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Why does An Essay on Man place humans above animals and plants?
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Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope, portrait by Thomas Hudson, c. 1739; in the National Portrait Gallery, London.
In Alexander Pope's philosophical poem An Essay on Man, the author describes the universe as a perfectly ordered, God-ordained hierarchy known as the "chain of being."12
Within this cosmic structure, humans are positioned above animals and plants specifically because of their capacity for reason. This hierarchy serves as a central theme in the poem, which seeks to survey the relationship between humanity and the broader universe.1