Pope wrote his "Essay on Man" in rhyming verse. Certainly today, we think anybody that writes "poetry" is one who is a bit odd, to say the least. Back in the eighteenth century, it was not so strange. Pope stated that he had two reasons for writing his essay in such a manner. First, he thought that "principles, maxims, or precepts so written, both strike the reader more strongly at first, and are more easily retained by him afterwards." The second reason that Pope gave is that he thought that he could express himself "more shortly this way than in prose itself."
My copy of Pope's "Essay on Man" runs approximately 30 pages, 30 pages of a smaller poetry book. It is broken down into four epistles.1
I here make comments about the expressions and thoughts of Pope in his essay. I have quoted at length from his essay. Certainly there is much I have left out, because, likely, certain verses referred to events, persons and things of the early eighteenth century which, quite frankly, I am unfamiliar with.
Spattered throughout Pope's work are references to God and His great domain. Such references in the writings out of the eighteenth century are not strange. The livelihood of writers, by and large -- as was with the case of all artists back then -- depended almost entirely on the generosity of church and state, so it was necessary in those days that writers give due regard to religious authority. Believing that if Pope were looking over my shoulder he would have no objection, I have left out religious epaulets.
Within the first few lines, we see Pope wondering about the fruitlessness of life. We have no choice: we come to it, look out and then die. What we see as we look out on "the scene of man" is a "mighty maze!" But Pope does not think this complex of existence is "without a plan." Man might sort through the maze because he has a marvelous mental faculty, that of reason; man can determine the nature of the world in which he lives; he can see that all things have bearings, ties and strong connections and "nice dependencies."
EPISTLE II
Pope opens his second Epistle much the same as he opened his first. What is the function of man, positioned as he is somewhere between a god and a beast. Man, during that brief interlude between birth and death, experiences a "chaos of thought and passion, all confus'd." He finds on earth the "Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all." Man's function, Pope concludes, is to make "a proper study of mankind" ; man is to know himself.
What man will come to know is that he is ruled by passion; passion is the ruler and reason it's counsellor.
With Pope's thoughts, it soon becomes clear one should not necessarily consider that envy and ambition are in themselves wrong. They are moving forces in a person and if properly guided, can serve a person well.
EPISTLE III
Pope returns, in his third Epistle, to his ever present theme, all is natural in nature and man is a part of nature. He first observes how "plastic" nature is, how everything is dependant on one and the other, is attracted to one and the other, down even to "single atoms." Everything "it's neighbour to embrace." (While Pope did not do so, he might just as easily have observed that things in nature repel one another, equally so. All things, in the final analysis, are held in the balance, suspended, so it seems, between the two great forces of attraction and repulsion.)
EPISTLE IV
In his last Epistle on the Essay of Man, Pope deals with the subject of happiness. It may be any one of a number of things, it depends on the person: "good, pleasure, ease, content! whatever thy name." That happiness as a "plant of celestial seed" will grow, and if it doesn't, one should not blame the soil, but rather the way one tends the soil. Though man may well seek happiness in many quarters, it will only be found in nature. Man should avoid extremes. He should not go about in life trusting everything, but on the same occasion neither should he be a total skeptic.
It is in the nature of man to attempt to change things; he is never happy with things as he finds them; never happy with his fellow man; never happy with the world about him. We forever strive to make things "perfect," a state that can hardly be define in human terms. Those that reflect on man's condition will soon have Utopian dreams.
1 The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope which includes Dr. Johnson's 65 page biography on Pope, Essay on Man (31 pp.); Essay on Criticism (17 pp.), Rape of the Lock (19 pp.), The Dunciad (31 pp.). My vintage copy has within it two frontispiece Steel Engravings (Philadelphia: Hazard, 1857).
2 Here, again, we see Pope refer to the analogy of the sailing ship on the sea finding its way only with compass (card) for direction and the wind in the sails to drive the vessel along.
By Alexander Pope (1688-1744).
[Analysis - NO or YES.]
EPISTLE I
He, who thro' vast immensity can pierce,
In his next stanza, Pope makes reference to presumptuous man! Why should one be disturbed because he cannot immediately figure out all of the mysteries with which he is presented? It cannot be expected that one part of existence (man) should understand all the other parts, he then continues:
See worlds on worlds compose one universe,
Observe how system into system runs,
What other planets circle other suns,
...
Look'd thro'? or can a part contain the whole?
Is the great chain that draws all to agree, -
And, drawn, supports - upheld by God or thee?
As of thy mother Earth, why oaks are made
Pope continues with this theme into his third stanza, in saying "Heav'n from all creatures hides the book of fate," and continues:
Taller or stronger than the weeds they shade.
...
And all that rises, rise in due degree;
Then, in the sale of reas'ning life, 'tis plain
There must be, somewhere, such a rank as Man.
...
When the dull ox, why now he breaks the clod,
Is now a victim, and now Egypt's god, -
...
Then say not Man's imperfect, Heav'n in fault, -
Say rather Man's as perfect as he ought:
His knowledge measur'd to his state and place,
His time a moment, and a point his space.
The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day,
Then giving way to his religious bent, makes reference to the "great teacher Death" and continues with his most famous lines:
Had he thy reason, would he skip and play?
Pleas'd to the last he crops the flow'ry food,
And licks the hand just rais'd to shed his blood.
...
Who sees with equal eye, as God of all,
A hero perish, or a sparrow fall,
Atoms or systems into ruin hurl'd,
And now a bubble burst, and now a world.
Hope springs eternal in the human breast;
Next, Pope deals with native people of the uncivilized territories of the world, and how they do not get hung up on such large questions as are expressed in Pope's essay:
Man never is, but always to be blest:
The soul uneasy and confin'd from home,
Rest and expatiates in a life to come.
Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutor'd mind
Next, we see Pope start to develop the theme that runs throughout his essay; man is part of a larger setting, a part of nature. Man depends on nature for his very substance, and yet, treats her roughly.
Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind;
His soul proud Science never taught to stray
Far as the solar walk or milky way;
Yet simple Nature to his hope has giv'n,
Behind the cloud-topp'd hill, a humbler heav'n;
Some safer world in depth of woods embrac'd,
Some happier island in the wat'ry waste,
Where slaves once more their native land behold,
No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold!
To be, contents his natural desire;
He asks no angel's wing, no seraph's fire:
But things, admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog shall bear him company.
Destroy all creatures for thy sport or gust,
Pope asserts that man is ruled from within, by his reason and by his passion.
Yet cry, if Man's unhappy, God's unjust;
...
Ask for what end the heav'nly bodies shine,
Earth for whose use, Pride answers, "'Tis for mine!
"For me kind Nature wakes her genial pow'r,
"Suckles each herb and spreads out ev'ry flow'r;
Better for us, perhaps, it might appear,
Passion may be equated to instinct; and instinct is the sole guide of animals. Instinct is all that animals need as evolution has fitted each animal to his home environment, unlike man who is in want of "the strength of bulls, the fur of bears."
Were there are harmony, all virtue here;
That never air or ocean felt the wind;
That never passion discompos'd the mind.
But all subsists by elemental strife;
And passions are the elements of life.
The gen'ral Order since the whole began
Is kept in Nature, and is kept in Man.
Here with degrees of swiftness, there of force:
Again, Pope emphasizes how nature "all good and wise... and what it gives, and what denies" has perfected itself and many of its creations:
All in exact proportion to the state;
Nothing to add, and nothing to abate.
Each beast, each insect, happy in its own:
Is Heav'n unkind to Man, and Man alone?
Shall he alone, whom rational we call,
Be pleas'd with nothing, if not bless'd with all?
The spider's tough how exquisitely fine!
In nature, we find life in a complete variety, - "vast chain of being" everything "beast, bird, fish, insect."
Feels at each thread, and lives along the line:
In the nice bee, what sense so subtly true
From pois'nous herbs extracts the healing dew?
Or in the full creation leave a void,
The point, I think, is that there is a fearful balance of nature in all its variety, and we dare not destroy one aspect of nature for fear of destroying the whole.
Where, one step broken, the great scale's destroy'd:
From Nature's chain whatever link you strike,
Tenth or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike.
All this dread order break - for whom? for thee?
In the last line of Pope's first epistle, he bangs home the importance of the "ruling mind" of nature, that while some parts might seem to us to be absurd, it is part of the "general frame" that all of nature, including ourselves, are but "parts of one stupendous whole." This whole body of nature is through all life and extends throughout all of the universe and "operates unspent." Pope concludes his first epistle:
Vile worm! - oh madness! pride! impiety!
Safe in the hand of one disposing Pow'r,
Or in the natal, or the mortal hour.
All Nature is but Art, unknown to thee;
All chance, direction, which thou canst not see
All discord, harmony not understood,
All partial evil, universal good:
And, spite of pride, in erring reason's spite,
One truth is clear, whatever is, is right.
Alas what wonder! Man's superior part
It is in the nature of man to first serve himself; but, on account of reason, to do so with the long range in view.
Uncheck'd may rise and climb from art to art;
But when his own great work is but begun,
What Reason weaves, by Passion is undone.
Two Principles in human nature reign;
A person is driven by passion, driven by his desire for pleasure; temptation is strong and passion is "thicker than arguments." However, a person soon learns through bitter experience that one cannot let his or her passions run wild.
Self-love, to urge, and Reason, to restrain;
...
Self-love still stronger, as its objects nigh;
Reason's at distance, and in prospect lie:
Attention, habit and experience gains;
Pope's theme is again repeated: the two driving forces of man are his reason and his passion. However, passion is the king and reason but a "weak queen."
Each strengthens Reason, and Self-love restrains.
...
Self-love and Reason to one end aspire,
Pain their aversion, Pleasure their desire,
...
Pleasure, or wrong or rightly understood,
Our greatest evil, or our greatest good.
...
Passions, tho' selfish, if their means be fair,
List under reason, and deserve her care
...
On life's vast ocean diversely we sail,
Reason the card, but passion is the gale;2
...
Love, Hope, and Joy, fair Pleasure's smiling train,
Hate, Fear, and Grief, the family of Pain,
These mix'd with art, and to due bounds confin'd,
Make and maintain the balance of the mind:
What can she more than tell us we are fools?
Reason ("th' Eternal Art, educing good from ill") is not a guide but a guard. Passion is the "mightier pow'r."
Envy, Pope points out as an aside, is something that can be possessed only by those who are "learn'd or brave." Ambition: "can destroy or save, and makes a patriot as it makes a knave."
Teach us to mourn our nature, not to mend.
A sharp accuser but a helpless friend!
As, in some well-wrought picture, light and shade
Each person is driven by self-love, but on the same occasion "each on the other to depend, a master, or a servant, or a friend, bids each on other for assistance call." Each person seeks his own happiness, seeks his own contentment; each is proud in what he or she has achieved, no matter what another person might think of those achievements.
And oft so mix, the diff'rence is too nice,
Where ends the virtue, or begins the vice.
...
And virtuous and vicious ev'ry man must be,
Few in the extreme, but all in the degree;
Whate'er the passions, knowledge, fame, or pelf,
None of us should be critical of another person's choice in life, who is to know it is right.
Not one will change is neighbour with himself.
The learn'd is happy nature to explore,
The fool is happy that he knows no more;
The rich is happy in the plenty given,
The poor contents him with the care of Heaven,
See the blind beggar dance, the cripple sing
The sot a hero, lunatic a king;
The starving chemist in his golden views
Supremely bless'd, the poet in his Muse.
Behold the child, by nature's kindly law,
Pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw:
Some livelier plaything give his youth delight,
A little louder, but as empty quite:
Scarfs, garters, gold, amuse his riper stage,
And beads and prayer-books are the toys of age:
Pleased with this bauble still, as that before,
Till tired he sleeps, and life's poor play is o'er.
All forms that perish other forms supply,
Then, Pope picks up once again his theme of the ruling principles, reason and passion. Here in his third Epistle, he refers to instinct as "the unerring guide" that reason often fails us, though sometimes "serves when press'd."
(By turns we catch the vital breath, and die)
Like bubbles on the sea a matter borne,
They rise, they break, and to that sea return
Nothing is foreign; parts relate to whole:
But honest instinct comes a volunteer,
Instinct can be seen at work throughout nature, for example, "Who make the spider parallels design ... without rule or line?" Not just the spider does things by instinct, man does. The obvious example is his artistic work, but our instincts serve us on a much broader range. Think! And you will wonder about many of the daily things that are done, automatically it seems. What, exactly, is it that prompts us to do things.
Sure never to o'ershoot, but just to hit,
While still to wide or short is human wit;
Sure by quick nature happiness to gain,
Which heavier reason labour at in vain.
Who calls the council, states the certain day,
Pope then comes to a rather critical passage in his essay, when he deals with family units in the animal kingdom versus human beings. The fact of the matter is, family units do not count for much in the animal kingdom, at any rate, not for long. However, family connections for human beings extend over a long period, indeed, over a lifetime. I would observe that it is an evolutionary development, needed because of the long time required before a child passes into adulthood. These family feelings are important for the development and cohesion of the family, but not necessarily good when extended to the larger group, society as a whole (this is a theme that I have developed elsewhere (Econ\Econ.doc) and which someday I hope to put up on the 'net.).
Who forms the phalanx, and who points the way?
Thus beast and bird their common charge attend,
Pope then, continuing with his third Epistle, returns to his principle and the power of nature. Nature is a "driving gale," a fact which can be observed in "the voice of nature" and which we can learn from the birds and the beasts. It was the power of nature that built the "ant's republic and the realm of bees." Pope observes "anarchy without confusion."
The mothers nurse it, and the sires defend:
The young dismiss'd to wander earth or air,
There stops the instinct, and there ends the care;
The link dissolves, each seeks a fresh embrace,
Another love succeeds, another race.
A longer care man's helpless kind demands;
That longer care contracts more lasting bands:
Reflection, reason, still the ties improve,
At one extend the interest, and the love;
With choice we fix, with sympathy we burn;
Each virtue in each passion takes its turn;
And still new needs, new helps, new habits rise
That graft benevolence on charities.
Still as one brood, and as another rose,
These natural love maintain'd, habitual those:
The last, scarce ripen'd into perfect man,
Saw helpless from him whom their life began:
Memory and forecast just returns engage;
That pointed back to youth, this on to age;
While pleasure, gratitude, and hope, combined,
Still spread the interest, and preserved the kind.
Their separate cells and properties maintain.
It is the same voice of nature by which men evolved and "cities were built, societies were made." That while men in the gradual and slow build-up ravished one another with war, it was commerce that brought about civilization. Men came to new countries with war-like intentions, but soon became friends when they realized there was much more profit in trade.
Mark what unvaried laws preserve each state;-
Laws wise as nature, and as fix'd as fate.
In vain thy reason finer webs shall draw;
Entangle justice in her net of law;
And right, too rigid, harden into wrong,
Still for the strong too weak, the weak too strong.
Yet go! and thus o'er all the creatures sway;
Thus let the wiser make the rest obey;
And for those arts mere instinct could afford,
Be crown'd as monarchs, or as gods adored.
When love was liberty, and nature law:
So, it was trade that built civilizations, and Pope observes, that it was tradition that preserves them.
Thus states were form'd; the name of king unknown,
Till common interest placed the sway in one
'Twas Virtue only, or in arts or arms,
Convey'd unbroken faith from sire to son;
Then, continuing in this historical vein, Pope deals with the development of government and of laws.
The worker from the work distinct was known,
So drives self-love, through just and through unjust
Pope makes a side observation that while government is necessary, its form is of less importance, what is important, is a good administration:
To one man's power, ambition, lucre, lust:
The same self-love, in all, becomes the cause
Of what restrains him, government and laws:
For, what one likes if others like as well,
What serves one will, when many wills rebel?
How shall we keep, what, sleeping or awake,
A weaker may surprise, a stronger take?
His safety must his liberty restrain:
All join to guard what each desires to gain.
Forced into virtue thus by self-defence,
Ev'n kings learn'd justice and benevolence:
Self-love forsook the path it first pursued,
And found the private in the public good.
'Twas then, the studious head or generous mind,
Follower of God or friend of human-kind,
Poet or patriot, rose but to restore
The faith and moral Nature gave before;
Relumed her ancient light, not kindled new;
If not God's image, yet his shadow drew;
Taught power's due use to people and to kings;
Taught not to slack nor strain its tender strings;
The less or greater set so justly true,
That touching one must strike the other too;
Till jarring int'rests of themselves create
Th' according music of a well-mix'd state.
Such is the world's great harmony, that springs
From order, union, full consent of things:
Where small and great, where weak and mighty made
To serve, not suffer, strengthen, not invade;
More pow'rful each as needful to the rest,
And in proportion as it blesses, blest;
Draw to one point, and to one centre bring
Beast, man, or angel, servant, lord, or king.
For forms of government let fools contest;
Pope then concludes in his third Epistle, emphasizing that regard for oneself and his family has to be different than regard for the whole of society, that nature "link'd the gen'ral frame and bade self-love and social be the same."
Whate'er is best administer'd is best:
Take Nature's path, and made Opinion's leave;
To Pope, pleasure does not last, it "sicken, and all glories sink." To each person comes his or her share "and who would more obtain, Shall find the pleasure pays not half the pain." To be rich, to be wise: these are both laudable goals and a person looking about will always be able to find others who have riches and wisdom in varying degrees, but it cannot be concluded to any degree that they are happy. Happiness comes when one has "health, peace, and competence." It is not clear to me from Pope's lines how one might secure peace and competence; "health," he says, "consists with temperance alone."
All states can reach it and all heads conceive;
Obvious her goods, in no extreme they dwell;
There needs but thinking right, and meaning well;
And mourn our various portions as we please,
Equal is common sense, and common ease.
But still this world, so fitted for the knave,
It all too often appears to us that "virtue starves, while vice is fed." One might wish for man to be a God and for earth to be a heaven, both God and heaven coming from the imaginations of man. But, Pope concludes:
Contents us not. A better shall we have?
A kingdom of the just then let it be:
But first consider how those just agree.
The good must merit God's peculiar care;
But who but God can tell us who they are?
'Whatever is, is right.' -- This world, 'tis true,...
Of fame, Pope says, it is but "a fancied life in others' breath ... All that we feel of it begins and ends in the small circle of our foes and friends ..." It will get you nothing but a crowd "of stupid starers and of loud huzzas." Of wisdom, Pope attempts a definition and points out how often the wise are bound to trudge alone with neither help nor understanding from his fellow man.
In parts superior what advantage lies!
And so we arrive at the last of Pope's lines.
Tell, for you can, what is it to be wise?
'Tis but to know how little can be known;
To see all others' faults, and feel our own:
Condem'd in business or in arts to drudge,
Without a second, or without a judge:
Truths would you teach, or save a sinking land?
All fear, none aid you, and few understand.
Show'd erring Pride, WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT;
That Reason, Passion, answer one great aim;
That true Self-love and Social are the same ...
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