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Unit 24: Alexander Pope: The Rape of the Lock

Section IV (147-98): Section IV discusses the state of man at the time of creation, in particular the Notes
harmony between all elements of society. Initially bound by instinct, man looked to other creatures
for instruction on how to act and develop their own forms of society, using reason to teach themselves.
Section V (199-214): Section V explains the development of political societies, especially the origins
of monarchy and patriarchal government.
Section VI (215-318): Section VI examines the roles of religion and government in society. According
to Pope’s argument, the origin of both true religion and government is the principle of love: faith is
the love of God and government is the love of man. By contrast, superstition and tyranny both
originate from the same principle of fear. Thus self-love, through just and unjust means, can either
drive man’s ambition or restrain him. Pope then describes man’s efforts to restore true religion and
government on their first principle. Both religion and government take many forms, but their ultimate
ends are to govern the soul and to govern society.

Analysis
The third epistle treats on man’s social contract with family, government, and religion, and Pope
focuses on the bonds that unite man with others. While the second epistle shows that self-love governs
man’s actions, love governs the universe, binding its disparate elements. Modern readers might be
inclined to interpret this to mean erotic or familial love, but Pope actually refers to a sort of contractual
love, which forms a building-block of God’s design and the chain of being. Atoms, for example,
attract and are attracted to each other, which ensures that they remain in their proper place. Likewise,
dirt sustains the growth of plants, and when a plant dies, it returns to dirt to nourish its fellow plants.
Man’s grass and flowers provide food for antelope while antelope also nourish man. All parts in the
circle of life thus “relate to whole,” and love “connects each being, greatest with the least / Made
beast in aid of man, and man of best; / All serv’d, all serving: nothing stands alone” (21, 23-5). Love
provides a convenient way for Pope to describe symbiosis in the relationship between God’s creatures,
indicative of God’s greater design.
Pope goes on to discuss the effects that instinct and reason have on God’s creation. All creatures are
imbued with either instinct or reason, whichever is best suited to their nature. According to Pope’s
argument, instinct tends to characterize beasts while man serves reason. Those governed by instinct
are largely complacent, needing no assistance from “pope or council” (84). By contrast, reason seems
to result in more calculated behavior and these creatures must labor at happiness which instinct
quickly secures. While these are hardly original observations, Pope implies that instinct is the work
of God while reason is that of man. This conclusion accounts for the development of man. In man’s
infancy humans were governed by instinct. Man then learned various behaviors—ploughing from
the mole, political arts from the bees, etc.—by copying animals, thus developing human reason.
Through observations of his fellow creatures, man began to build his own cities, demonstrating
sociability through government and religion. Man’s early societies were patriarchal, featuring mild
and natural rulers. Everyone conducted themselves virtuously and celebrated God until patriarchs
directed self-love towards personal ambition and priests perverted religious worship. It was not
until man redirected self-love towards its natural sociability through restraint, namely “government
and laws,” that man formed a social contract, which established good government and laws by
rational agreement for mutual security (272). Pope’s conclusion, therefore, is that private good is
best achieved by preventing a conflict with public good: “Thus God and nature link’d the general
frame, / And bade self-love and social be the same” (317-8).

24.2.4 An Essay on Man: Epistle IV
Summary

The subtitle of the fourth epistle is “On the Nature and State of Man, with Respect to Happiness” and
depicts man’s various attempts to achieve true human happiness. Pope endeavors to prove that virtue
alone can generate such happiness.

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