disguised ; Pope, in the chair of wisdom, tells much that every man knows, and much that he did not know himself; and gives us comfort in the position, that though mans a fool, yet God is wise * ; that human advantages are unstable ; that our true honour is, not to have a great part, but to act it well ; that virtue only is our own, and that happiness is always in our power. The reader, when he meets all this in its new array, no longer knows the talk of his mother and his nurse 2 .' But may it not be said, that every system of ethics must or ought to terminate in plain and general maxims for the use of life ? and, though in such axioms no discovery is made, does not the beauty of the moral theory consist in the premises, and the chain of reasoning that leads to the conclusion? May not truth, as Johnson himself says, be conveyed to the mind by a new train of intermediate images? Pope's doc trine about the ruling passion does not seem to be refuted, though it is called, in harsh terms, pernicious as well as false, tending to establish a kind of moral predestination, or over- ruling principle, which cannot be resisted 3 . But Johnson was too easily alarmed in the cause of religion. Organized as the human race is, individuals have different inlets of perception, different powers of mind, and different sensations of pleasure and pain.
All spread their charms, but charm not all alike, On different senses different objects strike; Hence different passions more or less inflame, As strong or weak the organs of the frame ; And hence one master-passion in the breast, Like Aaron's serpent swallows up the rest 4 .
Brumoy says, Pascal from his infancy felt himself a geo metrician ; and Vandyke, in like manner, was a painter. Shakspeare, who of all poets had the deepest insight into human nature, was aware of a prevailing bias in the operations
1 Essay on Man, ii. 294. 3 Ib. viii. 293.
2 Works, viii. 339. The quotation 4 Essay on Man, ii. 127. is abridged and altered.
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