Alexander Pope (1688-1744) An Essay On Man 1733

Pope was born a Roman Catholic at the close of the English Civil War, during the so-called Glorious Revolution, which deposed the Catholic James II and permanently established a Protestant monarchy in England.  As a Catholic in this Protestant England, Pope could not attend university, hold public employment or office, and had to live ten miles outside of city limits.

But his Essay seems bent on making peace with or “vindicating” the fact that as a religious minority he must accept this prejudice and discrimination, rather than challenging it;  we might consider this poem the "Anti-Declaration of Independence”; it defends the order of things – as divinely created and ordered – even when that order so clearly oppresses him and those of his own faith.

For these reasons, we start our section on the Enlightenment with Pope in part to contrast his conservative perspective with the later Enlightenment era writers like Locke, Voltaire, Rousseau, Thomas Jefferson, and Mary Wollstonecraft, all of whom set out to tear down the status quo and build a revolutionarily new utopia. In fact, we’ll find Voltaire's Candide is an attack on some of the Essay’s key arguments (Leibnitz's Philosophical Optimism).

What Pope holds in common with these other Enlightenment thinkers, however, is his argument that reason will unlock an underlying order to all things, including, for Pope, God's plan.  Like other Enlightenment thinkers, he believes there is an inherent, overarching structure or order to the universe.  Like Plato, Leibniz and Pope, and to a degree Descartes, all argue that this order can be expressed and understood through logic/math -- or through Reason (philosophy) the ability to apply the kinds of objective, concrete and critical thinking common to math.  See:  Platonic Idealism and Pantheon notes.  Pope's "Essay" argues that those things beyond human reason can safely be left to faith...and in his case, faith in the accuracy of Judeo-Christian scripture and the authority of the Church.

Voltaire begins as a massive supporter and fan of Pope, and Voltaire was even instrumental in bringing Pope's Essay On Man to France and, perhaps, its first translation into French.  But by the time he wrote Candide (1759),  you'll see that Voltaire’s thinking – and the Enlightenment in general – has taken a radically different turn.