The story of Adam
and Eve would itself require to be justified or to be rationalized into
thin allegory. Nothing was left possessed of any vitality but a bare
skeleton of abstract theology, dependent upon argument instead of
tradition, and which might use or might dispense with a Christian
phraseology. Its deity was not a historical personage, but the name of a
metaphysical conception. For a revelation was substituted a
demonstration. To vindicate Providence meant no longer to stimulate
imagination by pure and sublime rendering of accepted truths, but to
solve certain philosophical problems, and especially the grand
difficulty of reconciling the existence of evil with divine omnipotence
and benevolence.
Pope might conceivably have written a really great poem on these terms,
though deprived of the concrete imagery of a Dante or a Milton. If he
had fairly grasped some definite conception of the universe, whether
pantheistic or atheistic, optimist or pessimist, proclaiming a solution
of the mystery, or declaring all solutions to be impossible, he might
have given forcible expression to the corresponding emotions. He might
have uttered the melancholy resignation and the confident hope incited
in different minds by a contemplation of the mysterious world. He might
again conceivably have written an interesting work, though it would
hardly have been a poem--if he had versified the arguments by which a
coherent theory might be supported. Unluckily, he was quite unqualified
for either undertaking, and, at the same time, he more or less aimed at
both.
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