One, with cruel art,
Makes Colon suffer for the peccant part.—Wakefield.
[1191] The "faculties" are not a class of powers distinct from "wit, spirit, reason," but these last are among the faculties, and we must understand the passage as if Pope had written that wit and spirit, with all the other faculties, including reason itself, contribute to the growth of the ruling passion.
[1192] By inventing arguments in its justification, as Pope explains at ver. 156.
[1193] Taken from Bacon, De Calore.—Warton.
This comparison, which might be very proper in philosophy, has a mean effect in poetry.—Bowles.
In the MS. this couplet is added:
Its own best forces lead the mind astray,
Just as with Teague his own legs ran away.
Two lines, which do not appear in the subsequent editions, were inserted after ver. 148 in the quarto of 1735:
The ruling passion, be it what it will,
The ruling passion conquers reason still.
[1194] MS.: