[1266] MS.:
Must act by gen'ral not by partial laws.
[1267] That is, those who are rich in temporal blessings should remember that the world is not made for them alone.
[1268] MS.:
Look nature through, and see the chain of love.
[1269] Ed. 1.:
See lifeless matter moving to one end.—Pope.
"Plastic," or as Bolingbroke called it, "fashioning nature," was in its etymological and popular sense, the power in nature which gave things their shape or figure. This seems to be the meaning in Pope. The philosophic sense of the phrase was more extensive. The laws of matter may have been made self-acting, or they may be maintained by the direct and constant interposition of God. Cudworth, and some other writers, who held the first of these opinions, called "plastic nature" the inward energy, the operative principle which is as a sort of life to the laws. The "plastic nature" of Cudworth is, in reality, nothing more than the laws of matter, with the proviso that they work by an inherent virtue infused into them by the Creator once for all.
[1270] "Embrace" is an inappropriate word. The particles of matter do not clasp. They are not even in contact, but only contiguous.
[1271] MS.: