{"id":10513,"date":"2021-05-07T21:28:25","date_gmt":"2021-05-07T21:28:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/solaceinabook.com\/site\/?p=10513"},"modified":"2021-05-07T21:28:25","modified_gmt":"2021-05-07T21:28:25","slug":"great-lord-of-all-things-yet-a-prey-to-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/solaceinabook.com\/site\/2021\/05\/great-lord-of-all-things-yet-a-prey-to-all\/","title":{"rendered":"Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Bleeding hearts \u00a9 Ellen Wade Beals, 2013<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The other day I was on Twitter and was struck by a tweet contrasting the fact that we have a robot helicopter on Mars while on Earth some people are trying to convince children to remove their masks during a pandemic.<\/p>\n

He linked to the first stanza of Alexander Pope\u2019s\u00a0<\/strong> “An Essay on Man Epistle 11,”<\/strong> <\/em>which I provide below (thanks to the Poetry Foundation<\/a>).<\/p>\n

I won\u2019t pretend that I\u2019ve read the entire work by Alexander Pope, which was written in 1773-1774, and which was written (according to Wikipedia)<\/a> to be the parts of a system of ethics which he wanted to express in poetry. But this first stanza impressed me because it is relevant today.<\/p>\n

Peace, love, and solace<\/strong><\/p>\n

I.
\nKnow then thyself, presume not God to scan;
\nThe proper study of mankind is man.
\nPlac’d on this isthmus of a middle state,
\nA being darkly wise, and rudely great:
\nWith too much knowledge for the sceptic side,
\nWith too much weakness for the stoic’s pride,
\nHe hangs between; in doubt to act, or rest;
\nIn doubt to deem himself a god, or beast;
\nIn doubt his mind or body to prefer;
\nBorn but to die, and reas’ning but to err;
\nAlike in ignorance, his reason such,
\nWhether he thinks too little, or too much:
\nChaos of thought and passion, all confus’d;
\nStill by himself abus’d, or disabus’d;
\nCreated half to rise, and half to fall;
\nGreat lord of all things, yet a prey to all;
\nSole judge of truth, in endless error hurl’d:
\nThe glory, jest, and riddle of the world!<\/p>\n

Alexander Pope<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The other day I was on Twitter and was struck by a tweet contrasting the fact that we have a robot helicopter on Mars while on Earth some people are trying to convince children to remove their masks during a pandemic. He linked to the first stanza of Alexander Pope\u2019s\u00a0 “An Essay on Man Epistle […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3670,3671,3675,1632,12,13,765,3674,16,3673,3672],"class_list":{"0":"post-10513","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"tag-alexander-pope","8":"tag-an-essay-on-man-epistle-ii","9":"tag-covid","10":"tag-ellen-beals","11":"tag-ellen-wade-beals","12":"tag-poetry","13":"tag-poetry-foundation","14":"tag-scientific-thought","15":"tag-solace-in-so-many-words","16":"tag-todays-world","17":"tag-wilikpedia","18":"entry","19":"has-post-thumbnail"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/solaceinabook.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/solaceinabook.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/solaceinabook.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/solaceinabook.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/solaceinabook.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10513"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/solaceinabook.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10513\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10516,"href":"https:\/\/solaceinabook.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10513\/revisions\/10516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/solaceinabook.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/solaceinabook.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/solaceinabook.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}