Note 1220 — AN ESSAY ON MAN, IN FOUR EPISTLES (continued 3)
Reading edition
MS.:
Divide, before the genius of the mind.
or,
'Tis reason's task to sep'rate in the mind.
The idea expressed in the couplet is an adaptation of a passage in the first chapter of Genesis. As God in the chaos of the world "divided the light from the darkness," so the God within us, which is our reason, does the same with the chaos of the mind. The chaos, on Pope's system, was in the actions, and not in the motives. The sweet water and the bitter flowed from the same tainted fountain,—from ambition, pride, sloth, etc.