Consequently, these Epistles in their
progress (if I have health and leisure to make any progress) will be less
dry, and more susceptible of poetical ornament. I am here only opening the
fountains, and clearing the passage. To deduce the rivers, to follow them
in their course, and to observe their effects, may be a task more
agreeable. P.
ARGUMENT OF EPISTLE I.
OF THE NATURE AND STATE OF MAN, WITH RESPECT TO THE UNIVERSE.
Of Man in the abstract.
I. That we can judge only with regard to our own system, being ignorant
of the relations of systems and things, v.17, etc.
II. That Man is not to be deemed imperfect, but a being suited to his
place and rank in the Creation, agreeable to the general Order of Things,
and conformable to Ends and Relations to him unknown, v.35, etc.
III. That it is partly upon his ignorance of future events, and partly
upon the hope of future state, that all his happiness in the present
depends, v.77, etc.
IV. The pride of aiming at more knowledge, and pretending to more
Perfection, the cause of Man's error and misery. The impiety of putting
himself in the place of God, and judging of the fitness or unfitness,
perfection or imperfection, justice or injustice of His dispensations,
v.109, etc.
V. The absurdity of conceiting himself the final cause of the Creation,
or expecting that perfection in the moral world, which is not in the
natural, v.131, etc.
VI. The unreasonableness of his complaints against Providence, while on
the one hand he demands the Perfections of the Angels, and on the other the
bodily qualifications of the Brutes; though to possess any of the sensitive
faculties in a higher degree would render him miserable, v.
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