Argument of Epistle I (Tabulated)

Argument of Epistle I

Of the Nature and State of Man, with respect to the Universe.

Of Man in the abstract.

section lines topic
I 17 &c. That we can judge only with regard to our own system, being ignorant of the relations of systems and things.
II 35 &c. That Man is not to be deemed imperfect, but a Being suited to his place and rank in the creation, agreeable to the general Order of things, and conformable to Ends and Relations to him unknown.
III 77 &c. That it is partly upon his ignorance of future events, and partly upon the hope of a future state, that all his happiness in the present depends.
IV 109 &c. The pride of aiming at more knowledge, and pretending to more Perfections, the cause of Man's error and misery. The impiety of putting himself in the place of God, and judging of the fitness or unfitness, perfection or imperfection, justice or injustice of his dispensations.
V 131 &c. The absurdity of conceiting himself the final cause of the creation, or expecting that perfection in the moral world, which is not in the natural.
VI 173 &c. The unreasonableness of his complaints against Providence, while on the one hand he demands the Perfections of the Angels, and on the other the bodily qualifications of the Brutes; though, to possess any of the sensitive faculties in a higher degree, would render him miserable.
VII 207 That throughout the whole visible world, an universal order and gradation in the sensual and mental faculties is observed, which causes a subordination of creature to creature, and of all creatures to Man. The gradations of sense, instinct, thought, reflection, reason; that Reason alone countervails fill the other faculties.
VIII 233 How much further this order and subordination of living creatures may extend, above and below us; were any part of which broken, not that part only, but the whole connected creation must be destroyed.
IX 250 The extravagance, madness, and pride of such a desire.
X 281?end The consequence of all, the absolute submission due to Providence, both as to our present and future state.
Previous section An Essay on Criticism Next section Epistle I

Popular pages: The Rape of the Lock

Take a Study Break