The merits of the Essay, it must be added, consist not so much in the philosophy of the poem as a whole as in the many fine and true thoughts scattered throughout it, which the author’s epigrammatic terseness indelibly fixes in the mind. Of the whole poem the most valuable part, undoubtedly, is its ridicule of the common arrogant (pretended) belief that all other species on the earth have been brought into being for the benefit of the human race—an egregious fallacy, by the way, which, ably exposed as it has been over and over again, still frequently reappears in our popular theology and morals. To the writers and talkers of this too numerous class may be commended the rebukes of Pope:—
“Nothing is foreign—parts relate to whole:
One all-extending, all-preserving soul
Connects each being, greatest with the least—
Made beast in aid of man, and man of beast:
All served, all serving—nothing stands alone.
* * * * * * *
Has God, thou fool, worked solely for thy good,
Thy joy, thy pastime, thy attire, thy food?