An Essay on Man

In his An Essay on Man, Alexander Pope attempts to “vindicate the ways of God to man” (li 16), similarly to John Milton before him with Paradise Lost. Where Milton attempted to explain forces of good and evil through an evolution of story and character, Pope’s argument comes down to one simple premise: “Whatever is, is right” (li 294), which is to say that whatever happens is what is supposed to be, because life and the universe is part of an overarching order and man simply is incapable of seeing the greater picture.

Pope reiterates his thesis several times in An Essay on Man, first questioning mankind’s ability to even question what is experienced, simply because, as Pope asks, “What can we reason, but from what we know?” (li 18). Mankind is incapable of transcending his or her own experience and understanding, therefore a person will never truly understand why evil or disorder exists in the world. After all, “’Tis but a part we see, and not a whole” (li 60). Instead of questioning the existence of negative forces in the world, Pope suggests embracing mankind’s existence as it is and acknowledging that “Man’s as perfect as he ought” (li 70). He even leaves some interpretive wiggle-room, acknowledging that mankind may not be completely and totally perfect, but it is not within mankind’s room to question that existence because “What created perfect?” (li 148). In other words, even if there is evil, even if there is disorder in the world, even if mankind is flawed: who can say they have created utter perfection, so why should God not be subject to the same capability of flaws and errors?

While Pope’s argument is fundamentally sound, it is built upon an assumption that there is a greater picture to the world or universe and that mankind is simply unable to see it because they are “but parts of one stupendous whole” (li 2267). But Pope has no way to prove that there is an organized whole, any more than any other person can argue there is or is not one. It is an assumption -- one that Pope clearly buys into, but any reader who refuses to accept the same premise will immediately find fundamental flaws in Pope’s argument. He might as well proclaim that there is disorder or acts of evil in the world because everything is random and beyond our control, or because humanity, as flawed creations, deserve the evil that comes to themselves. To buy into Pope’s argument requires the acceptance of a bigger picture of organization in the world, and without that acceptance, the rest of Pope’s argument is simply flowery, yet empty, rhetoric.

Works Cited

Pope, Alexander. An Essay on Man. 1650 to the Present. Eds. Suzanne Akbari, Wiebke Denecke, Vinay Dharwadker, Barbara Fuchs, Caroline Levine, Pericles Lewis, Emily Wilson. Shorter 3rd ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2013. 90-97. Print. Vol. 2 of The Norton Anthology of World Literature, Martin Puchner, gen ed. 2 vols.