But one odd circumstance deserves to be remembered; though they wrote not, we may be sure, in concert, yet each attacked his adversary at the same time; fastened upon him in the same place; and mumbled him with just the same toothless rage. But the ill success of this escape soon brought them to themselves. The one made a fruitless effort to revive the old game, in a discourse on The Importance of the Doctrine of the Trinity; and the other has been ever since rambling in Space and Time.[1602] This short history, as insignificant as the subjects of it are, may not be altogether unuseful to posterity. Divines may learn by these examples to avoid the mischiefs done to religion and literature, through the affectation of being wise above what is written, and knowing beyond what can be understood.
Ver. 318. And bade self-love and social be the same.] True self-love is an appetite for that proper good, for the enjoyment of which we were made as we are. Now that good is commensurate with all other good, and a part and portion of universal good: it is, therefore, the same with social, which hath these properties.
NOTES ON EPISTLE IV.
Ver. 6. O'erlooked, seen double, &c.] O'erlooked by those who place happiness in any thing exclusive of virtue; seen double by those who admit any thing else to have a share with virtue in procuring happiness, these being the two general mistakes which this Epistle is employed to confute.
| Ver. 21, 23. | Some place the bliss in action,— |
| Some sunk to beasts, &c.] |
1. Those who place happiness, or the summum bonum, in pleasure, Ἡδονη; such as the Cyrenaic sect, called, on that account, the Hedonic. 2. Those who place it in a certain tranquillity or calmness of mind, which they call Ευθυμια; such as the Democritic sect. 3. The Epicurean. 4. The Stoic. 5. The Protagorean, which held that Man was παντων χρηματων μετρον, the measure of all things; for that all things which appear to him, are, and those things which appear not to any man, are not; so that every imagination or opinion of every man was true. 6. The Sceptic; whose absolute doubt is, with great judgment, said to be the effect of indolence, as well as the absolute trust of the Protagorean. For the same dread of labour attending the search of truth, which makes the Protagorean presume it is always at hand, makes the Sceptic conclude it is never to be found. The only difference is, that the laziness of the one is desponding, and the laziness of the other sanguine; yet both can give it a good name, and call it happiness.
Ver. 23. Some sunk to beasts, &c.] These four lines added in the last edition, as necessary to complete the summary of the false pursuits after happiness among the Greek philosophers.
| Ver. 35. | Remember, man, "the Universal Cause |
| "Acts not by partial, but by gen'ral laws:"] |