An Essay on Man by Alexander Pope

            In Alexander Pope's "An Essay on Man" there is a large emphasis that the poem was written on the ability to comprehend and reason during the Enlightenment. People who lived in this period had a significant way of comprehending and reasoning on a variety of topics. Some people started to feel and understand the idea of there being a God, which caused many to speculate against the church. On a less theological and more scientific standpoint people also began to wonder of the universe, and with that had a fascination for man's place in this world. In Pope's "An Essay on Man" it's considered by many an expression of this Enlightenment because it shows three major thought processes of the population during the Enlightenment. Pope is stating a man's able and willingness to expand and think for oneself, leaving Pope to wonder and ponder the roots of Christianity. While Pope also touches on about what is man's place in the world as well in the great chain of life.
             First off, we only comprehend of our preconception about God and man. For a man, we can observe only his place here on earth, and that has no comparison for God's infinite knowledge. God understands everything that we could ever dream of in the world we have a limited amount of knowledge. God, who observes everything, who is able to create a new world at the snap of a finger, who has the infinite know of astronomy, who created other suns with its orbiting planets, who created all the people on that planet and knows the delicate system, God know our place in the universe. We still don't come to think of all the creations and inner workings of this universe and how it is all connected with God. .
             The Great Chain of Being is an idea man created yet an idea that God placed in our minds. In the first stanza Pope shows, while we believe we have everything figured out, God is the one giving us the knowledge to understand and only he knows all.