but that God in his infinite goodness, deviously turns the natural bias of its malignity to the advancement of human happiness. A doctrine very different from the Fable of the Bees, which impiously and foolishly supposes it to have that natural tendency.
Ver. 204. The god within the mind.] A Platonic phrase for conscience; and here employed with great judgment and propriety. For conscience either signifies, speculatively, the judgment we pass of things upon whatever principles we chance to have, and then it is only opinion, a very unable judge and divider; or else it signifies, practically, the application of the eternal rule of right (received by us as the law of God) to the regulation of our actions; and then it is properly conscience, the god (or the law of God) within the mind, of power to divide the light from the darkness in this Chaos of the passions.
| Ver. 253. | Wants, frailties, passions, closer still ally |
| The common interest, &c.] |
As these lines have been misunderstood, I shall give the reader their plain and obvious meaning. To these frailties, says he, we owe all the endearments of private life; yet when we come to that age, which generally disposes men to think more seriously of the true value of things, and consequently of their provision for a future state, the consideration, that the grounds of those joys, loves, and friendships, are wants, frailties, and passions, proves the best expedient to wean us from the world; a disengagement so friendly to that provision we are now making for another state. The observation is new, and would in any place be extremely beautiful, but has here an infinite grace and propriety, as it so well confirms, by an instance of great moment, the general thesis, that God makes ill, at every step, productive of good.
Ver. 270. the poet in his muse.] The author having said, that no one could change his own profession or views for those of another, intended to carry his observations still further, and show that men were unwilling to exchange their own acquirements even for those of the same kind, confessedly larger, and infinitely more eminent in another. To this end he wrote,
What partly pleases, totally will shock:
I question much, if Toland would be Locke.
But wanting another proper instance of this truth, he reserved the lines above for some following edition of this Essay, which he did not live to give.
Ver. 280. And beads and pray'r-books are the toys of age:] A satire on what is called, in popery, the Opus operatum. As this is a description of the circle of human life returning into itself by a second childhood, the poet has with great elegance concluded his description with the same image with which he set out, "And life's poor play is o'er."
Ver. 286. And each vacuity of sense by pride:] An eminent casuist, Father Francis Garasse, in his Somme Théologique, has drawn a very charitable conclusion from this principle, which he hath well illustrated: "Selon la justice," says this equitable divine, "tout travail honnête doit être recompensé de louange ou de satisfaction. Quand les bons esprits font un ouvrage excellent, ils sont justement recompensés par les suffrages du public. Quand un pauvre esprit travaille beaucoup, pour faire un mauvais ouvrage, il n'est pas juste ni raisonnable, qu'il attende des louanges publiques; car elles ne lui sont pas dues. Mais afin que ses travaux ne demeurent pas sans recompense, Dieu lui donne une satisfaction personelle, que personne ne lui peut envier sans une injustice plus que barbare; tout ainsi que Dieu, qui est juste, donne de la satisfaction aux grenouilles de leur chant. Autrement la blâme public, joint à leur mécontentement, seroit suffisant pour les réduire au désespoir."