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British Poetry

Notes Section V (217-30): Section V illustrates the evils of vice and explains how easily man is drawn to it.

Section VI (231-294): Section VI asserts that man’s passions and imperfections are simply designed
to suit God’s purposes. The passions and imperfections are distributed to all individuals of each
order of men in all societies. They guide man in every state and at every age of life.

Analysis

The second epistle adds to the interpretive challenges presented in the first epistle. At its outset, Pope
commands man to “Know then thyself,” an adage that misdescribes his argument (1). Although he
actually intends for man to better understand his place in the universe, the classical meaning of “Know
thyself” is that man should look inwards for truth rather than outwards. Having spent most of the
first epistle describing man’s relationship to God as well as his fellow creatures, Pope’s true meaning
of the phrase is clear. He then confuses the issue by endeavoring to convince man to avoid the
presumptuousness of studying God’s creation through natural science. Science has given man the
tools to better understand God’s creation, but its intoxicating power has caused man to imitate God.
It seems that man must look outwards to gain any understanding of his divine purpose but avoid
excessive analysis of what he sees. To do so would be to assume the role of God.
The second epistle abruptly turns to focus on the principles that guide human action. The rest of
this section focuses largely on “self-love,” an eighteenth-century term for self-maintenance and
fulfillment. It was common during Pope’s lifetime to view the passions as the force determining
human action. Typically instinctual, the immediate object of the passions was seen as pleasure.
According to Pope’s philosophy, each man has a “ruling passion” that subordinates the others. In
contrast with the accepted eighteenth-century views of the passions, Pope’s doctrine of the “ruling
passion” is quite original. It seems clear that with this idea, Pope tries to explain why certain
individual behave in distinct ways, seemingly governed by a particular desire. He does not, however,
make this explicit in the poem.
Pope’s discussion of the passions shows that “self-love” and “reason” are not opposing principles.
Reason’s role, it seems, is to regulate human behavior while self-love originates it. In another sense,
self-love and the passions dictate the short term while reason shapes the long term.

24.2.3 An Essay on Man: Epistle III
Summary
The subtitle of the third epistle is “Of the Nature and State of Man, with Respect to Society,” and this
section discusses man’s relation to family, government, and religion. Pope states that love connects
the universe and that all creatures exchange services in a symbiotic relationship. Individual instances
of human tyranny, however, offend nature. Instinct and reason are the guiding principles of man’s
behavior and have dictated man’s trajectory since creation.
Here is a section-by-section explanation of the third epistle:
Introduction (1-6): The introduction simply reiterates the points Pope made in the first two epistles.
Section I (7-78): Section I suggests that the whole universe is one system of society. Nothing is made
wholly for the benefit to itself, nor wholly for the benefit of others. Instead, everything is bound
together in a neighboring embrace and all “parts relate to whole” (21). Those who fail to perform
the role that nature has ordained will not be aided by society.
Section II (79-108): Section II states that all creatures are given either reason or instinct, whichever is
best suited to the individual. Reason or instinct operates all society in both man and the animals.
Section III (109-46): Section III first demonstrates how far society can be carried by instinct, then
shows how much farther society can be carried by reason. In society, creatures are instinctively
united by mutual need. Reason extends that instinct into emotional connection.

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