Good: But introduceth it with a proper Argument to abate our Wonder at the Phænomenon of moral Evil, which Argument he builds on a Conceffion of his Adversaries. "If we ask you, says he, [from 1. 136 to 147] whether Nature doth not err from the gracious End of its Creator, when <l Plagues, Earthquakes, and Tempests unpeople "whole Regions at a time? you readily answer, "No. For that God acts by general and not by cc particular Laws; and that the Course of Matter " and Motion must be necessarily fubject to some "Irregularities, becaufe nothing created is per"fect." Say you fo? I then afk, why you fhould expect this Perfection in Man? If you own that the great End of God (notwithstanding all this Deviation) be general Happiness, then 'tis Nature, and not God that deviates; and do you expect greater Conftancy in Man?

Then Nature deviates, and can Man do lefs?

i. e. If Nature, or the inanimate System (on which God hath impofed his Laws, which it obeys as a Machine obeys the Hand of the Workman) may in Course of Time deviate from its firft Direction, as the best Philofophy fhews it may ";

d While Comets move in very eccentrick Orbs, in all Manner of Pofitions, blind Fate could never make all the Planets move one and the fame Way in Orbs concentrick, fome inconfiderable Irregularities excepted, which may have risen from the mutual Actions of Comets and Planets upon one another, and which will be. apt to increase till this System wants a Reformation. Sir If. Newt. Optics, Queft. ult.

where

where is the Wonder that Man, who was created a Free Agent, and hath it in his Power every moment to tranfgrefs the eternal Rule of Right, fhould fometimes go out of Order?

Having thus fhewn how Moral Evil came into the World, namely, by Man's Abuse of his own Free-will, he comes to the point, the Confirmation of his Thefis, by fhewing how moral Evil promotes Good; and employs the fame Conceffion of his Adversaries, concerning natural Evil, to illuftrate it.

1. He fhews it tends to the Good of the Whole, or Univerfe [from 1. 146 to 157.] and this by Analogy. "You own, fays he, that Storms and Tem"pefts, Clouds, Rain, Heat, and Variety of Sea❝ fons are neceffary (notwithstanding the acciden"tal Evils they bring with them) to the Health "and Plenty of this Globe; why then should you

fuppofe there is not the fame Ufe, with regard "to the Universe, in a Borgia and a Catiline?" But you fay you can see the one and not the other. You fay right. One terminates in this Syftem, the other refers to the Whole. But, fays the Poet, in another Place,

of this Frame, the Bearings and the Ties, The strong Connexions, nice Dependencies, Gradations juft, has thy pervading Soul

Look'd thro'? Or can a Part contain the Whole? 1.29, & feq.

Own therefore, fays he, here, that,

FromPride, from Pride our very Reasoning springs, Account, for moral as for natural Things:

Why

Why charge we Heav'n in those, in these acquit? In both to reafon right, is to submit.

2. But fecondly, to ftrengthen the foregoing analogical Argument, and to make the Wisdom and Goodness of God ftill more apparent, he obferves next [from 1. 156 to 165.] that moral Evil is not only productive of Good to the Whole, but is even productive of Good in our own Syftem. It might, fays he, perhaps appear better to us, that there were nothing in this World but Peace and Virtue,

That never Air nor Ocean felt the Wind,
That never Paffion discompos'd the Mind.

But then confider, that as our material System is supported by the Strife of its Elementary Particles, fo is our intellectual System by the Conflict of our Paffions, which are the Elements of human Action.

Love, Hope, and Joy, fair Pleasure's smiling Train,

Hate, Fear, and Grief, the Family of Pain, These mix'd with Art, and to due Bounds confin'd, Make and maintain the Balance of the Mind.

Ep. 2. 1. 107, & feq.

For (as he fays again in his fecond Epistle, where he illuftrates this Obfervation at large)

What Crops of Wit and Honesty appear

From Spleen, from Obstinacy, Hate or Fear!

1. 175.

In

In a word, as without the benefit of tempeftuous Winds, both Air and Ocean would ftagnate, and corrupt, and spread universal Contagion throughout all the Ranks of Animals that inhabit, or are fupported, by them; fo, without the Benefit of the Paffions, that Harmony, and Virtue, the Effects of the Absence of those Paffions, would be a lifeless Calm, a ftoical Apathy,

Contracted all, retiring to the Breast:

But Health of Mind is Exercife, not Reft.
Ep. 2. 1. 93.

Therefore, concludes the Poet, instead of regarding the Conflict of Elements, and the Paffions of the Mind, as Disorders; you ought to confider them as what they are, Part of the general Order of Providence and that they are so, appears from their always preferving the fame unvaried Course, throughout all Ages, from the Creation, to the prefent Time:

The general Order, fince the Whole began,
Is kept in Nature, and is kept in Man.

We see therefore it would be doing great Injuftice to our Author to fufpect that he intended, by this, to give any Encouragement to Vice; or to infinuate the Neceffity of it to a happy Life, on the equally execrable and abfurd Scheme of the Author of the Fable of the Bees. His System, as all his Ethic Epistles fhew, is this, That the Paffions, for the Reasons given above, are neceffary to the Support of Virtue: That indeed the Paffions in C

Excels

Excefs, produce Vice, which is, in its own Nature, the greatest of all Evils; and comes into the World from the Abuse of Man's Free-will; but that God, in his infinite Wisdom, and Goodness, deviously turns the natural Bias of its Malignity to the Advancement of human Happiness, and makes it productive of general Good:

TH'ETERNAL ART EDUCES GOOD FROM ILL.

Ep. 2. 1. 165.

This, fet against what we have obferved of the Poet's Doctrine of a future State, will furnish us with an Inftance of his fteering (as he well expresses it in his Preface) between Doctrines feemingly oppofite: If his Effay has any Merit, he thinks it is in this. And doubtless it is uncommon Merit to reject the Entravagances of every System, and take in only what is rational and real. The Characteriftics, and the Fable of the Bees, are two seemingly inconfiftent Syftems: The Extravagancy of the first is in giving a Scheme of Virtue without Religion; and of the latter, in giving a Scheme of Religion without Virtue. These our Poet leaves to any body that will take them up; but agrees however so far with the first, that Virtue would be worth having, tho' itself was its only Reward; and fo far with the latter, that God makes Evil, against its Nature, productive of Good.

The Poet having thus juftified Providence in its Permiffion of partial MORAL EVIL, employs the remaining part of this Epistle in vindicating it from

the