pope. 415 



It is a droll illustration of the inconsistencies of 

 human nature, a more profound satire than Pope him- 

 self ever wrote, that his fame should chiefly rest upon 

 the " Essay on Man.'' It has been praised and admired 

 by merj or tlio most opposite beliefs, and men of no 

 belief at all. Bishops and free-thinkers have met here 

 on a common ground of sympathetic approval. And, 

 indeed, there is no particular faith in it. It is a droll 

 medley of inconsistent opinions. It proves only two 

 things beyond a question, — that Pope was not a great 

 thinker ; and that wherever he found a thought, no 

 matter what, he could express it so tersely, so clearly, 

 and with such smoothness of versification as to give it 

 an everlasting currency. Hobbes's unwieldy Leviathan, 

 left stranded there on the shore of the last age, and 

 nauseous with the stench of its selfishness, — from this 

 Pope distilled a fragrant oil with which to fill the 

 brilliant lamps of his philosophy, — lamps like those in 

 the tombs of alchemists, that go out the moment the 

 healthy air is let in upon them. The only positive 

 doctrines in the poem are the selfishness of Hobbes set 

 to music, and the Pantheism of Spinoza brought down 

 from mysticism to commonplace. Nothing can be more 

 absurd than many of the dogmas taught in this " Essay 

 on Man." For example, Pope affirms explieitly that 

 instinct is something better than reason : — 



" See him from Nature rising slow to art, 

 To copy instinct then was reason's part; 

 Thus, then, to man the voice of nature spake ; — 

 Go, from the creatures thy instructions take; 

 Learn from the beasts what food the thickets yield; 

 Learn from the birds the physic of the field ; 

 The arts of building from the bee receive ; 

 Learn of the mole to plough, the worm to weave ; 

 Learn of the little nautilus to sail, 

 Spread the thin oar, or catch the driving gale." 



I say nothing of the quiet way in which the general 



