Asimov and Pope

Of course the mere posting of big fat Popes does not mean I agree with them. 

Isaac Asimov disagreed with - or at least rigorously explored and re-positioned - Pope's argument in the first part of the second Epistle of the Essay on Man, in his introduction to his 1978 book, Life and Time.

He pushes against the antithesis that Pope presents, while arguing for a liberal humanism.  In particular he makes the case that 'the study of Man' is equivalent to studying, rigorously, Life, the Universe and Everything (unfortunately not the phrase he uses....). 

When I first read that piece (I must have been around fourteen or fifteen), I remember agreeing with him very much indeed. 

Perhaps I should have another look at it...