon upon the matter; and we are now to fuppofe them objecting against Providence in this manner.-We grant, fay they, that in the irrational, as in the inanimate creation, all is ferved, and all is ferving: But, with regard to Man, the cafe is different ; he ftandeth fingle. For his reafon hath endowed him both with power and addrefs fufficient to make all things ferve him ; and his Self-love, of which you have fo largely provided for him, will indifpofe him, in his turn, to ferve any: Therefore your theory is imperfect.-Not fo, replies the poet (from 48 to 79) I grant that Man, indeed, affects to be the Wit and Tyrant of the whole, and would fain shake off

that chain of love,

Combining all below and all above:

But Nature, even by the very gift of Reafon, checks this tyrant. For Reafon endowing Man with the ability of fetting together the memory of the paft with his conjectures about the future; and paft misfortunes making him apprehenfive of more to come, this difpofeth him to pity and relieve others in a state of fuffering. And the paffion growing habitual, naturally extendeth its

NOTES.

VER. 50. Be Man the Wit and Tyrant of the whole :] Alluding to the witty fyftem of that Philofopher, which made Animals mere Machines, infenfible of pain or pleasure; and fo encouraged Men in the exercife of that Tyranny over their fellow-creatures, confequent on fuch a principle.

Say, will the falcon, stooping from above,
Smit with her varying plumage, fpare the dove?
Admires the jay the infect's gilded wings? 55
Or hears the hawk when Philomela fings?
Man cares for all: to birds he gives his woods,
To beafts his paftures and to fish his floods;
For fome his Int'reft prompts him to provide,
For more his pleasure, yet for more his pride: 60
All feed on one vain Patron, and enjoy
Th'extenfive bleffing of his luxury,
That very life his learned hunger craves,
He faves from famine, from the favage faves;
Nay, feasts the animal he dooms his feast,

And, 'till he ends the being, makes it bleft;

COMMENTARY.

65

effects to all that have a fense of suffering. Now as brutes have neither Man's Reason, nor his inordinate Self-love, to draw them from the fyftem of Benevolence; fo they wanted not, and therefore have not, this human fympathy of another's mifery. By which paffion, we fee, thofe qualities, in Man, balance one another; and so retain him in that general Order, in which Providence hath placed its whole creation. But this is not all; Man's intereft, amufement, vanity, and luxury, tie him still closer to the fyftem of benevolence, by obliging him to provide for the support of other animals; and though it be, for the most part, only to devour them with the greater guft, yet this does not abate the proper happiness of the animals fo preserved, to whom Providence hath not imparted the ufelefs knowledge of their end. From all which it appears, that the theory is yet uniform and perfect.

VOL. III.

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