Alexander Pope’s “An Essay On Man”: The Paradoxical Nature Of Man As A Paradox In The Clash Of Philosophical Trends. The "Essay" consists of epistles, addressed to Lord Bolingbroke, and derived, to some extent, from some of Bolingbroke's own fragmentary Philosophical writings, as well as from ideas expressed by Anthony Ashley Cooper, the third Earl of Shaftsbury. Pope sets out to describe and explain that no matter how incomplete, complicated, impenetrable, and disturbingly full …showed first 75 words of 1651 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1651 total…most - riches, power, fame - prove to be worthless in the greater context of which he is only dimly aware. In his place, it is man's duty to make efforts to be good, even if he is doomed, because of his innate liability to err, to fail in his attempt. “Human flesh was intended as a highly imperfect and disappointingly mortal carapace for the housing of something, a good deal better – the human mind”