Note 1094 — AN ESSAY ON MAN, IN FOUR EPISTLES (continued 3)

"Soul," says Samuel Clarke, "signifies a part of a whole, whereof body is the other part, and they, being united, mutually affect each other as parts of the same whole. But God is present to every part of the universe, not as a soul, but as a governor, so as to act upon everything in what manner he pleases, himself being acted upon by nothing." Warburton quotes some passages from Sir Isaac Newton asserting the omnipresence of the Deity, and the commentator affirms that the poet expressed the identical doctrine of the philosopher. This is a misrepresentation. The extracts of Warbuton are from the scholium to the Principia, where Newton adds, "God governs all things, not as a soul of the world, but as the Lord of the universe. The Godhead of God is his dominion, a dominion not like that of a soul over its own body, but that of a Lord over his servants." The doctrine which Pope held in common with Sir Isaac Newton was the omnipresence of the Deity. The doctrine which Sir Isaac Newton repudiated, and which Pope maintained, was that the world was the body of God as the human frame is of man. The world in this sense was not the work of the Deity, but a portion of him. Pope abandoned his present creed, Epist. iii. ver. 229, where he says,

The worker from the work distinct was known.