ABSTRACT
An Essay on Man is an uneven poem and it is easier to focus on, and discuss, individual epistles than the whole poem. Epistle I deals with the nature and state of man in relation to the universe. Epistle II deals with his nature and state in relation to himself. Epistle III deals with his nature and state in relation to society. Epistle IV deals with his nature and state in relation to happiness. The sequence is careful and ordered, and grows out of Pope's central premise that the world man lives in may be a mighty maze, but is not 'without a plan'. What Pope set out to do in An Essay on Man was to 'vindicate' the ways of God to Man, not through myth, as Milton had done in Paradise Lost, but through rational argument. An Essay on Man is a poem relying on empirical argument and scientific proof rather than on revealed religion and unsupported faith.
