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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 see,
No glafs cán reach; from Infinite to thee,
From thee to Nothing. On fuperior pow'rs
Were we to press, 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 system in gradation roll
Alike effential to th'amazing Whole,

VARIATIONS.

VER. 238. Ed. Ift.

Ethereal effence, fpirit, fubftance, man.

COMMENTARY.

connection in the difpofition of things, as is here described, is tranfcendently beautiful? But the Fatalifts fuppofe fuch an one.-What then? Is the First Free Agent, the great Caufe of all things, debarred from a contrivance fo exquifite, because fome Men, to fet up their idol, Fate, abfurdly reprefent it as prefiding over fuch a fyftem?

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 fyftem in gradation roll] The verb alludes to the motion of

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'n's 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 dust 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.

the planetary bodies of each fyftem; and to the figures described 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

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260

for the foundation of his Effay had afforded him; and that is the expreffing himself (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 reafoning.

VER. 259. What if the foot, &c.] This fine illuftration in defence of the Syftem of Nature, is taken from St. Paul, who 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 ftupendous whole,] Having thus given a reprefentation of God's creation, as one entire whole, where all the parts have a neceffary 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 instant of being; which eases the labouring imagination, and makes it expect no lefs, from such a Prefence, than fuch a Dispensation.

NOTES.

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

VER. 266. The great direting Mind &c.] Veneramur autem & colimus ob dominium. Deus enim fine dominio, 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 ex

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and fo, we know, would St. Paul too, when writing on the fame fubject, namely the omnipresence of God in his Providence, and in his Substance. 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 Apostle, obferves: And the reafon is, becaufe a religious theift and an impious pantheift both profefs to believe the omniprefence of God. But would Spinoza, as Mr. Pope does, call God the great directing Mind of all.

That, chang'd thro' all, and yet in all the fame ;

Great in the earth, as in th'æthereal frame ; 270

NOTES.

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

The workman from the work diftinct was known,

a line that overturns all Spinozifm from its very foundations. But this fublime defcription of the Godhead contains not only the divinity of St. Paul

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but, if that will not fatisfy the
men he writes againft, the phi-
lofophy likewife of Sir Ifaac
Newton.
The poet fays,

All are but parts of one ftupendous whole,
Whofe 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,
Warms in the fun, refreshes in the breeze,
Glows in the ftars, and bloffoms in the trees,
Lives thro' all life, extends thro' all extent,
Spreads undivided, operates unfpent.

The Philofopher :-In ipfo con-
tinentur & moventur univerfa,
fed abfque mutua paffione. Deus
nihil patitur ex corporum mo-
tibus; illa nullam fentiunt
refiftentiam ex omnipræfentia
Dei.-Corpore omni & figura
corporea deftituitur.- Omnia

Mr. Pope :

regit & omnia cognofcit.—Cum unaquæque Spatii particula fit femper, unumquodque Durationis indivifibile momentum, ubique, certe rerum omnium Fabricator ac Dominus non erit nunquam, nufquam.

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 effe entem in-

corporeum, viventem, intelligen-
tem, omnipræfentem, qui in fpa-

Warms in the fun, refreshes in the breeze,

Glows in the stars, and bloffoms in the trees,
Lives thro' all life, extends thro' all extent,
Spreads undivided, operates unspent;

Breathes in our foul, informs our mortal part, 275

As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart;

NOTES.

tio infinito, tanquam fenforio | to the perfection of the whole. fuo, res ipfas intime cernat, But allow him to employ the penitufque perfpiciat, totafque paffage in the fenfe of St. Paul, intra fe præfens præfentes complectatur.

But now admitting, for argument's fake, there was an ambiguity in these expreffions, fo great, as that a Spinozist 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 used to exprefs the Omniprefence 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 deftruction of an Universe, where every thing tends, by a forefeen contrivance in all its parts,

That we and all creatures live and move and have our being in God; and then it will be seen to be the most 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 Universe tends, by a foreseen contrivance, and a prefent 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 fuppofed that such care extended to all, but was confined to the more noble parts of the creation. This grofs conception of the First Cause the poet expofes, by fhewing that God is equally and intimately prefent to every particle of Matter, to every fort of Subftance, and in every inftant of Being.

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