COMMENTARY ON EPISTLE IV.
The two foregoing Epistles having considered man with regard to the means (that is, in all his relations, whether as an individual, or a member of society), this last comes to consider him with regard to the end, that is, happiness. It opens with an invocation to happiness, in the manner of the ancient poets; who, when destitute of a patron god, applied to the muse; and if she was not at leisure, took up with any simple virtue next at hand, to inspire and prosper their undertakings. This was the ancient invocation, which few modern poets have had the art to imitate with any degree either of spirit or decorum: but our author has contrived to make his subservient to the method and reasoning of his philosophic composition. I will endeavour to explain so uncommon a beauty. It is to be observed, that the pagan deities had each their several names and places of abode, with some of which they were supposed to be more delighted than others, and consequently to be then most propitious when invoked by the favourite name and place. Hence we find the hymns of Homer, Orpheus, and Callimachus to be chiefly employed in reckoning up the several titles and habitations by which the patron god was known and distinguished. Our poet hath made these two circumstances serve to introduce his subject. His purpose is to write of happiness: method, therefore, requires that he first define what men mean by happiness, and this he does in the ornament of a poetic invocation, in which the several names that happiness goes by are enumerated:
Oh happiness! our being's end and aim!
Good, pleasure, ease, content! whate'er thy name.
After the definition, that which follows next is the proposition, which is, that human happiness consists not in external advantages, but in virtue. For the subject of this Epistle is to detect the false notions of happiness, and to settle and explain the true; and this the poet lays down in the next sixteen lines. Now the enumeration of the several situations where happiness is supposed to reside, is a summary of false happiness placed in externals:
Plant of celestial seed! if dropped below,
Say, in what mortal soil thou deign'st to grow?
Fair op'ning to some court's propitious shrine,
Or deep with diamonds in the flaming mine?
Twined with the wreaths Parnassian laurels yield,
Or reaped in from harvests of the field?
The six remaining lines deliver the true notion of happiness, and show that it is rightly placed in virtue, which is summed up in these two:
Fixed to no spot is happiness sincere
'Tis no where to be found, or every where.
The poet, having thus defined his terms, and laid down his proposition, proceeds to the support of his thesis, the various arguments of which make up the body of the epistle.
Ver. 19. Ask for the learn'd, &c.] He begins, from ver. 18 to 29, with detecting the false notions of happiness. These are of two kinds, the philosophical and popular. The popular he had recapitulated in the invocation, when happiness was called upon, at her several supposed places of abode: the philosophical only remained to be delivered:
Ask of the learn'd the way? The learn'd are blind;
This bids to serve, and that to shun mankind:
Some place the bliss in action, some in ease;
Those call it pleasure, and contentment these.
They differed as well in the means, as in the nature of the end. Some placed happiness in action, some in contemplation; the first called it pleasure, the second ease. Of those who placed it in action and called it pleasure, the route they pursued either sunk them into sensual pleasures, which ended in pain; or led them in search of imaginary perfections, unsuitable to their nature and station, see Ep. i., which ended in vanity. Of those who placed it in ease, the contemplative station they were fixed in made some, for their quiet, find truth in every thing; others, in nothing:
Who thus define it, say they more or less
Than this, that happiness is happiness?
The confutation of these philosophic errors he shows to be very easy, one common fallacy running through them all, namely this, that instead of telling us in what the happiness of human nature consists, which was what was asked of them, each busies himself in explaining in what he placed his own.
Ver. 29. Take natures path, &c.] The poet then proceeds, from ver. 28 to 35, to reform their mistakes; and shows them that, if they will but take the road of nature, and leave that of mad opinion, they will soon find happiness to be a good of the species, and, like common sense, equally distributed to all mankind.
Ver. 35. Remember, man, &c.] Having exposed the two false species of happiness, the philosophical and popular, and announced the true; in order to establish the last, he goes on to a confutation of the two former.
I. He first, from ver. 34 to 49, confutes the philosophical, which, as we said, makes happiness a particular, not a general good. And this two ways; 1. From his grand principle, that God acts by general laws; the consequence of which is, that happiness, which supports the well-being of every system, must needs be universal, and not partial, as the philosophers conceived. 2. From fact, that man instinctively concurs with this designation of Providence, to make happiness universal, by his having no delight in any thing uncommunicated or uncommunicable.
Ver. 49. Order is heaven's first law;] II. In the second place, from ver. 48 to 67, he confutes the popular error concerning happiness, namely, that it consists in externals. This he does, first, by inquiring into the reasons of the present providential disposition of external goods,—a topic of confutation chosen with the greatest accuracy and penetration. For, if it appears they were given in the manner we see them distributed, for reasons different from the happiness of individuals, it is absurd to think that they should make part of that happiness. He shows, therefore, that disparity of external possessions among men was for the sake of society: 1. To promote the harmony and happiness of a system; because the want of external goods in some, and the abundance in others, increase general harmony in the obligor and obliged. Yet here, says he, mark the impartial wisdom of heaven; this very inequality of externals, by contributing to general harmony and order, produceth an equality of happiness amongst individuals. 2. To prevent perpetual discord amongst men equal in power, which an equal distribution of external goods would necessarily occasion. From hence he concludes, that as external goods were not given for the reward of virtue, but for many different purposes, God could not, if he intended happiness for all, place it in the enjoyment of externals.
Ver. 67. Fortune her gifts may variously dispose, &c.] His second argument, from ver. 66 to 73, against the popular error of happiness being placed in externals, is, that the possession of them is inseparably attended with fear; the want of them with hope; which directly crossing all their pretensions to making happy, evidently shows that God had placed happiness elsewhere. And hence, in concluding this argument, he takes occasion, from ver. 72 to 77, to upbraid the desperate folly and impiety of those who, in spite of God and nature, will yet attempt to place happiness in externals:
Oh sons of earth! attempt ye still to rise,
By mountains piled on mountains, to the skies?
Heav'n still with laughter the vain toil surveys,
And buries madmen in the heaps they raise.
Ver. 77. Know, all the good, &c.] The poet having thus confuted the two errors concerning happiness, the philosophical and popular, and proved that true happiness was neither solitary and partial, nor yet placed in externals, goes on, from ver. 76 to 83, to show in what it doth consist. He had before said in general, and repeated it, that happiness lay in common to the whole species. He now brings us better acquainted with it, in a more explicit account of its nature, and tells us, it is all contained in health, peace, and competence; but that these are to be gained only by virtue, namely, by temperance, innocence, and industry.
Ver. 83. The good or bad, &c.] Hitherto the poet hath only considered health and peace:
But health consists with temperance alone;
And peace, oh virtue! peace is all thy own.
One head yet remained to be spoken to, namely, competence. In the pursuit of health and peace there is no danger of running into excess; but the case is different with regard to competence: here wealth and affluence would be apt to be mistaken for it, in men's passionate pursuit after external goods. To obviate this mistake, therefore, the poet shows, from ver. 82 to 93, that, as exorbitant wealth adds nothing to the happiness arising from a competence, so, as it is generally ill-gotten, it is attended with circumstances which weaken another part of this triple cord, namely, peace.
Reason's whole pleasure, all the joys of sense,
Lie in three words, health, peace, and competence.
But health consists with temperance alone;
And peace, oh virtue! peace is all thy own.
Ver. 93. Oh blind to truth, &c.] Our author having thus largely confuted the mistake, that happiness consists in externals, proceeds to expose the terrible consequences of such an opinion, on the sentiments and practice of all sorts of men; making the dissolute, impious and atheistical; the religious, uncharitable and intolerant; and the good, restless and discontent. For when it is once taken for granted, that happiness consists in externals, it is immediately seen that ill men are often more happy than the good, which sets all conditions on objecting to the ways of Providence, and some even on rashly attempting to rectify his dispensations, though by the violation of all laws, divine and human. Now this being the most important part of the subject under consideration, is deservedly treated most at large. And here it will be proper to take notice of the art of the poet in making this confutation serve, at the same time, for a full solution of all objections which might be made to his main proposition, that happiness consists not in externals.
1. He begins, first of all, with the atheistical complainers; and pursues their impiety from ver. 93 to 131.
Oh blind to truth! and God's whole scheme below, &c.
Ver. 97. But fools, the good alone unhappy call, &c.] He exposes their folly, even in their own notions of external goods. 1. By examples, from ver. 98 to 111, where he shows, first, that if good men have been untimely cut off, this is not to be ascribed to their virtue, but to a contempt of life, which hurried them into dangers. Secondly, That if they will still persist in ascribing untimely death to virtue, they must needs, on the same principle , ascribe long life to it also; consequently, as the argument, in fact, concludes both ways, in logic it concludes neither.
Say, was it virtue, more though heav'n ne'er gave,
Lamented Digby! sunk thee to the grave?
Tell me, if virtue made the son expire,
Why, full of days and honour, lives the sire?
Ver. 111. What makes all physical or moral ill?] 2. He exposes their folly, from ver. 110 to 131, by considerations drawn from the system of nature: and these twofold, natural and moral. You accuse God, says he, because the good man is subject to natural and moral evil. Let us see whence these proceed. Natural evil is the necessary consequence of a material world so constituted. But that this constitution was best, we have proved in the first Epistle. Moral evil ariseth from the depraved will of man. Therefore neither one nor the other from God. But you say, adds the poet, to these impious complainers, that though it be fit man should suffer the miseries which he brings upon himself, by the commission of moral evil; yet it seems unfit that his innocent posterity should bear a share of the burden. To this, says he, I reply,
We just as wisely might of heav'n complain
That righteous Abel was destroyed by Cain,
As that the righteous son is ill at ease,
When his lewd father gave the dire disease.
But you will still say, Why doth not God either prevent or immediately repair these evils? You may as well ask, why he doth not work continual miracles, and every moment reverse the established laws of nature:
Shall burning Etna, if a sage requires, &c.
This is the force of the poet's reasoning, and these the men to whom he addresseth it, namely, the libertine cavillers against Providence.
Ver. 131. But still this world, &c.] II. But now, so unhappy is the condition of our corrupt nature, that these are not the only complainers. Religious men are but too apt, if not to speak out, yet sometimes secretly to murmur against Providence, and say, its ways are not equal. Those especially, who are more inordinately devoted to a sect or party, are scandalised, that the just, (for such they esteem themselves,) the just, who are to judge the world, have no better a portion in their own inheritance and dominion. The poet, therefore, now leaves those more professedly impious, and turns to these less profligate complainers, from ver. 130 to 149:
But still this world, so fitted for the knave, &c.
As the former wanted external goods to be the reward of virtue for the moral man, so these want them for the pious, in order to have a kingdom of the just. To this the poet holds it sufficient to answer: Pray first agree among yourselves who those just are. As they are not likely to do this, he bids them to rest satisfied; to remember his fundamental principle, that whatever is, is right; and to content themselves (as their religion teaches them to profess a more than ordinary submission to the will of Providence) with that common answer which he, with so much reason and piety, gives to every kind of complainer. However, though there be yet no kingdom of the just, there is still no kingdom of the unjust; both the virtuous and the vicious (whatsoever becomes of those whom every sect calls the faithful) have their share in external goods; and what is more, the virtuous have infinitely the most enjoyment of their share:
This world, 'tis true,
Was made for Cæsar, but for Titus too:
And which more bless'd? who chained his country? say!
Or he whose virtue sighed to lose a day?
I have been the more solicitous to explain this last argument, and to show against whom it is directed, because a great deal depends upon it for the illustration of the sense, and the defence of the poet's reasoning. For if we suppose him to be still addressing himself to those impious complainers, confuted in the forty preceding lines, we should make him guilty of a paralogism, in the argument about the just; and in the illustration of it by the case of Calvin. For then the libertine asks, Why the just, that is, the moral man, is not rewarded? The answer is, that none but God can tell, who the just, that is, the faithful man, is. Where the term is changed, in order to support the argument; for about the truly moral man there is no dispute; about the truly faithful or the orthodox, a great deal. But take the poet right, as arguing here against religious complainers, and the reasoning is strict and logical. They ask, why the truly faithful are not rewarded? He answereth, they may be for aught you know; for none but God can tell who they are.
Ver. 149. "But sometimes virtue starves, while vice is fed."] III. The poet, having dispatched these two species of murmurers, comes now to the third, and still more pardonable sort, the discontented good men, who lament only that virtue starves, while vice riots. To these he replies, from ver. 148 to 157, that, admit this to be the case, yet they have no reason to complain, either of the good man's lot in particular, or of the dispensation of Providence in general. Not of the former, because happiness, the reward of virtue, consisteth not in externals; nor of the latter, because ill men may gain wealth by commendable industry; good men want necessaries through indolence or ill conduct.
Ver. 157. But grant him riches, &c.] But as modest as this complaint seemeth at first view, the poet next shows, from ver. 156 to 167, that it is founded on a principle of the highest extravagance, which will never let the discontented good man rest, till he becomes as vain and foolish in his imagination as the very worst sort of complainers. For that when once he begins to think he wants what is his due, he will never know where to stop, while God hath any thing to give.
Ver. 167. What nothing earthly gives, &c.] But this is not all; the poet showeth next, from ver. 166 to 185, that these demands are not only unreasonable, but in the highest degree absurd likewise. For that those very goods, if granted, would be the destruction of that virtue for which they are demanded as a reward. He concludes, therefore, on the whole, that
What nothing earthly gives, or can destroy,
The soul's calm sunshine, and the heart-felt joy,
Is virtue's prize,
And that to aim at other, which not only is of no use to us here, but, what is more, will be of none hereafter, is a passion like that of an infant or a savage, where the one is impatient for what he will soon despise, and the other makes a provision for what he can never want.
Ver. 185. To whom can riches give repute, or trust,] The poet now enters more at large upon the matter; and still continuing his discourse to this third sort of complainers (whom he indulgeth, as much more pardonable than the first or second, in rectifying all their doubts and mistakes), he proves, both from reason and example, how unable any of those things are, which the world most admires, to make a good man happy. For as to the philosophic mistakes concerning happiness, there being little danger of their making a general impression, he had, after a short confutation, dismissed them altogether. But external goods are those syrens, which so bewitch the world with dreams of happiness, that it is of all things the most difficult to awaken it out of its delusions; though, as he proves in an exact review of the most pretending, they dishonour bad men, and add no lustre to the good. That it is only this third, and least criminal sort of complainers, against whom the remaining part of the discourse is directed, appeareth from the poet's so frequently addressing himself, henceforward, to his friend.
I. He beginneth therefore, from ver. 184 to 205, with considering riches. 1. He examines first, what there is of real use or enjoyment in them; and showeth, they can give the good man only that very contentment in himself, and that very esteem and love from others, which he had before; and scornfully cries out to those of a different opinion:
Oh fool! to think God hates the worthy mind,
The lover and the love of human-kind,
Whose life is healthful, and whose conscience clear,
Because he wants a thousand pounds a year!
2. He next examines the imaginary value of riches, as the fountain of honour. For the objection of his adversaries standeth thus: As honour is the genuine claim of virtue, and shame the just retribution of vice; and as honour, in their opinion, follows riches, and shame, poverty, therefore the good man should be rich. He tells them in this they are much mistaken:
Honour and shame from no condition rise;
Act well your part; there all the honour lies.
What power then has fortune over the man? None at all; for as her favours can confer neither worth nor wisdom; so neither can her displeasure cure him of any of his follies. On his garb, indeed, she hath some little influence; but his heart still remains the same:
Fortune in men has some small difference made;
One flaunts in rags, one flutters in brocade.
So that this difference extends no further than to the habit; the pride of heart is the same both in the flaunter and the flutterer, as it is the poet's intention to insinuate by the use of those terms.
Ver. 205. Stuck o'er with titles, &c.] II. Then, as to nobility, by creation or birth; this too the poet shows, from ver. 204 to 217, is in itself as devoid of all real worth as the rest; because, in the first case, the honour is generally gained by no merit at all; in the second, by the merit of the first founder of the family, which, when well considered, is generally the subject rather of humiliation than of glory.
Ver. 217. Look next on greatness; &c.] III. The poet now unmasks, from ver. 216 to 237, the false pretences of greatness, whereby it is seen that the hero and the politician (the two characters which would monopolize that quality) do, after all their bustle, if they want virtue, effect only this, that the one proves himself a fool, and the other a knave: and virtue they but too generally want; the art of heroism being understood to consist in ravage and desolation; and the art of politics, in circumvention. It is not success, therefore, that constitutes true greatness; but the end aimed at, and the means which are employed. And if these be right, glory will follow as the reward, whatever happens to be the issue:
Who noble ends by noble means obtains,
Or failing, smiles in exile or in chains,
Like good Aurelius let him reign, or bleed
Like Socrates, that man is great indeed.
Ver. 237. What's fame?] IV. With regard to fame, that still more fantastic blessing, he showeth, from ver. 236 to 259, that all of it, besides what we hear ourselves, is merely nothing; and that, even of this small portion, no more of it giveth the possessor a real satisfaction, than what is the fruit of virtue. Thus he shows, that honour, nobility, greatness, glory, so far as they have any thing real and substantial, that is, so far as they contribute to the happiness of the possessor, are the sole issue of virtue; and that neither riches, courts, armies, nor the populace, are capable of conferring them.
Ver. 259. In parts superior what advantage lies?] V. But lastly, the poet shows, from ver. 258 to 269, that as no external goods can make man happy, so neither is it in the power of all internal. For that even superior parts bring no more real happiness to the possessor than the rest; nay, that they put him into a worse condition; for that the quickness of apprehension and depth of penetration do but sharpen the miseries of life.
Ver. 269. Bring then these blessings to a strict account; &c.] Having thus proved how empty and unsatisfactory all these greatest external goods are, from an examination of their nature; he proceeds to strengthen his argument, from ver. 268 to 309, by these three further considerations:
1. That the acquirement of these goods is made with the loss of one another, or of greater, either as inconsistent with them, or as spent in attaining them.
2. That the possessors of each of these goods are generally such, as are so far from raising envy in a good man, that he would refuse to take their persons, though, accompanied with their possessions: and this the poet illustrates by examples.
3. That even the possession of them altogether, where they have excluded virtue, only terminates in more enormous misery.
Ver. 309. Know then this truth, &c.] Having thus at length shown that happiness consists neither in external goods of any kind, nor in all kinds of internal (that is, in such of them as are not of our own acquirement), nor yet in the visionary pursuits of the philosophers, he concludes, from ver. 308 to 311, that it is to be found in virtue alone.
Ver. 311. The only point when human bliss stands still, &c.] Hitherto the poet had proved, negatively, that happiness consists in virtue, by showing, that it did not consist in anything else. He now, from ver. 310 to 327, proves the same positively, by an enumeration of the qualities of virtue, all naturally adapted to give and to increase human happiness; as its constancy, capacity, vigour, efficacy, activity, moderation, and self-sufficiency.
Ver. 327. See the sole bliss heav'n could on all bestow!] Having thus proved that happiness is placed in virtue; he proves next, from ver. 326 to 329, that it is rightly placed there; for that then, and then only, all may partake of it, and all be capable of relishing it.
Ver. 329. Yet poor with fortune, &c.] The poet then, with some indignation, observeth, from ver. 328 to 341, that as obvious and as evident as this truth was, yet riches and false philosophy had so blinded the discernment even of improved minds, that the possessors of the first placed happiness in externals, unsuitable to man's nature; and the followers of the latter, in refined visions, unsuitable to his situation: while the simple-minded man, with nature only for his guide, found plainly in what it should be placed.
Ver. 341. For him alone, hope leads from goal to goal,] But this is not all; the author shows further, from ver. 340 to 353, that when the simple-minded man, on his first setting out in the pursuit of truth in order to happiness, hath had the wisdom
To look through nature up to nature's God,
(instead of adhering to any sect or party, where there was so great odds of his choosing wrong), that then the benefit of gaining the knowledge of God's will written in the mind, is not confined there; for standing on this sure foundation, he is now no longer in danger of choosing wrong, amidst such diversities of religions; but by pursuing this grand scheme of universal benevolence, in practice as well as theory, he arrives at length to the knowledge of the revealed will of God, which is the consummation of the system of benevolence:
For him alone, hope leads from goal to goal,
And opens still, and opens on his soul;
Till lengthened on to faith, and unconfined,
It pours thy bliss that fills up all the mind.
Ver. 353. Self-love, thus pushed to social, &c.] The poet, in the last place, marks out, from ver. 352 to 373, the progress of his good man's benevolence, pushed through natural religion to revealed, till it arrives to that height which the sacred writers describe as the very summit of Christian perfection; and shows how the progress of human differs from the progress of divine benevolence. That the divine descends from whole to parts; but that the human must rise from individual to universal. His argument for this extended benevolence is, that, as God has made a whole, whose parts have a perfect relation to, and an entire dependency on each other, man, by extending his benevolence throughout that whole, acts in conformity to the will of his Creator; and therefore this enlargement of his affection becomes a duty. But the poet hath not only shown his piety in this observation, but the utmost art and address likewise in the disposition of it. The Essay on Man opens with exposing the murmurs and impious conclusions of foolish men against the present constitution of things. As it proceeds, it occasionally detects all those false principles and opinions, which led them to conclude thus perversely. Having now done all that was necessary in speculation, the author turns to practice, and ends his Essay with the recommendation of an acknowledged virtue, charity,—which, if exercised in that extent which conformity to the will of God requireth, would effectually prevent all complaints against the present order of nature,—such complaints being made with a total disregard to everything but their own private system, and seeking remedy in the disorder, and at the expense of all the rest. This observation,
Self-love but serves the virtuous mind to wake,
is important. Rochefoucault, Esprit, and their coarse and wordy disciple, Mandeville, had observed, that self-love was the origin of all those virtues which mankind most admire, and therefore foolishly supposed it was the end likewise, and so taught that the highest pretences to disinterestedness were only the more artful disguises of self-love. But our author, who says somewhere or other,
Of human nature, wit its worst may write;
We all revere it in our own despite,
saw, as well as they, and everybody else, that the passions began in self-love; yet he understood human nature better than to imagine that they ended there. He knew that reason and religion could convert selfishness into its very opposite; and therefore teacheth that
Self-love but serves the virtuous mind to wake:
and thus hath vindicated the dignity of human nature, and the philosophic truth of the christian doctrine.
Ver. 394. Showed erring pride, whatever is, is right;] The poet's address to his friend, which concludeth this Epistle so nobly, and endeth with a recapitulation of the general argument, affords me the following observation, with which I shall conclude these remarks. There is one great beauty that shines through the whole Essay. The poet, whether he speaks of man as an individual, a member of society, or the subject of happiness, never misseth an opportunity, while he is explaining his state under any of these capacities, to illustrate it in the most artful manner by the enforcement of his grand principle, that every thing tendeth to the good of the whole, from whence his system gaineth the reciprocal advantage of having that grand theorem realized by facts, and his facts justified on a principle of right or nature.
Thus I have endeavoured to analyse and explain the exact reasoning of these four Epistles. Enough, I presume, to convince every one, that it hath a precision, force, and closeness of connection rarely to be met with, even in the most formal treatises of philosophy. Yet in doing this, it is but too evident I have destroyed that grace and energy which animates the original. And now let the reader believe, if he be so disposed, what M. de Crousaz, in his critique upon this work, insinuates to be his own opinion, as well as that of his friends: "Some persons," says he, "have conjectured that Mr. Pope did not compose this Essay at once, and in a regular order; but that after he had written several fragments of poetry, all finished in their kind, (one, for example, on the parallel between reason and instinct, another upon man's groundless pride, another on the prerogatives of human nature, another on religion and superstition, another on the original of society, and several fragments besides on self-love and the passions), he tacked these together as he could, and divided them into four epistles; as, it is said, was the fortune of Homer's Rhapsodies." I suppose this extravagance will be believed just as soon of one as of the other. But M. Du Resnel, our poet's translator, is not behind-hand with the critic, in his judgment on the work. "The only reason," says he, "for which this poem can be properly termed an Essay, is, that the author has not formed his plan with all the regularity of method which it might have admitted." And again: "I was, by the unanimous opinion of all those whom I have consulted on this occasion, and, amongst these, of several Englishmen completely skilled in both languages, obliged to follow a different method. The French are not satisfied with sentiments, however beautiful, unless they be methodically disposed. Method being the characteristic that distinguishes our performances from those of our neighbours," &c. After having given many examples of the critical skill of this wonderful man of method, in the foregoing notes, it is enough just to have quoted this flourish of self-applause, and so to leave him to the laughter of the world.