10:15 PM
January 27, 2010


AN ESSAY ON MAN by
ALEXANDER POPE impressed me
when I went to UCLA.

Here are some notes on this poem
the describes the Universe as a chain of being,
and a chain of love.

"An Essay on Man" is a famous poem
by Alexander Pope.
This philosophical work is written in heroic couplets,
which appeared as a series
of four epistles between 1732 and 1734.
The third epistle concerns man and his relationship
with human society.
Here's the third part of "An Essay on Man."

EPISTLE III
OF THE NATURE AND STATE OF MAN
WITH RESPECT TO SOCIETY

HERE then we rest; 'The universal cause
Acts to one end, but acts by various laws.'
In all the madness of superfluous health,
The trim of pride, the impudence of wealth,
Let this great truth be present night and day;
But most be present, if we preach or pray.

Look round our world; behold the chain of love
Combining all below and all above.
See plastic nature working to this end,
The single atoms each to other tend,
Attract, attracted to, the next in place
Form'd and impell'd its neighbour to embrace.
See matter next, with various life endu'd,
Press to one centre still, the gen'ral good.
See dying vegetables life sustain,
See life dissolving vegetate again:
All forms that perish other forms supply,
(By turns we catch the vital breath, and die)
Like bubbles on the sea of matter born,
They rise, they break, and to that sea return.
Nothing is foreign; parts relate to whole;
One all-extending, all-preserving soul
Connects each being, greatest with the least;
Made beast in aid of man, and man of beast;
All serv'd, all serving: nothing stands alone;
The chain holds on, and where it ends, unknown.


http://classiclit.about.com/od/essayonmanapope/a/aa_essayonman_e3.htm


NOTES ON THE POEM

http://www.auburn.edu/~mitrege/ENGL2210/study-guides/pope.html

THE CHAIN OF BEING EXPLAINED

http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/cs6/ren.html


THE GREAT CHAIN OF BEING


Among the most important of the continuities with the Classical period was the concept of the Great Chain of Being. Its major premise was that every existing thing in the universe had its "place" in a divinely planned hierarchical order, which was pictured as a chain vertically extended. ("Hierarchical" refers to an order based on a series of higher and lower, strictly ranked gradations.) An object's "place" depended on the relative proportion of "spirit" and "matter" it contained--the less "spirit" and the more "matter," the lower down it stood. At the bottom, for example, stood various types of inanimate objects, such as metals, stones, and the four elements (earth, water, air, fire). Higher up were various members of the vegetative class, like trees and flowers. Then came animals; then humans; and then angels. At the very top was God. Then within each of these large groups, there were other hierarchies. For example, among metals, gold was the noblest and stood highest; lead had less "spirit" and more matter and so stood lower. (Alchemy was based on the belief that lead could be changed to gold through an infusion of "spirit.") The various species of plants, animals, humans, and angels were similarly ranked from low to high within their respective segments. Finally, it was believed that between the segments themselves, there was continuity (shellfish were lowest among animals and shaded into the vegetative class, for example, because without locomotion, they most resembled plants).


UNIVERSAL INTERDEPENDENCE
THE DOCTRINE OF CORRESPONDENCES

Besides universal orderliness, there was universal interdependence. This was implicit in the doctrine of "correspondences," which held that different segments of the chain reflected other segments.

For example, Renaissance thinkers
viewed a human being as a microcosm (literally, a "little world")
that reflected the structure of the world as a whole, the macrocosm; just as the world was composed of four "elements" (earth, water, air, fire), so too was the human body composed of four substances called "humours," with characteristics corresponding to the four elements. (Illness occurred when there was an imbalance or "disorder" among the humours, that is,
when they did not exist in proper proportion to each other.) "Correspondences" existed everywhere, on many levels.

Thus the hierarchical organization of the mental faculties was also thought of as reflecting the hierarchical order within the family, the state, and the forces of nature. When things were properly ordered, reason ruled the emotions, just as a king ruled his subjects, the parent ruled the child, and the sun governed the planets.

But when disorder was present in one realm,
it was correspondingly reflected in other realms.

For example, in Shakespeare's King Lear, the simultaneous disorder in family relationships and in the state (child ruling parent, subject ruling king) is reflected in the disorder of Lear's mind (the loss of reason)
as well as in the disorder of nature (the raging storm).
Lear even equates his loss of reason to "a tempest in my mind."


 

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