Which Alexander Pope poem argues that 'the proper study of mankind is man'?

The Alexander Pope poem that argues that “the proper study of mankind is man” is An Essay on Man.

Pope published the philosophical poem in 1733–1734. The famous line appears in the second of its four epistles, where Pope considers humanity’s limited place between earthly and divine realms. Rather than claiming complete knowledge of God’s purposes, the poem urges people to understand their own nature and limitations.

An Essay on Man was written in heroic couplets and dedicated to Henry St John, Viscount Bolingbroke. Pope intended it to form part of a much larger poetic system of ethics, though that planned work was never completed. Its central aim was to “vindicate the ways of God to man,” echoing Milton’s Paradise Lost.

A common mix-up is An Essay on Criticism, another famous Pope poem. That earlier work, published in 1711, focuses on literary judgment and taste, not humanity’s place in the universe. The Rape of the Lock is instead a mock-heroic satire about an aristocratic social dispute.