What hath misled the Examiner is, his fuppofing that the Comparison is between the Effects of two Things in this fublunary World, when not only the Elegance, but the Juftness of the Comparifon confifts in its being between the Effects of a Thing in the Univerfe in general, and the familiar and known Effects of one in this fublunary World. For what is the Pofition which is inforced in these Lines? Why this, that partial Evil tends to the Good of the whole. How does the Poet inforce it? Why, if you will believe the Examiner, by illuftrating the Effects of partial moral Evil in a particular System, by that of partial natural Evil in the fame System, and fo leaves his Pofition in the Lurch; but we must never believe the great Poet could talk fo idly. Does not every one fee, that the Way to inforce his Pofition was by illuftrating the Effect of partial moral Evil in the Universe, by partial natural Evil in a particular System? And will any one fay this was not his Meaning? Whether partial moral Evil tends to the Good of the Univerfe being a Question, all the Rules of Logick require that it be proved by Analogy, i. e. by comparing it to a Thing certain; and it is a Thing certain, that partial natural Evil tends to the Good of our particular Syftem; who then will any longer doubt that this is the true Meaning of this famous Comparifon? And if it be, it ftands clear of Mr. de Croufaz's Objection, and of Leibnitz's Fatalifm.

After all, I could have wifhed the great Poet had been more explicit in this Place, for the Sake of common Readers; but he ftudied Shortness and Concifeness, as he himself tells us in his Preface, where he gives the Reason of his Method; and this the Examiner fhould, in Equity, have confidered; for not only the Genius and Design of an Author, but his Method likewise fhould be brought

into Account, if we would make a true Estimate of his Performance.

The next Paffage the Examiner attacks is the following:

Better for us, perhaps, it might appear, "Were there all Harmony, all Virtue here; "That never Air or Ocean felt the Wind; "That never Paffion discompos'd the Mind: "But all fubfifts by elemental Strife, "And Paffions are the Elements of Life.

Here the Examiner upbraids Mr. Pope for degrading himself fo far as to write to the grofs Prejudices of the People." In the corporeal Na"ture (fays he) there is no Piece of Matter that is perfectly fimple; all are compofed of small Particles, called elementary; a Fermentation proceeds from their Mixture, fometimes weak, "and fometimes ftrong, which ftill farther atte"nuates these Particles; and thus agitated and di

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vided, they ferve for the Nourishment and "Growth of organic Bodies; to this Growth it "is we give the Name of Life. But what have "the Paffions in common with these Particles? Do "their Mixture and Fermentation ferve for the "Nourishment of that Subftance which thinks, "and do they conftitute the Life of that Sub"ftance?"Thus Mr. de Croufaz, who, as before he could not fee the Nature of the Comparifon, fo here, by a more deplorable Blindness, could not fee that there was any Comparison at all, but which yet is so visible, that it only wants repeating to fee it. "You, fays Mr. Pope, per"haps may think it would be better, that neither "Air nor Ocean was vexed with Tempefts, nor "that the Mind was ever difcompofed by Paffion; " but confider, that as in the one Cafe our mate

་

"rial System fubfifts by the Strife of its elemen

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tary Particles, fo in this other, the Paffions of "the Mind are, as it were, the Elements of bu"man Life, i. e. Actions." All here is clear, fenfible, and well-reafoned. What must we fay then to our Examiner's wild Talk of the Mixture and Fermentation of elementary Particles of Matter for the Nourishment of that Subftance that thinks, and of its conftituting the Life of that Substance. İ call it the Examiner's, for you fee it is not Mr. Pope's; and he ought to be branded with it, because it may be queftioned whether it was a mere Blunder, he urging it in fo invidious a Manner, as to infinuate that Mr. Pope might probably hold the Materiality of the Soul. However, if it was a fimple Mistake, it was a pleafant one, and arose from the Ambiguity of the Word Life, which in the English Tongue, as la vie in French, fignifies both Existence and human Action, and is always to have its Senfe determined by the Context.

But now we come to the most terrible Paffage of all:

"All are but Parts of one ftupendous Whole, "Whose Body Nature is, and God the Soul. "That changed thro' all, &c.

On which our Examiner,-A Spinozist (fays he) would express himself in this Manner. I believe he would, and fo would St. Paul too, writing on the fame Subject, namely, the Omniprefence of God in his Providence, and in his Subftance. In him we live and move, and have our Being; i. c. we are Parts of him, his Offspring, as the Greek Poet quoted by the Apostle obferves. And the Reafon is, becaufe both profefs to believe the Omniprefence of God. But would Spinoza, as Mr. Pope does, call God the great directing Mind of all,

who

who has intentionally created a perfect Univerfe?* Or would Mr. Pope, like Spinoza, fay there is but one univerfal Subftance in the Universe, and that blind too? We know Spinoza would not fay the firft; and we ought not to think Mr. Pope would fay the latter, becaufe he fays the direct contrary throughout the Poem. But it is this only that is Spinozism.

But admitting, for Argument's Sake, that there is an Ambiguity in these Expreffions, fo great, that a Spinozist might employ them to exprefs his own particular Principles; and fuch a Thing might well be, without any Reflection on Mr. Pope's Religion, or Exactnefs as a Writer, because the Spinozifts, in order to hide the Impiety of their Principle, are ufed 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 Mr. Pope's Meaning? Surely by the Tenor and Drift of his Argument. Now take the Words in the Sense of the Spinozists, and the Poet labours, in the Conclufion of his Epiftle, to overthrow all he has been advancing throughout the Body of it, For Spinozifm is the Deftruction of an Univerfe, where every Thing tends, by a foreseen Contrivance in all its Parts, to the Perfection of the Whole. But fuppofe him to employ the Paffage in the Senfe of St. Paul, that we and all Creatures live, and move, and have our Being in God, and then fit will be the moft logical Conclufion from all that had preceded. For the Poet having, as we fay, laboured, throughout his Epiftle, to prove that every Thing in the Univerfe tends, by a forefeen Contrivance, and a prefent Direction of all its Parts, to the Perfection

*For that is the Meaning of,

" All Nature is but Art unknown to thee,

"All chance Direction, which thou canst not fee.

of

of the Whole, it might be objected that fuch a Difpofition of Things, implying in God a painful operofe Labour, and an inconceivable Extent of Providence, it could not be thought that fuch Care extended to the Whole, but was confined to the more noble Parts of the Creation. This grofs Conception of the firft Cause the Poet expofes, by fhewing that God is equally and intimately prefent to every Particle of Matter, to every Sort of Subftance, and in every Inftant of Being, in these charming Lines.

"All are but Parts of one ftupendous Whole, "Whofe Body Nature is, and God the Soul: "That changed thro' all, and yet in all the fame, "Great in the Earth, as in th' ætherial Frame, "Warms in the Sun, 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 Soul, 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 small, "He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all. How literally true this is may be feen by the Inquiry into the Nature of the human Soul, a Work that has entirely demolished the whole Syftem of Spinoza, where the excellent Author has fhewn how neceffary the immediate influence of God is, in every Moment of Time, to keep Matter from falling into its original Nothing.

The Examiner goes on: "Mr. Pope has "Reason to call this Whole a stupendous Whole; "nothing being more paradoxical and incre"dible, if we take his Defcription literal

ly." I will add, nor nothing more fo than

St.