to write without a master, by copying printed books. His father used to order him to make English verses, and would oblige him to correct and retouch them over and over, and at last could say, "These are good rhymes." At eight years of age, he was committed to one Taverner, a priest, who taught him the rudiments of the Latin and Greek. At this time he met with Ogleby's Homer, which seized his attention: he fell next upon Sandys's Ovid, and remembered these two translations with pleasure to the end of his life. which the solution of this great question is necessary, have been demonstrated without any solution, or by means of the solution of some former writer. He rejects the Manichean system, but imputes to it an absurdity, from which, amidst all its absurdities, it seems to be free, and adopts the system of Mr. Pope. "That pain is no evil, if asserted with regard to the individuals who suf fer it, is downright nonsense: but if considered as it affects the universal system, is an undoubted truth, and means only that there is no more pain About ten, being at school near Hyde-Park-in it than what is necessary to the production of corner, he was taken to the playhouse, and was happiness. How many soever of these evils so struck with the splendour of the drama, that then force themselves into the creation, so long he formed a kind of play out of Ogleby's Homer, as the good preponderates, it is a work well intermixed with verses of his own. He per- worthy of infinite wisdom and benevolence; and suaded the head-boys to act this piece, and Ajax notwithstanding the imperfections of its parts, was performed by his master's gardener. They the whole is most undoubtedly perfect." And were habited according to the pictures in Ogleby. in the former part of the Letter, he gives the At twelve he retired with his father to Windsor principle of his system in these words: "OmniForest, and formed himself by study in the best potence cannot work contradictions, it can only English poets. affect all possible things. But so little are we acquainted with the whole system of nature, that we know not what are possible, and what are not: but if we may judge from that constant mixture of pain with pleasure, and inconveniency with advantage, which we must observe in every thing round us, we have reason to conclude, that to endue created beings with perfection, that is, to produce Good exclusive of Evil, is one of those impossibilities which even infinite power cannot accomplish." In this extract it was thought convenient to dwell chiefly upon such observations as relate immediately to Pope, without deviating with the author into incidental inquiries. We intend to kindle, not to extinguish, curiosity, by this slight sketch of a work abounding with curious quotations and pleasing disquisitions. He must be much acquainted with literary history, both of remote and late times, who does not find in this essay many things which he did not know before: and if there be any too learned to be instructed in facts or opinions, he may yet properly read this book as a just specimen of literary moderation. This is elegant and acute, but will by no means calm discontent, or silence curiosity; for whether Evil can be wholly separated from Good or not, it is plain that they may be mixed in various degrees, and as far as human eyes can judge, the degree of Evil might have been less without REVIEW OF A FREE INQUIRY INTO THE NA- any impediment to Good. TURE AND ORIGIN OF EVIL. THIS is a treatise consisting of Six Letters upon a very difficult and important question, which I am afraid this author's endeavours will not free from the perplexity which has entangled the speculatists of all ages, and which must always continue while we see but in part. He calls it a Free Inquiry, and indeed his freedom is, I think, greater than his modesty. Though he is far from the contemptible arrogance, or the impious licentiousness, of Bolingbroke, yet he decides too easily upon questions out of the reach of human determination, with too little consideration of mortal weakness, and with too much vivacity for the necessary caution. In the first letter on Evil in general, he observes, that “it is the solution of this important question, whence came Evil, alone, that can ascertain the moral characteristic of Good, without which there is an end of all distinction between Good and Evil." Yet he begins this Inquiry by this declaration: "That there is a Supreme Being, infinitely powerful, wise, and benevolent, the great Creator and Preserver of all things, is a truth so clearly demonstrated, that it shall be here taken for granted." What is this but to say, that we have already reason to grant the existence of those attributes of God, which the present Inquiry is designed to prove? The present Inquiry is then surely made to no purpose. The attributes, the demonstration of The second Letter on the evils of imperfection, is little more than a paraphrase of Pope's epistles, or yet less than a paraphrase, a mere translation of poetry into prose. This is surely to attack difficulty with very disproportionate abilities, to cut the Gordian knot with very blunt instruments. When we are told of the insufficiency of former solutions, why is one of the latest which no man can have forgotten, given us again? I am told that this pamphlet is not the effort of hunger: what can it be then but the product of vanity? and yet how can vanity be gratified by plagiarism or transcription? When this speculatist finds himself prompted to another performance, let him consider whether he is about to disburden his mind, or employ his fingers; and if I might venture to offer him a subject, I should wish that he would solve this question, Why he that has nothing to w.ite, should desire to be a writer? Yet is not this Letter without some scotiments, which, though not new, are of great importance, and may be read with pleasure in the thousandth repetition. "Whatever we enjoy, is purely a free gift from our Creator; but that we enjoy no more, can never sure be deemed an injury, or a just reason to question his infinite benevolence. All our happiness is owing to his goodness; but that it is no greater, is owing only to ourselves; that is, to our not having any inherent right to any happiness, or even to any existence at all. This is no more to be imputed to God, than the wants | felicity upon the whole accrues to the universe, of a beggar to the person who has relieved him: than if no such had been created. It is more. that he had something, was owing to his bene-over highly probable, that there is such a confactor; but that he had no more, only to his own original poverty." Thus far he speaks what every man must approve, and what every wise man has said before him. He then gives us the system of subordination, not invented, for it was known I think to the Arabian metaphysicians, but adopted by Pope; and from him borrowed by the diligent researches of this great investigator. "No system can possibly be formed, even in imagination, without a subordination of parts. Every animal body must have different members subservient to each other; every picture must be composed of various colours, and of light and shade; all harmony must be formed of trebles, tenors, and basses; every beautiful and useful edifice must consist of higher and lower, more and less magnificent apartments. This is in the very essence of all created things, and therefore cannot be prevented by any means whatever, unless by not creating them at all." These instances are used instead of Pope's oak and weeds, or Jupiter and his satellites; but neither Pope nor this writer have much contributed to solve the difficulty. Perfection or imperfection of unconscious beings has no meaning as referred to themselves; the bass and the treble are equally perfect; the mean and magnificent apartments feel no pleasure or pain from the comparison. Pope might ask the weed, why it was less than the oak, but the weed would never ask the question for itself. The bass and treble differ only to the hearer, meanness and magnificence only to the inhabitant. There is no Evil but must inhere in a conscious being, or be referred to it; that is, Evil must be felt before it is Evil. Yet even on this subject many questions might be offered, which human understanding has not yet answered, and which the present haste of this extract will not suffer me to dilate. He proceeds to an humble detail of Pope's opinion: "The universe is a system whose very essence consists in subordination; a scale of beings descending by insensible degrees from infinite perfection to absolute nothing; in which, though we may justly expect to find perfection in the whole, could we possibly comprehend it; yet would it be the highest absurdity to hope for it in all its parts, because the beauty and happiness of the whole depend altogether on the just inferiority of its parts, that is, on the comparative imperfections of the several beings of which it is composed." "It would have been no more an instance of God's wisdom to have created no beings but of the highest and most perfect order, than it would be of a painter's art to cover his whole piece with one single colour, the most beautiful he could compose. Had he confined himself to such, nothing could have existed but demi-gods, or archangels, and then all inferior orders must have been void and uninhabited: but as it is surely more agreeable to infinite Benevolence, that all these should be filled up with beings capable of enjoying happiness themselves, and contributing to that of others, they must necessarily be filled with inferior beings, that is, with such as are less perfect, but from whose existence, notwithstanding that less perfection, more nexion between all ranks and orders by subor dinate degrees, that they mutually support each other's existence, and every one in its place is absolutely necessary towards sustaining the whole vast and magnificent fabric. "Our pretences for complaint could be of this only, that we are not so high in the scale of existence as our ignorant ambition may desire; a pretence which must eternally subsist; because, were we ever so much higher, there would be still room for infinite power to exalt us; and since no link in the chain can be broke, the same reason for disquiet must remain to those who succeed to that chasm, which must be occasioned by our preferment. A man can have no reason to repine that he is not an angel; nor a horse that he is not a man; much less, that in their several stations they possess not the faculties of another; for this would be an insufferable misfortune." This doctrine of the regular subordination of beings, the scale of existence, and the chain of nature, I have often considered, but always left the inquiry in doubt and uncertainty, That every being not infinite, compared with infinity, must be imperfect, is evident to intuition; that whatever is imperfect must have a certain line which it cannot pass, is equally certain. But the reason which determined this limit, and for which such being was suffered to advance thus far, and no farther, we shall never be able to discern. Our discoveries tell us, the Creator has made beings of all orders, and that therefore one of them must be such as man. But this system seems to be established on a concession, which, if it be refused, cannot be ex torted. Every reason which can be brought to prove, that there are beings of every possible sort, will prove that there is the greatest number possible of every sort of beings; but this with respect to man we know, if we know any thing, not to be true. It does not appear even to the imagination, that of three orders of being, the first and the third receive any advantage from the imperfection of the second, or that indeed they may not equally exist, though the second had never been, or should cease to be; and why should that be concluded necessary, which cannot be proved even to be useful? The scale of existence from infinity to nothing, cannot possibly have being. The highest being not infinite must be, as has been often observed, at an infinite distance below infinity. Cheyne, who, with the desire inherent in mathematicians to reduce every thing to mathematical images, considers all existence as a cone, allows that the basis is at an infinite distance from the body. And in this distance between finite and infinite, there will be room for ever for an infinite series of indefinable existence. Between the lowest positive existence and nothing, wherever we suppose positive existence to cease, is another chasm infinitely deep; where there is room again for endless orders of subordinate nature, continued for ever and for ever, and yet infinitely superior to non-existence. To these meditations humanity is unequal. But yet we may ask, not of our Maker, but of each other, since on the one side creation, wherever it stops, must stop infinitely below infinity, and on the other infinitely above nothing, what necessity there is that it should proceed so far either way, that beings so high or so low should ever have existed? We may ask; but I believe no created wisdom can give an adequate answer. Nor is this all. In the scale, wherever it begins or ends, are infinite vacuities. At whatever distance we suppose the next order of beings to be above man, there is room for an intermediate order of beings between them; and if for one order, then for infinite orders; since every thing that admits of more or less, and consequently all the parts of that which admits them, may be infinitely divided. So that, as far as we can judge, there may be room in the vacuity between any two steps of the scale, or between any two points of the cone of being, for infinite exertion of infinite power. philosopher and the peasant, are in some mea sure fitted for their respective situations." Much of these positions is perhaps true, and the whole paragraph might well pass without censure, were not objections necessary to the establishment of knowledge. Poverty is very gently paraphrased by want of riches. In that sense, almost every man may in his own opinion be poor. But there is another poverty, which is want of competence, of all that can soften the miseries of life, of all that can diversify attention, or delight imagination. There is yet another poverty, which is want of necessaries, a species of poverty which no care of the public, no charity of particulars, can preserve many from feeling openly, and many secretly. That hope and fear are inseparably or very frequently connected with poverty and riches, my surveys of life have not informed me. The milder degrees of poverty are sometimes supported by hope, but the more severe often sink down in motionless despondence. Life must be seen before it can be known. This author and Pope perhaps never saw the miseries which they Thus it appears how little reason those who repose their reason upon the scale of being have to triumph over those who recur to any other ex-imagine thus easy to be borne. The poor indeed pedient of solution, and what difficulties arise on are insensible of many little vexations which every side to repress the rebellions of presump-sometimes embitter the possessions and pollute tuous decision. Qui pauca considerat, facile pronunciat. In our passage through the boundless ocean of disquisition we often take frogs for land, and after having long toiled to approach them, find, instead of repose and harbours, new storms of objection, and fluctuations of uncertainty. We are next entertained with Pope's alleviations of those evils which we are doomed to suffer. the enjoyments of the rich. They are not pained by casual incivility, or mortified by the mutila tion of a compliment; but this happiness is like that of a malefactor, who ceases to feel the cords that bind him when the pincers are tearing his flesh. That want of taste for one enjoyment is supplied by the pleasures of some other, may be fairly allowed. But the compensations of sickness I have never found near to equivalence, and the transports of recovery only prove the intenseness of the pain. without any other reason the slave, or tool, or property of another, which makes him sometimes useless, and sometimes ridiculous, is often felt with very quick sensibility. On the happiness of madmen, as the case is not very frequent, it is not necessary to raise a disquisition, but I cannot forbear to observe, that I never yet knew disorders of mind increase felicity: every madman is either arrogant and irascible, or gloomy and suspicious, or possessed by some passion or notion destructive to his quiet. He has always discontent in his look, and malignity in his bosom. And, if he had the power of choice, he would soon repent who should resign his reason to secure his peace. "Poverty, or the want of riches, is generally compensated by having more hopes, and fewer fears, by a greater share of health, and a more exquisite relish of the smallest enjoyments, than With folly no man is willing to confess himthose who possess them are usually blessed with. self very intimately acquainted, and therefore its The want of taste and genius, with all the plea-pains and pleasures are kept secret. But what sures that arise from them, are commonly recom- the author says of its happiness seems applicable pensed by a more useful kind of common sense, only to fatuity, or gross dulness; for that infe together with a wonderful delight, as well as suc-riority of understanding which makes one man cess, in the busy pursuits of a scrambling world. The sufferings of the sick are greatly relieved by many trifling gratifications imperceptible to others, and sometimes almost repaid by the inconceivable transports occasioned by the return of health and vigour. Folly cannot be very grievous, because imperceptible; and I doubt not but there is some truth in that rant of a mad poet, that there is a pleasure in being mad, which none but madmen know. Ignorance, or the want of knowledge and literature, the appointed lot of all born to poverty, and the drudgeries of life, is the only opiate capable of infusing that insensibility which can enable them to endure the miseries of the one and the fatigues of the other. It is a cordial administered by the gra- Concerning the portion of ignorance neces cious hand of Providence; of which they ought sary to make the condition of the lower classes never to be deprived by an ill-judged and im- of mankind safe to the public and tolerable to proper education. It is the basis of all subordi-themselves, both morals and policy exact a nicer nation, the support of society, and the privilege of individuals: and I have ever thought it a most remarkable instance of the divine wisdom, that whereas in all animals, whose individuals rise little above the rest of their species, knowledge is instinctive; in man, whose individuals are so widely different, it is acquired by education; by which means the prince and the labourer, the inquiry than will be very soon or very easily made. There is undoubtedly a degree of knowledge which will direct a man to refer all to Providence, and to acquiesce in the condition which omniscient Goodness has determined to allot him; to consider this world as a phantom that must soon glide from before his eyes, and the distresses and vexations that encompass him, as dust scattered in his path, as a blast that chills him for a moment, and passes off for ever. well-regulated family, in which all the officers and servants, and even the domestic animals, are subservient to each other in a proper subordina tion: each enjoys the privileges and perquisites peculiar to his place, and at the same time contributes by that just subordination to the magnificence and happiness of the whole." The magnificence of a house is of use or pleasure always to the master, and sometimes to the domestics. But the magnificence of the universe adds nothing to the Supreme Being; for any part of its inhabitants with which human knowledge is acquainted, a universe much less spacious or splendid would have been sufficient; and of happiness it does not appear that any is communicated from the beings of a lower world to those of a higher. Such wisdom, arising from the comparison of a part with the whole of our existence, those that want it most cannot possibly obtain from philosophy; nor unless the method of education, and the general tenor of life, are changed, will very easily receive it from religion. The bulk of mankind is not likely to be very wise or very good: and I know not whether there are not many states of life, in which all knowledge, less than the highest wisdom, will produce discontent and danger. I believe it may be sometimes found, that a little learning is to a poor man a dangerous thing. But such is the condition of humanity, that we easily see, or quickly feel, the wrong, but cannot always distinguish the right. Whatever knowledge is superfluous, in irremediable poverty, is hurtful; but the difficulty is to determine when poverty is irremediable, and at what point superfluity begins. Gross ignorance every man has found equally dangerous with perverted His opinion of the value and importance of knowledge. Men left wholly to their appetites happiness is certainly just, and I shall insert it, and their instincts, with little sense of moral or not that it will give any information to any religious obligation, and with very faint distinc-reader, but it may serve to show how the most tions of right and wrong, can never be safely employed, or confidently trusted: they can be honest only by obstinacy, and diligent only by compulsion or caprice. Some instruction, therefore, is necessary, and much perhaps may be dangerous. The inquiry after the cause of natural Evil is continued in the third Letter, in which, as in the former, there is mixture both of borrowed truth, and native folly, of some notions just and trite, with others uncommon and ridiculous. common notion may be swelled in sound, and diffused in bulk, till it shall perhaps astonish the author himself. "Happiness is the only thing of real value in existence; neither riches, nor power, nor wisdom, nor learning, nor strength, nor beauty, nor virtue, nor religion, nor even life itself, being of any importance, but as they contribute to its production. All these are in themselves neither good nor evil; happiness alone is their great end, and they are desirable only as they tend to promote it." Success produces confidence. After this discovery of the value of happiness, he proceeds, without any distrust of himself, to tell us what has been hid from all former inquirers. Though it should be granted that those who are born to poverty and drudgery should not be deprived by an improper education of the opiate of ignorance; even this concession will not be of much use to direct our practice, unless it be determined who are those that are born to poverty. To entail irreversible poverty upon generation after generation, only because the ancestor happened to be poor, is in itself cruel, if not unjust, and is wholly contrary to the maxims of a commercial nation, which always suppose and pro"The true solution of this important question, mote a rotation of property, and offer every in- so long and so vainly searched for by the philo dividual a chance of mending his condition by sophers of all ages and all countries, I take to his diligence. Those who communicate litera-be at last no more than this, that these real evils ture to the son of a poor man, consider him as one not born to poverty, but to the necessity of deriving a better fortune from himself. In this attempt, as in others, many fail, and many succeed. Those that fail will feel their misery more acutely; but since poverty is now confessed to be such a calamity as cannot be borne without the opiate of insensibility, I hope the happiness of those whom education enables to escape from it, may turn the balance against that exacerba-stances of things, and their modes of existence. tion which the others suffer. I am always afraid of determining on the side of envy or cruelty. The privileges of education may sometimes be improperly bestowed, but I shall always fear to withhold them, lest I should be yielding to the suggestions of pride, while I persuade myself that I am following the maxims of policy; and under the appearance of salutary restraints, should be indulging the lust of dominion, and that malevolence which delights in seeing others depressed. Pope's doctrine is at last exhibited in a comparison, which, like other proofs of the same kind, is better adapted to delight the fancy than convince the reason. "Thus the universe resembles a large and proceed from the same source as those imaginary ones of imperfection, before treated of, namely, from that subordination, without which no created system can subsist; all subordination implying imperfection, all imperfection evil, and all evil some kind of inconveniency or suffering: so that there must be particular inconveniences and sufferings annexed to every particular rank of created beings, by the circum "God indeed might have made us quite other creatures, and placed us in a world quite diffe rently constituted; but then we had been no longer men, and whatever beings had occupied our stations in the universal system, they must have been liable to the same inconveniences." In all this there is nothing that can silence the inquiries of curiosity, or calm the perturbations of doubt. Whether subordination implies imperfection, may be disputed. The means respecting themselves may be as perfect as the end. The weed, as a weed, is no less perfect than the oak as an oak. That imperfection implies Evil. and Evil suffering, is by no means evident. Imperfection may imply privative evil, or the absence of some good, but this privation produces no suffering, but by the help of knowledge. An infant at the breast is yet an imperfect man, but there is no reason for belief that he is unhappy by his immaturity, unless some positive pain be superadded. been the consequences of universal idleness! se that labour ought only to be looked upon as a task kindly imposed upon us by our indulgent Creator, necessary to preserve our health, our safety, and our innocence." I am afraid that the latter end of his commonwealth forgets the beginning. If God could easily have excused us from labour, I do not compre hend why he could not possibly have exempted a from poverty. For poverty, in its easier and more tolerable degree, is little more than neces sity of labour; and in its more severe and deplorable state, little more than inability for labour. To be poor, is to work for others, or to want the succour of others without work. And the same exuberant fertility which would make work unnecessary, might make poverty impos Surely a man who seems not completely master of his own opinion, should have spoken more cautiously of Omnipotence, nor have presumed to say what it could perform, or what it could prevent. I am in doubt whether those who stand highest in the scale of being, speak thus confidently of the dispensations of their Maker: When this author presumes to speak of the universe, I would advise him a little to distrust his own faculties, however large and comprehensive. Many words easily understood on common occasions, become uncertain and figurative when applied to the works of Omnipotence. Subordination in human affairs is well understood; but when it is attributed to the universal system, its meaning grows less certain, like the petty distinctions of locality, which are of good use upon our own globe, but have no meaning with regard to infinite space, in which nothing is high or low. That if a man, by exaltation to a higher na-sible. ture, were exempted from the evils which he now suffers, some other being must suffer them; that if man were not man, some other being must be man, is a position arising from his established notion of the scale of being-a notion to which Pope has given some importance by adopting it, and of which I have therefore endeavoured to show the uncertainty and inconsistency. This scale of being I have demonstrated to be raised by presumptuous imagination, to rest on nothing of our inquietudes of mind his account is still at the bottom, to lean on nothing at the top, and less reasonable. "Whilst men are injured, they to have vacuities from step to step through which must be inflamed with anger; and whilst they any order of being may sink into nihility without see cruelties, they must be melted with pity; any inconvenience, so far as we can judge, to whilst they perceive danger, they must be sen the next rank above or below it. We are there-sible of fear." This is to give a reason for all fore little enlightened by a writer who tells us Evil, by showing that one Evil produces anothat any being in the state of man must suffer ther. If there is danger, there ought to be fear; what man suffers, when the only question that but if fear is an Evil, why should there be dan requires to be resolved is, Why any being is in kind: pain is useful to alarm us, that we may His vindication of pain is of the same shun greater evils, but those greater evils must be presupposed, that the fitness of pain may ap pear. this state? Of poverty and labour he gives just and elegant representations, which yet do not remove the difficulty of the first and fundamental question, though supposing the present state of man necessary, they may supply some motives to con tent. ger? For fools rush in, where angels fear to tread. and true doctrine with sprightliness of fancy, Treating on death, he has expressed the known and neatness of diction. I shall therefore insert it. There are truths which, as they are always necessary, do not grow stale by repetition. "Death, the last and most dreadful of all Evils, is so far from being one, that it is the infallible cure for all others. To die, is landing on some silent shore, "Poverty is what all could not possibly have been exempted from, not only by reason of the fluctuating nature of human possessions, but because the world could not subsist without it; for had all been rich, none could have submitted to the commands of another, or the necessary drudgeries of life; thence all governments must have been dissolved, arts neglected, and lands uncultivated, and so a universal penury have overwhelmed all, instead of now and then pinching For, abstracted from the sickness and suffera few. Hence, by the by, appears the great ex-ings usually attending it, it is no more than the cellence of charity, by which men are enabled, by a particular distribution of the blessings and enjoyments of life, on proper occasions, to prevent that poverty which by a general one Omnipotence itself could never have prevented: so that, by enforcing this duty, God as it were demands our assistance to promote universal happiness, and to shut out misery at every door, where it strives to intrude itself. expiration of that term of life God was pleased to bestow on us, without any claim or merit on our part. But was it an Evil ever so great, it could not be remedied but by one much greater, which is by living for ever; by which means our wickedness, unrestrained by the prospect of a future state, would grow so insupportable, our sufferings so intolerable by perseverance, and our pleasures so tiresome by repetition, that no "Labour, indeed, God might easily have ex-being in the universe could be so completely micused us from, since at his command the earth serable as a species of immortal men. We have would readily have poured forth all her treasures no reason, therefore, to look upon death as an without our inconsiderable assistance; but if the Evil, or to fear it as a punishment, even without severest labour cannot sufficiently subdue the any supposition of a future life: but if we conmalignity of human nature, what plots and ma-sider it as a passage to a more perfect state, or a chinations, what wars, rapine, and devastation, remove only in an eternal succession of still what profligacy and licentiousness, must have improving states, (for which we have the strong |