An Essay on Man

Alexander Pope, Tom Jones, Tom Jones

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781400880447
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: European Poetry
• Index: Literature

A definitive new edition of one of the greatest philosophical poems in the English language Voltaire called it "the most sublime didactic poem ever written in any language." Rousseau rhapsodized about its intellectual consolations. Kant recited long passages of it from memory during his lectures. And Adam Smith and David Hume drew inspiration from it in their writings. This was Alexander Pope's Essay on Man (1733–34), a masterpiece of philosophical poetry, one of the most important and controversial works of the Enlightenment, and one of the most widely read, imitated, and discussed poems of eighteenth-century Europe and America. This volume, which presents the first major new edition of the poem in more than fifty years, introduces this essential work to a new generation of readers, recapturing the excitement and illuminating the debates it provoked from the moment of its publication.Echoing Milton's purpose in Paradise Lost, Pope says his aim in An Essay on Man is to "vindicate the ways of God to man"—to explain the existence of evil and explore man's place in the universe. In a comprehensive introduction, Tom Jones describes the poem as an investigation of the fundamental question of how people should behave in a world they experience as chaotic, but which they suspect to be orderly from some higher point of view. The introduction provides a thorough discussion of the poem's attitudes, themes, composition, context, and reception, and reassesses the work's place in history. Extensive annotations to the text explain references and allusions.The result is the most accessible, informative, and reader-friendly edition of the poem in decades and an invaluable book for students and scholars of eighteenth-century literature and thought.

AN

ESSAY on MAN,

Or the FIRST BOOK of

ETHIC EPISTLES,

TO

H. ST. JOHN L. BOLINGBROKE.

TO THE READER

As the Epistolary Way of Writing hath prevailed much of late, we have ventured to publish this Piece composed some Time since, and whose Author chose this Manner, notwithstanding his Subject was high and of dignity, because of its being mixt with Argument, which of its Nature approacheth to Prose. This, which we first give the Reader, treats of the Nature and State of MAN, with Respect to the UNIVERSAL SYSTEM; the rest will treat of him with Respect to his OWN SYSTEM, as an Individual, and as a Member of Society; under one or other of which Heads all Ethicks are included.

As he imitates no Man, so he would be thought to vye with no Man in these Epistles, particularly with the noted Author of Two lately published: But this he may most surely say, that the Matter of them is such, as is of Importance to all in general, and of Offence to none in particular.

TO THE READER

The Author was induced to publish these Epistles separately for two Reasons, The One, that he might not impose upon the Publick too much at once of what he thought incorrect; The other, that by this Method he might profit of its Judgement on the Parts, in order to make the Whole less unworthy.

THE DESIGN

HAVING proposed to write some pieces on Human Life and Manners, such as (to use my Lord Bacon’s expression) come home to Men’s Business and Bosoms, I thought it more satisfactory to begin with considering Man in the abstract, his Nature and his State: since, to prove any moral duty, to enforce any moral precept, or to examine the perfection or imperfection of any creature whatsoever, it is necessary first to know what condition and relation it is placed in, and what is the proper end and purpose of its being.

The science of Human Nature is, like all other sciences, reduced to a few clear points: There are not many certain truths in this world. It is therefore in the Anatomy of the Mind as in that of the Body; more good will accrue to mankind by attending to the large, open, and perceptible parts, than by studying too much such finer nerves and vessels, the conformations and uses of which will for ever escape our observation. The disputes are all upon these last, and, I will venture to say, they have less sharpened the wits than the hearts of men against each other, and have diminished the practice, more than advanced the theory, of Morality. If I could flatter my self that this Essay has any merit, it is in steering betwixt the extremes of doctrines seemingly opposite, in passing over terms utterly unintelligible, and in forming a temperate yet not inconsistent, and a short yet not imperfect system of Ethics.

This I might have done in prose; but I chose verse, and even rhyme, for two reasons. The one will appear obvious; that principles, maxims, or precepts so written, both strike the reader more strongly at first, and are more easily retained by him afterwards: The other may seem odd, but is true, I found I could express them more shortly this way than in prose itself; and nothing is more certain, than that much of the force as well as grace of arguments or instructions, depends on their conciseness. I was unable to treat this part of my subject more in detail, without becoming dry and tedious; or more poetically, without sacrificing the perspicuity to ornament, without wandring from the precision, or breaking the chain of reasoning: If any man can unite all these without diminution of any of them, I freely confess he will compass a thing above my capacity.

What is now published, is only to be considered as a general Map of MAN, marking out no more than the greater parts, their extent, their limits, and their connection, but leaving the particular to be more fully delineated in the charts which are to follow. 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.

The first version of “To the Reader” is found in early issues of the first epistle; the second version in late issues of Epistle I and in Epistle II; “The Design” was first included in the first collected edition of the four epistles in 1734 (MM).

EPISTLE I.

ARGUMENT.

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, VER. 17, &c. 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, VER. 35, &c. III. That it is partly upon his ignorance of future events, and partly upon the hope of a future state, that all his happiness in the present depends, VER. 77, &c. 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, VER. 113, &c. 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, VER. 131, &c. 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, VER. 173, &c. VII. That throughout the whole visible world, an universal order and gradation in the sensual and mental faculties is observed, which causes a subordination of creature to creature, and of all creatures to Man. The gradations of sense, instinct, thought, reflection, reason; that Reason alone countervails all the other faculties, VER. 207. VIII. How much farther this order and subordination of living creatures may extend, above and below us; were any part of which broken, not that part only, but the whole connected creation must be destroyed. VER. 233. IX. The extravagance, madness, and pride of such a desire, VER. 259. X. The consequence of all, the absolute submission due to Providence, both as to our present and future state, VER. 281, &c. to the end.

AWAKE, my ST. JOHN! leave all meaner things

To low ambition, and the pride of Kings.

Let us (since Life can little more supply

Than just to look about us and to die)

Expatiate free o’er all this scene of Man;5

A mighty maze! but not without a plan;

A Wild, where weeds and flow’rs promiscuous shoot,

Or Garden, tempting with forbidden fruit.

Together let us beat this ample field,

Try what the open, what the covert yield;10

The latent tracts, the giddy heights explore

Of all who blindly creep, or sightless soar;

Eye Nature’s walks, shoot Folly as it flies,

And catch the Manners living as they rise;

Laugh where we must, be candid where we can;15

But vindicate the ways of God to Man.

I. Say first, of God above, or Man below,

What can we reason, but from what we know?

Of Man what see we, but his station here,

From which to reason, or to which refer?20

Thro’ worlds unnumber’d tho’ the God be known,

’Tis ours to trace him only in our own.

He, who thro’ vast immensity can pierce,

See worlds on worlds compose one universe,

Observe how system into system runs,25

What other planets circle other suns,

What vary’d being peoples ev’ry star,

May tell why Heav’n has made us as we are.

But of this frame the bearings, and the ties,

The strong connections, nice dep...