Pope addressed An Essay on Man to Henry St.

John, Viscount
Bolingbroke, who served briefly as secretary of state and prime minister
under Queen Anne. Previously acquainted with Pope by mutual
association with Jonathan Swift, Bolingbroke retired in 1723 to Dawley, a
farm neighboring Pope's Twickenham, and quickly befriended the poet,
whose personal beliefs neatly coincided with his own. The friends often
discussed much of the subject matter expressed in both Pope's poem
and Bolingbroke's own amateur philosophical writings, usually as they
walked the grounds of their properties. Proposing to “vindicate the ways
of God to man,” the first epistle attempts to show the underlying
harmony and virtue of the universe and the propriety of humanity's place
in it, despite the presence of evil and apparent imperfection in the world.
Each of the remaining epistles draws upon this premise, describing
potential improvements to some aspect of human nature and society
with the implicit understanding that the universe is divinely ordered and
essentially perfect. The second epistle discusses humans as unique
beings and shows how the psychological balance between self-interest
and the “passions,” or emotions, under the guidance of reason,
promotes virtuous living. The third epistle addresses the role of the
individual in society, tracing the origins of such civilizing institutions as
government and the class system to a constant interaction between the
selfish motivations and altruistic impulses of individual humans. The
fourth epistle frames the struggle between self-love and love of others in
terms of the pursuit of happiness, arguing that any human can attain true
happiness through virtuous living, which happens only when selfish
instincts yield to genuine expressions of benevolence toward others and
God.
Major Themes

Throughout the epistles of An Essay on Man Pope

surveys such grand themes as the existence of a
Supreme Being and the behavior of humans, the
workings of the universe and the role of humans in it,
and the capacity of government to establish and
promote the happiness of its citizens. Consequently, the
poem is one of Pope's most thorough statements of his
philosophical, ethical, and political principles, which,
however, were generally neither unique, radical, nor
systematic. A practicing Catholic and instinctually
conservative in his politics—each position precarious to
acknowledge in Pope's time—Pope carefully avoids
explicit references to specific church doctrines and
political issues in the poem. Implicitly assuming such
Christian notions as fallen man, lost paradise, and a
beneficent deity, the poem presents an eclectic
assortment of both traditional and current philosophical
ideas that attempt to explain the universal
characteristics of humankind. The poem borrows ideas
from a range of medieval and renaissance thinkers,
although Pope somewhat modifies them to suit his
artistic purposes. The underlying theme of the poem is
the idea that there exists an ordered universe which
possesses a coherent structure and functions in a
rational fashion, according to natural laws designed by
God. The description of its structure derives from the
metaphysical doctrine of the Great Chain of Being,
which explains the fullness and unity of the natural world
in terms of a hierarchy that ranges from plants and
insects at one end to humans and angels at the other.
As a creation of God, the universe ultimately is a perfect
design that appears imperfect to humans because the
ability to perceive its order correctly is diminished by
pride and intellectual limitations. If humanity were to
acknowledge with humility its insignificant position in the
greater context of creation, Pope reasons, then
humanity's capacity to live happily and virtuously on
earth would be possible. Pope expresses many of his
main ideas regarding human nature in language so
indelible and pithy that some phrases from the poem
have become commonplace in the English language.