rsion of Bolingbroke the taint was not removed. The logical outcome of
the rationalistic theory of the time was some form of pantheism, and the
tendency is still more marked in a poetical statement, where it was
difficult to state the refined distinctions by which the conclusion is
averted. When theology is regarded as demonstrable by reason, the need
of a revelation ceases to be obvious. The optimistic view which sees the
proof of divine order in the vast harmony of the whole visible world,
throws into the background the darker side of the universe reflected in
the theological doctrines of human corruption, and the consequent need
of a future judgment in separation of good from evil. I need not inquire
whether any optimistic theory is really tenable; but the popular version
of the creed involved the attempt to ignore the evils under which all
creation groans, and produced in different minds the powerful retort of
Butler's Analogy, and the biting sarcasm of Voltaire's Candide. Pope,
accepting the doctrine without any perception of these difficulties,
unintentionally fell into sheer pantheism. He was not yielding to the
logical instinct which carries out a theory to its legitimate
development; but obeying the imaginative impulse which cannot stop to
listen to the usual qualifications and safeguards of the orthodox
reasoner. The best passages in the essay are those in which he is
frankly pantheistic, and is swept, like Shaftesbury, into enthusiastic
assertion of the universal harmony of things.

All are but parts of one stupendous whole,
Whose body nature is, and God the soul;
That changed thro' all and yet in all the same,
Great in the earth as in the ethereal frame;
Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze,
Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees;
Lives thro' all life, extends thro' all extent,
Spreads undivided, operates unspent;
Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part,
As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart;
As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns,
As the rapt seraph that adores and burns;
To him, no high, no low, no great, no small,
He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all.

In spite of some awkward phrases (hair and heart is a vile antithesis!),
the passage is eloquent but can hardly be called orthodox. And it was
still worse when Pope undertook to show that even evil passions and
vices were part of the harmony; that "a