writings, which were widely circulated; but we must waive the pleasure at present of analysing those, and confine our attention to the alliance between Pope and Bolingbroke, in the new school of philosophy. Bolingbroke's principal friends were Pope, Swift, Mallet, Wyndam, and Atterbury. The first three were most in his confidence in regard to religion: and although Pope was educated a Roman Catholic, and occasionally conformed to that hierarchy (and like Voltaire, for peace, died in it), yet the philosophical letters which passed between Pope and St. John, fully established him as a consistent Deist-an honour to which Swift also attained, although being a dignitary of the Church: but if doubts arise on the subject, they can easily be dispelled. General Grimouard, in his Essai sur Bolingbroke,' says that he was intimate with the widow of Mallet, the poet, who was a lady of much talent and learning, and had lived upon terms of friendship with Bolingbroke, Swift, Pope, and many other distinguished characters of the day, who frequently met at her house.' The General adds, that the lady has been frequently heard to declare, that these men were all equally deistical in their sentiments (que c'etait une societé de purs deistes); that Swift from his clerical character was a little more reserved than the others, but he was evidently of the same sentiments at bottom. There is a remarkable passage in one of Pope's letters to Swift, which seems rather corroborative of the General's. He is inviting Swift to come and visit him. The day is come,' he says, 'which I have often wished, but never thought to see, when every mortal I esteem is of the same sentiments in politics and religion.' Dr. Warton remarks upon this paragraph, At this time therefore (1733) he (Pope) and Bolingbroke were of the same sentiment in religion as well as politics;** and Pope writing to Swift is proof sufficient that Bolingbroke, Swift, and himself, were united in opinions. Wherever Swift's name is known, it is associated with his spleen on account of his not being elevated to the Episcopal Bench, when he was promised a vacancy, which was reserved for him; but Queen Anne absolutely refused to confer such a dignity upon the author of Gulliver's Travels-that profound satire upon society and religion; and this occurring at a time when his energetic services were so much needed in defence of the government he so assisted by pamphleteering, satire, and wholesale lampoons. Mr. Cooke says, 'The Earl of Nottingham, in the debate upon the Dissenters' Bill, chiefly founded his objection to the provision that the Bishops should have the only power of licensing tutors, upon the likelihood there was that a man who was in a fair way for becoming a Bishop, was hardly suspected of being a CHRISTIAN.' This pointed allusion to Swift passed without comment or reply in a public assembly, composed in a great measure of his private friends and associates. This seems to intimate that the opinion of his contemporaries was not very strong in favour of Swift's religious principles.' This may suffice to prove the unanimity of sentiment existing among this brilliant coterie-one a political Churchman-another the greatest poet of his age-the third, the most accomplished statesman of his country. Although they were united in religious conviction, it would have been certain ruin to any of the confederates if the extent of their thoughts had reached the public ear. The Dean wrote for the present the poet for his age-and the peer for the immediate benefit of his friends, and a record for the future. But they were all agreed that some code of ethics should be promulgated, which should embody the positive speculations of Bolingbroke, with the easy grace of Pope-the elabo * Cook's Life of Bolingbroke, 2nd vol., p. 97. rate research of the philosopher with the rhetoric of the poet. Swift coalesced in this idea, but was, to a certain extent, ignorant of its subsequent history. It was not thought prudent to trust Mallet and others with the secret. For this purpose the Essay on Man' was designed on the principles elaborated by Bolingbroke in his private letters to Pope. It was Bolingbroke who drew up the scheme, mapped out the arguments, and sketched the similies-it was Pope who embellished its beauties, and turned it into rhyme. Doctor Warton, the editor of Pope, also proves this:'Lord Bathurst told the Doctor that he had read the whole of the "Essay on Man" in the handwriting of Bolingbroke, and drawn up in a series of propositions which Pope was to amplify, versify, and to illustrate.' If further proofs are required, that Bolingbroke was not only a co-partner but coadjutor with Pope, it is found in the opening of the poem, where the poet uses the plural in speaking of Bolingbroke 'Awake, my St. John, leave all meaner things Laugh when we must, be candid when you can, This is sufficient to prove the partnership in the poem, and from the generally-acknowledged fact of his connection, we have no hesitation in declaring that this poem is the grand epic of Deism, and is as much the offspring of Bolingbroke, as his own ideas when enunciated by others. There is not a single argument in the Essay but what is much more elaborated in the works of Bolingbroke, while every positive argument is reduced to a few poetic maxims in the Essay. We may as well look here for Bolingbroke's creed, rather than amongst his prose works. There is, however, this difference, that in the Essay there is laid down an ethical scheme of positivism -i.e., of everything in morals which can be duly tested and nothing more: while in the prose writings of Bolingbroke, the negative side of theology is discussed with an amount of erudition which has never been surpassed by any of the great leaders of Freethought. The first proposition of the Essay is based on a postulate, upon which the whole reasoning is built. Overthrow this substratum, and the philosophy of the Essay is overturnedadmit it, and its truth is evident; it is― 'What can we reason but from what we know?' This is equivalent to saying that we can only reason concerning man as a finite part of an infinite existence, and we can only predicate respecting what comes under the category of positive knowledge; we are therefore disabled from speculating in any theories which have for a basis opposition to the collected experience of mankind. This was a position laid down by Bolingbroke to escape all the historical arguments which some men deduce from alleged miraculous agency in the past, or problematical prophecy in the future. It likewise shows the untenable nature of all analogy, which presumes to trace an hypothetical first cause, or personal intelligence, to account for a supposed origin of primeval existence, by which nature was caused, or forms of being first evolved. Although it may be deemed inconsistent with the philosophy of Bolingbroke to admit a God in the same argument as the above, we must not forget that in all speculative reasoning there must be an assumption of some kind, which ought to be demonstrated by proof, or a suitable equivalent in the form of universal consent. Yet in the case of the God of the Essay, we look in vain for the attributes 6 with which Theists love to clothe THEIR God, and we can but perceive inexorable necessity in the shape of rigid and unswerving laws, collected in one focus by Pope, and dignified with the name of God; so that the difference betwixt a Deist of the old, and an Atheist of the modern, school, is one of mere WORDS-they both commence with an assumption, the Atheist only defining his terms more strictly, the subject-matter in both instances being the same. The only difference being, the one deceives himself with a meaningless word, the other is speechless on what he cannot comprehend. The Essay shows a scheme of universal gradation, composed of a series of links, which are one entwined within the other-every rock being placed in its necessitated position-every plant amidst its growth bearing an exoteric similitude to itself-every animal, from the lowest quadruped to the highest race of man, occupying a range of climate adapted to its requirements. The Essay here is scientifically correct, and agrees with the ablest writers on necessity. A German philosopher, renowned alike for rigid analysis and transcendent abilities as a successful theorist, observes, When I contemplate all things as a whole, I perceive one nature, one force: when I regard them as individuals, many forces which develop themselves according to their inward laws, and pass through all the forms of which they are capable, and all the objects in nature are but those forces under certain limitations. Every manifestation of every individual power of nature is determined partly by itself, partly by its own preceding manifestations, and partly by the manifestations of all other powers of nature with which it is connected; but it is connected with all, for nature is one connected whole. Its manifestations are, therefore, strictly necessary, and it is absolutely impossible to be other than as it is. In every moment of her duration nature is one connected whole, in every moment must every individual be what IT IS, because all others are what they are, and a single grain of sand could not be moved from its place, without, however imperceptibly to us, changing something throughout all parts of the immeasurable whole. Every moment of duration is determined by all past moments, and will determine all future movements, and even the position of a grain of sand cannot be conceived other than it is, without supposing other changes to an indefinite extent. Let us imagine that grain of sand to be lying some few feet further inland than it actually does; then must the storm-wind that drove it in from the sea shore have been stronger than it actually was; then must the preceding state of the atmosphere, by which this wind was occasioned, and its degree of strength being determined, have been different from what it actually was, and the preceding changes which gave rise to this particular weather, and so on. We must suppose a different temperature from that which really existeda different constitution of bodies which influenced that temperature. How can we know that in such a state of weather we have been supposing, in order to carry this grain of sand a few yards further, some ancestors of yours might not have perished from hunger, cold, or heat, long before the birth of that son from whom you are descended, and thus you might never have been at all, and all that you have ever done, and all that you ever hope to do, must have been hindered, in order that a grain of sand might lie in a different place.** The whole of the first book is devoted to the necessitated condition of man in relation to the universe. In one portion there is a succession of beautiful similes, pourtraying the blissful state we are in, instead of being gifted with finer sensibilities, or a prescience, which would be a curse. *Fichte's Destination of Man,' pp. 8, 9. Pope, although an ardent disciple of Bolingbroke, did not entirely forsake the prejudices of childhood; he still indulged in a bare HOPE of a future life, which his master, with more consistency, suppressed. So that when the poet rhymed the propositions of St. John, he pointed them with 'hope' in an eternal future; for that speculation which was still a probability in his day, is now nearly silenced by modern science. But we must not confound the ideas of futurity, which some of the Deists expressed, with those of Christianity. They were as different as the dreams of Christ and Plato were dissimilar. Pope 'hoped' for a future life of intellectual enjoyment devoid of evil, but the heaven of the gospel is equally as necessary to be counterbalanced by a hell, as the existence of a God requires the balancing support of a devil. We therefore can sympathise with the description of a heaven, the poor Indian looked for: Some safer world in depths of woods embraced, He asks no angels' wings, no seraphs' fires, Pope durst not emphatically deny the future-life theory, so he attacked it by elaborating a physical instead of a spiritual heaven. So heterodox a notion of the Indian's future sports, is not to be found in theology, especially as he pictures the Indian's sports with his dog. Here was a double blow aimed at Christianity by evolving a positive' idea of future pleasures, and the promulgation of sentiments anti-Christian. Again he attacks them for unwarrantable speculation in theology, when he says In pride, in reasoning pride our error lies.' This is a corollary to the first proposition, 'What can we reason but from what we know?' The only predicate we can draw from this is, the undoubted fact that we have no right to profess to hold opinions of that, upon which we cannot have any positive proof. The last line of the first book has been generally thought open to attack. It relates to necessity-'Whatever is, is right-and is not to be viewed in relation to society as at present constituted, but to the physical universe. The second book deals with man in relation to himself as an individual; the third as a member of society, and the last in respect to happiness. Throughout the whole Essay the distinctions arising from nature and instinct are defined and defended with vigour and acuteness. Both are proved to be equally great in degree, in spite of the hints constantly thrown out in reference to God-like Reason versus Blind Instinct.' We confess our inability to discern the vaunted superiority of the powers of reason over those of its blinder sister. We see in the one matchless wisdom - profound decision unfailing resource a happy contentment as unfeigned as it is natural. On the other hand, we see temerity allied with cowardice—a man seeking wisdom on a watery plank, when every footmark may serve him for a funeral effigy; political duplicity arising from his confined generalisation of facts; a desire to do right, but checked by accident and cunning-everywhere uneasy-always fatal. If the Christians' fables were true, we might say that Adam and Eve were originally in possession of Instinct and Reason, and fell by listening to the promptings of volition, instead of the unswerving powers of the brutes, and for a hereditary punishment was cursed with a superabundance of reason. For with all our intellectual prerogatives, we have yet failed to arrive at a definite course of action which should influence our conduct. The Essay, speaking of Government by Christianity, says: 'Force first made conquest, and that conquest law, And again 6 * * * * * She taught the weak to bend, the proud to pray, And formed like tyrants; tyrants would BELIEVE And HELL WAS built IN spite, and HEAVEN IN PRIDE.' "For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight, The Essay concludes with an invocation to Bolingbroke-whom Pope styles, my guide, philosopher, and friend.' Such is the conclusion of the most remarkable ethical poem in any language. It is the Iliad of English Deism. Not a single allusion to Christ-a future state of existence given only as a faint probability-the whole artificial state of society satirisedprayer ridiculed, and government of every kind denounced which does not bring happiness to the people. The first principle laid down is the cornerstone of materialism- What can we reason but from what we know?'. which is stated, explained, and defended with an axiomatic brevity rarely equalled, never surpassed-with illustrations comprising the chef d'œuvre of poetic grace, and synthical melody, combined with arguments as cogent as the examples are perfect. It stands alone in its impregnability-a pile of literary architecture like the Novum Organan' of Bacon, the 'Principia' of Newton, or the Essay of Locke. The fasades of its noble colonnades are seen extending their wings through the whole sweep of history, constituting a pantheon of morals, where every nation sends its devotees to admire and worship. Let us now turn to the philosophical works of Bolingbroke. By the will of Bolingbroke he devised this portion of his manuscripts to David Mallet, the poet, for publication. The noble Lord's choice is open to censure here. He knew the character of Mallet, and could expect little justice from him who should have been his biographer. The MSS. were all prepared for the press long before Bolingbroke died. In this original state, they were addressed to Pope. When published they appeared as Letters or Essays addressed to Alexander Pope, Esq.' The political friends of St. John wished their suppression, fearing that they would injure his reputation by being anti-Christian. A large bribe was offered by Lord Cornbur if Mallet would destroy the works. He, no doubt, thinking more money could be made by their publication, issued them to the world in 1754, but without giving a biography or notes to the books, his work being simply correcting the errors of the press. True, there existed no stipula |