EPISTLE II.

I. KNOW then thyself,1 presume not God to scan,
The proper study of mankind is Man.

Placed on this isthmus of a middle state,2

A Being darkly wise, and rudely great:

With too much knowledge for the Skeptic 3 side,
With too much weakness for the Stoic's 4 pride,
He hangs between; in doubt to act, or rest;
In doubt to deem himself a god, or beast;
In doubt his mind or body to prefer;
Born but to die, and reasoning but to err;
Alike in ignorance, his reason such,5
Whether he thinks too little, or too much:
Chaos of Thought and Passion, all confused;
Still by himself abused or disabused;
Created half to rise, and half to fall;8

Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all;

Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled:
The glory, jest, and riddle of the world!

5

IC

15

1 "Know then thyself." This is the oldest saying recorded in philosophy

2 Man is the connecting link between God and the brute creation.

3 One that professes to doubt all things.

One who accepted things as they happened and made the best of his surroundings. The Stoic considered himself as partaker in the nature of God; hence "pride."

5 This line is too condensed to be perfectly clear.

6 Lines 13-18. Contrast Hamlet, ii. ii.: "What a piece of work is a

man!" etc.

7 Deceived.

8" Half to rise," etc., soul, body.

3

Go, wondrous creature! mount where Science guides,
Go, measure earth, weigh air, and state the tides;
Instruct the planets in what orbs to run,
Correct old Time,1 and regulate the sun;
Go, soar with Plato to the empyreal sphere,2
To the first good, first perfect, and first 3 fair;
Or tread the mazy round his followers trod,
And quitting sense call imitating God;4
As Eastern priests 5 in giddy circles run,
And turn their heads to imitate the sun.
Go, teach Eternal Wisdom how to rule-
Then drop into thyself, and be a fool!

Superior beings, when of late they saw7
A mortal man unfold all Nature's law,
Admired such wisdom in an earthly shape,
And showed a Newton as we show an ape.
Could he, whose rules the rapid comet bind,
Describe or fix one movement of his mind?
Who saw its fires here rise, and there descend,
Explain his own beginning or his end?
Alas what wonder! Man's superior part9
Unchecked may rise, and climb from art to art;

The New

1 "Correct old Time." Refers to the reform of the calendar. Style was adopted in Germany in 1700, but in England not until 1752.

2 " Empyreal sphere," i.e., the seventh sphere, or heaven, which was of the nature of fire. It was the home of the soul after death. 3" First," origin of all the others.

4 An allusion to the Neoplatonic philosophy, which sought union with God by contemplation and ecstasy, through disregard of the promptings of the 5 Worshipers of the sun god.

senses.

6 Notice Pope's frequent use of this word.

7 Lines 31-34 are intended as a satire on the Newtonian theory of the uniNewton's Principia was first published in 1687. The comparison in

verse.

the last of these lines is not pleasing.

8 Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727), the famous English philosopher, who discovered the law of universal gravitation; he determined also the orbits of 9 The intellect.

comets.

But when his own great work is but begun,
What reason weaves, by passion is undone.

Trace Science 1 then, with modesty thy guide;
First strip off all her equipage of pride;2
Deduct what is but vanity or dress,

45

Or learning's luxury, or idleness;

Or tricks to show the stretch of human brain,

Mere curious pleasure or ingenious pain;

Expunge the whole or lop the excrescent parts

Of all our vices have created arts;3

50

Then see how little the remaining sum,

Which served the past, and must the times to come!
II. Two principles in human nature reign;
Self-love to urge, and Reason, to restrain;
Nor this a good, nor that a bad we call,

55

Each works its end, to move or govern all:

And to their proper operations still,

Ascribe all good; to their improper, ill.

Self-love, the spring of motion, acts 5 the soul;

Reason's comparing balance rules the whole.

60

1

Man, but for that, no action could attend,

And, but for this,7 were active to no end:
Fixed like a plant on his peculiar spot,8
To draw nutrition, propagate, and rot:
Or, meteor-like, flame lawless through the void,
Destroying others, by himself destroyed.

Most strength the moving principle requires;
Active its task, it prompts, impels, inspires.

66 Trace Science," "i.e., follow learning.

65

2 Lines 45-52. Had Pope wanted an example of the abuse of learning,

he could have found one at home.

3 That is, of those luxuries which our vices have created into arts.

4 "Spring of motion," i.e., motive of action.

5 Actuates.

8 The grammatical connections in lines 63-66 are not very close. 9 Self-love.

1

Sedate and quiet the comparing 1 lies,
Formed but to check, deliberate, and advise.
Self-love still stronger, as its objects nigh;2
Reason's at distance and in prospect lie:
That sees immediate good by present sense;
Reason, the future and the consequence."
Thicker than arguments, temptations throng,

70

75

At best more watchful this, but that more strong.
The action of the stronger to suspend,

Reason still use, to reason still attend.

Attention, habit and experience gains ;3

Each strengthens reason, and self-love restrains.

80

Let subtle schoolmen 4 teach these friends to fight,

More studious to divide than to unite;

And grace and virtue, sense 5 and reason split,6

With all the rash dexterity of wit.

85

Wits, just like fools, at war about a name,
Have full as oft no meaning, or the same.
Self-love and reason to one end aspire,
Pain their aversion, pleasure their desire;
But greedy that, its object would devour,

This taste the honey, and not wound the flower:
Pleasure, or wrong or rightly understood,

90

Our greatest evil, or our greatest good.

III. Modes of self-love the Passions we may call: 'Tis real good, or seeming, moves them all:

But since not every good we can divide,

7

95

And reason bids us for our own provide,

1 "The comparing," i.e., reason.

2 The meaning of lines 71, 72, is explained in the succeeding couplet.

3 What is the subject of "gains"?

4" Schoolmen."

moralists.

5 Senses.

Not the school divines of the Middle Ages, but all

6 The rime is the only excuse for the word.

7 Share with another.

Passions, though selfish, if their means be fair,1
List 2 under reason, and deserve her care:
Those, that imparted,3 court a nobler aim,
Exalt their kind, and take some virtue's name.1
In lazy apathy 5 let Stoics boast

Their virtue fixed; 'tis fixed as in a frost;
Contracted all, retiring to the breast;
But strength of mind is exercise, not rest:
The rising tempest 6 puts in act the soul,
Parts it may ravage, but preserves the whole.?
On life's vast ocean diversely we sail,
Reason the card,8 but passion is the gale:
Nor God alone in the still calm we find,
He mounts the storm, and walks upon the wind.
Passions, like elements, though born to fight,9
Yet, mixed and softened, in His work unite:
These 'tis enough to temper and employ;
But what composes man, can man destroy?
Suffice that reason keep to Nature's road,
Subject, compound them, follow her and God.

1 Selfish aims, if pursued honorably, deserve the approval of reason.
2 Old form of " enlist."

3 The word has nearly the same meaning as

divide" in line 95.

100

105

ΙΙΟ

115

4 If the passion, selfish though it be, imparts or brings good to others, it becomes a virtue. The love of glory in war, for example, if pursued in defense of one's country, becomes patriotism.

5 Indifference; insensibility. The epithet "lazy" is inapt. The apathy of the Stoics was a calm, unruffled by circumstances, —a state of mind gained by rigid discipline,—the ideal of the “wise” man. 6 Passion.

7" Parts it may ravage," etc. Alluding to the effect of a hurricane in purifying and restoring the atmospheric equilibrium.

8 The dial or face of a compass.

9 Lowell, quoting the passage lines 111-120, says: "And not seldom he is satisfied with the music of the verse, without much regard to fitness of imagery. Here Reason is represented as an apothecary compounding pills of 'Pleasure's smiling train' and 'the family of Pain.' In the following couplet he takes his illustration from the art of painting."