An Essay On Man: Epistle I. Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

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THE DESIGN	A
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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	B
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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 myself 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	C
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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 perspicuity to ornament without wandering 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	D
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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 connexion 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	E
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An Essay On Man Epistle I	F
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ARGUMENT	G
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OF THE NATURE AND STATE OF MAN WITH RESPECT TO THE UNIVERSE	H
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Of man in the abstract	I
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I That we can judge only with regard to our own system being ignorant of the relations of systems and things ver 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 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 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 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 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 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 VIII How much further 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 IX The extravagance madness and pride of such a desire ver X The consequence of all the absolute submission due to Providence both as to our present and future state ver c to the end	J
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Awake my St John leave all meaner things	K
To low ambition and the pride of kings	K
Let us since life can little more supply	F
Than just to look about us and to die	F
Expatiate free o'er all this scene of Man	L
A mighty maze but not without a plan	L
A wild where weeds and flowers promiscuous shoot	M
Or garden tempting with forbidden fruit	M
Together let us beat this ample field	N
Try what the open what the covert yield	N
The latent tracts the giddy heights explore	O
Of all who blindly creep or sightless soar	O
Eye Nature's walks shoot folly as it flies	P
And catch the manners living as they rise	P
Laugh where we must be candid where we can	L
But vindicate the ways of God to Man	L
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I Say first of God above or Man below	Q
What can we reason but from what we know	Q
Of Man what see we but his station here	R
From which to reason or to which refer	S
Through worlds unnumber'd though the God be known	T
'Tis ours to trace him only in our own	T
He who through vast immensity can pierce	U
See worlds on worlds compose one universe	H
Observe how system into system runs	V
What other planets circle other suns	V
What varied being peoples every star	W
May tell why Heaven has made us as we are	W
But of this frame the bearings and the ties	P
The strong connexions nice dependencies	X
Gradations just has thy pervading soul	Y
Look'd through or can a part contain the whole	Y
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Is the great chain that draws all to agree	D
And drawn supports upheld by God or thee	D
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II Presumptuous Man the reason wouldst thou find	Z
Why form'd so weak so little and so blind	Z
First if thou canst the harder reason guess	A2
Why form'd no weaker blinder and no less	A2
Ask of thy mother earth why oaks are made	B2
Taller or stronger than the weeds they shade	B2
Or ask of yonder argent fields above	C2
Why Jove's satellites are less than Jove	C2
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Of systems possible if 'tis confess'd	D2
That Wisdom infinite must form the best	D2
Where all must full or not coherent be	D
And all that rises rise in due degree	D
Then in the scale of reasoning life 'tis plain	E2
There must be somewhere such a rank as Man	L
And all the question wrangle e'er so long	F2
Is only this if God has placed him wrong	F2
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Respecting Man whatever wrong we call	G2
May must be right as relative to all	G2
In human works though labour'd on with pain	E2
A thousand movements scarce one purpose gain	E2
In God's one single can its end produce	H2
Yet serves to second too some other use	H2
So Man who here seems principal alone	T
Perhaps acts second to some sphere unknown	T
Touches some wheel or verges to some goal	Y
'Tis but a part we see and not a whole	Y
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When the proud steed shall know why Man restrains	I2
His fiery course or drives him o'er the plains	I2
When the dull ox why now he breaks the clod	D2
Is now a victim and now Egypt's god	D2
Then shall man's pride and dulness comprehend	D2
His actions' passions' being's use and end	D2
Why doing suffering check'd impell'd and why	F
This hour a slave the next a deity	D2
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Then say not Man's imperfect Heaven in fault	D2
Say rather Man's as perfect as he ought	D2
His knowledge measured to his state and place	J2
His time a moment and a point his space	J2
If to be perfect in a certain sphere	K2
What matter soon or late or here or there	L2
The blest to day is as completely so	Q
As who began a thousand years ago	Q
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III Heaven from all creatures hides the book of Fate	D2
All but the page prescribed their present state	D2
From brutes what men from men what spirits know	Q
Or who could suffer being here below	Q
The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to day	D2
Had he thy reason would he skip and play	D2
Pleased to the last he crops the flowery food	D2
And licks the hand just raised to shed his blood	D2
Oh blindness to the future kindly given	M2
That each may fill the circle mark'd by Heaven	M2
Who sees with equal eye as God of all	G2
A hero perish or a sparrow fall	G2
Atoms or systems into ruin hurl'd	D2
And now a bubble burst and now a world	D2
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Hope humbly then with trembling pinions soar	O
Wait the great teacher Death and God adore	O
What future bliss He gives not thee to know	Q
But gives that hope to be thy blessing now	N2
Hope springs eternal in the human breast	D2
Man never Is but always To be blest	D2
The soul uneasy and confined from home	O2
Rests and expatiates in a life to come	P2
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Lo the poor Indian whose untutor'd mind	D2
Sees God in clouds or hears him in the wind	D2
His soul proud science never taught to stray	D2
Far as the solar walk or milky way	D2
Yet simple nature to his hope has given	M2
Behind the cloud topp'd hill an humbler heaven	M2
Some safer world in depth of woods embraced	D2
Some happier island in the watery waste	D2
Where slaves once more their native land behold	D2
No fiends torment no Christians thirst for gold	D2
To be contents his natural desire	S
He asks no angel's wing no seraph's fire	S
But thinks admitted to that equal sky	F
His faithful dog shall bear him company	D2
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IV Go wiser thou and in thy scale of sense	Q2
Weigh thy opinion against Providence	R2
Call imperfection what thou fanciest such	S2
Say here he gives too little there too much	S2
Destroy all creatures for thy sport or gust	D2
Yet cry If Man's unhappy God's unjust	D2
If Man alone engross not Heaven's high care	L2
Alone made perfect here immortal there	L2
Snatch from his hand the balance and the rod	D2
Re judge his justice be the God of God	D2
In pride in reasoning pride our error lies	P
All quit their sphere and rush into the skies	P
Pride still is aiming at the blest abodes	P
Men would be angels angels would be gods	P
Aspiring to be gods if angels fell	T2
Aspiring to be angels men rebel	E
And who but wishes to invert the laws	P
Of ORDER sins against the Eternal Cause	P
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V Ask for what end the heavenly bodies shine	A
Earth for whose use Pride answers ''Tis for mine	A
For me kind Nature wakes her genial power	S
Suckles each herb and spreads out every flower	S
Annual for me the grape the rose renew	U2
The juice nectareous and the balmy dew	U2
For me the mine a thousand treasures brings	P
For me health gushes from a thousand springs	P
Seas roll to waft me suns to light me rise	P
My footstool earth my canopy the skies '	-
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But errs not Nature from this gracious end	D2
From burning suns when livid deaths descend	D2
When earthquakes swallow or when tempests sweep	V2
Towns to one grave whole nations to the deep	V2
'No' 'tis replied 'the first Almighty Cause	P
Acts not by partial but by general laws	P
Th' exceptions few some change since all began	L
And what created perfect ' Why then Man	L
If the great end be human happiness	P
Then Nature deviates and can Man do less	P
As much that end a constant course requires	P
Of showers and sunshine as of Man's desires	P
As much eternal springs and cloudless skies	P
As men for ever temperate calm and wise	P
If plagues or earthquakes break not Heaven's design	A
Why then a Borgia or a Catiline	A
Who knows but He whose hand the lightning forms	P
Who heaves old Ocean and who wings the storms	P
Pours fierce ambition in a Caesar's mind	D2
Or turns young Ammon loose to scourge mankind	D2
From pride from pride our very reasoning springs	P
Account for moral as for natural things	P
Why charge we Heaven in those in these acquit	D2
In both to reason right is to submit	D2
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Better for us perhaps it might appear	K2
Were there all harmony all virtue here	R
That never air or ocean felt the wind	D2
That never passion discomposed the mind	D2
But all subsists by elemental strife	C2
And passions are the elements of life	C2
The general order since the whole began	A
Is kept in Nature and is kept in Man	A
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VI What would this Man Now upward will he soar	O
And little less than angel would be more	O
Now looking downwards just as grieved appears	P
To want the strength of bulls the fur of bears	P
Made for his use all creatures if he call	G2
Say what their use had he the powers of all	G2
Nature to these without profusion kind	D2
The proper organs proper powers assign'd	D2
Each seeming want compensated of course	P
Here with degrees of swiftness there of force	P
All in exact proportion to the state	D2
Nothing to add and nothing to abate	D2
Each beast each insect happy in its own	A
Is Heaven unkind to Man and Man alone	A
Shall he alone whom rational we call	G2
Be pleased with nothing if not bless'd with all	G2
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The bliss of Man could pride that blessing find	D2
Is not to act or think beyond mankind	D2
No powers of body or of soul to share	L2
But what his nature and his state can bear	L2
Why has not Man a microscopic eye	F
For this plain reason Man is not a fly	F
Say what the use were finer optics given	A
T'inspect a mite not comprehend the heaven	A
Or touch if tremblingly alive all o'er	S
To smart and agonise at every pore	O
Or quick effluvia darting through the brain	A
Die of a rose in aromatic pain	A
If nature thunder'd in his opening ears	P
And stunn'd him with the music of the spheres	P
How would he wish that Heaven had left him still	W2
The whispering zephyr and the purling rill	W2
Who finds not Providence all good and wise	P
Alike in what it gives and what denies	P
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VII Far as Creation's ample range extends	P
The scale of sensual mental powers ascends	P
Mark how it mounts to Man's imperial race	P
From the green myriads in the peopled grass	P
What modes of sight betwixt each wide extreme	X2
The mole's dim curtain and the lynx's beam	X2
Of smell the headlong lioness between	A
And hound sagacious on the tainted green	A
Of hearing from the life that fills the flood	D2
To that which warbles through the vernal wood	D2
The spider's touch how exquisitely fine	A
Feels at each thread and lives along the line	A
In the nice bee what sense so subtly true	U2
From poisonous herbs extracts the healing dew	U2
How instinct varies in the grovelling swine	A
Compared half reasoning elephant with thine	A
'Twixt that and reason what a nice barrier	S
For ever separate yet for ever near	K2
Remembrance and reflection how allied	D2
What thin partitions sense from thought divide	D2
And middle natures how they long to join	A
Yet never pass th' insuperable line	A
Without this just gradation could they be	D2
Subjected these to those or all to thee	D2
The powers of all subdued by thee alone	A
Is not thy reason all these powers in one	A
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VIII See through this air this ocean and this earth	Y2
All matter quick and bursting into birth	Y2
Above how high progressive life may go	Q
Around how wide how deep extend below	Q
Vast chain of being which from God began	A
Natures ethereal human angel man	A
Beast bird fish insect what no eye can see	D2
No glass can reach from Infinite to Thee	D2
From Thee to Nothing On superior powers	P
Were we to press inferior might on ours	P
Or in the full creation leave a void	D2
Where one step broken the great scale's destroy'd	D2
From Nature's chain whatever link you strike	Z2
Tenth or ten thousandth breaks the chain alike	Z2
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And if each system in gradation roll	Y
Alike essential to th' amazing whole	Y
The least confusion but in one not all	G2
That system only but the whole must fall	G2
Let earth unbalanced from her orbit fly	F
Planets and suns run lawless through the sky	F
Let ruling angels from their spheres be hurl'd	D2
Being on being wreck'd and world on world	D2
Heaven's whole foundations to their centre nod	D2
And Nature trembles to the throne of God	D2
All this dread order break for whom for thee	D2
Vile worm oh madness pride impiety	D2
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IX What if the foot ordain'd the dust to tread	D2
Or hand to toil aspired to be the head	D2
What if the head the eye or ear repined	D2
To serve mere engines to the ruling mind	D2
Just as absurd for any part to claim	A3
To be another in this general frame	A3
Just as absurd to mourn the tasks or pains	P
The great directing Mind of All ordains	P
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All are but parts of one stupendous whole	Y
Whose body Nature is and God the soul	Y
That changed through all and yet in all the same	A3
Great in the earth as in th' ethereal frame	A3
Warms in the sun refreshes in the breeze	P
Glows in the stars and blossoms in the trees	P
Lives through all life extends through all extent	D2
Spreads undivided operates unspent	D2
Breathes in our soul informs our mortal part	D2
As full as perfect in a hair as heart	D2
As full as perfect in vile Man that mourns	P
As the rapt Seraph that adores and burns	P
To Him no high no low no great no small	G2
He fills He bounds connects and equals all	G2
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X Cease then nor Order imperfection name	A3
Our proper bliss depends on what we blame	A3
Know thy own point this kind this due degree	D2
Of blindness weakness Heaven bestows on thee	D2
Submit in this or any other sphere	K2
Secure to be as bless'd as thou canst bear	L2
Safe in the hand of one disposing Power	S
Or in the natal or the mortal hour	S
All Nature is but Art unknown to thee	D2
All chance direction which thou canst not see	D2
All discord harmony not understood	D2
All partial evil universal good	D2
And spite of pride in erring reason's spite	D2
One truth is clear WHATEVER IS IS RIGHT	D2
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VARIATIONS	P
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In former editions VER	S
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Now wears a garland an Egyptian god	D2
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Altered as above for the reason given in the note	D2
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After VER the following lines in first edit	D2
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If to be perfect in a certain sphere	K2
What matters soon or late or here or there	L2
The blest to day is as completely so	P
As who began ten thousand years ago	P
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After VER in the MS	P
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No great no little 'tis as much decreed	D2
That Virgil's gnat should die as Caesar bleed	D2
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In the first folio and quarto	P
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What bliss above He gives not thee to know	P
But gives that hope to be thy bliss below	P
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After VER in the first edition	A
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But does he say the Maker is not good	D2
Till he's exalted to what state he would	D2
Himself alone high Heaven's peculiar care	L2
Alone made happy when he will and where	L2
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VER first edition	A
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Ethereal essence spirit substance man	A
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After VER in the MS	P
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Reason to think of God when she pretends	P
Begins a censor an adorer ends	P

Alexander Pope

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