What does it (the Pope's line) mean?

[NewHopeR]

Failed to understand "spite of pride, in erring reason's spite". Please rewrite it in plain English.

Context:

Safe in the hand of one disposing Pow'r,
Or in the natal, or the mortal hour.
All Nature is but Art, unknown to thee;
All chance, direction, which thou canst not see
All discord, harmony not understood,
All partial evil, universal good:
And, spite of pride, in erring reason's spite,
One truth is clear, whatever is, is right.

Full context

 

[bhaisahab]

By the way, it's "Pope's" not "the Pope's".

 

[BobK]

It's a poetic convention - using 'spite' instead of 'despite; and it separates 'in spite [of]' for reasons of meter. And - now I come to think of it - perhaps that "in" is required to operate on the first "spite", in typical Miltonic compressed syntax (is it Milton?*); when "'spite" is used as an abbreviation of 'despite' it usually has an apostrophe (if the poet knows or cares).

So the penultimate line means 'And, regardless of [-in spite of] pride, in spite of what reason (which can be mistaken) says.'' He could, by 'erring', mean that reason always and necessarily is wrong, but I doubt it.

b

PS*I hadn't seen bhai's comment when I wrote this ;-)

 

[NewHopeR]

It's a poetic convention - using 'spite' instead of 'despite; and it separates 'in spite [of]' for reasons of meter. And - now I come to think of it - perhaps that "in" is required to operate on the first "spite", in typical Miltonic compressed syntax (is it Milton?*); when "'spite" is used as an abbreviation of 'despite' it usually has an apostrophe (if the poet knows or cares).

So the penultimate line means 'And, regardless of [-in spite of] pride, in spite of what reason (which can be mistaken) says.'' He could, by 'erring', mean that reason always and necessarily is wrong, but I doubt it.

b

PS*I hadn't seen bhai's comment when I wrote this ;-)

Thank you.
Failed to understand the underlined.

 

[NewHopeR]

What does " by 'erring'" mean?

 

[emsr2d2]

What does " by 'erring'" mean?

Do you understand the definition of "to err"?

 

[NewHopeR]

Do you understand the definition of "to err"?

I usually get it as "to make mistake (inadvertently)."

 

[BobK]

OK. Something that's erring makes mistakes. But the -ing form in the poem doesn't make it clear whether Pope thinks that 'reason' can sometimes make mistakes or ['always and necessarily'] can only make mistakes (which is quite a bleak view: 'anything that is the result of reasoning has to be wrong - rather than trying to think "What is the right think to do?" we should simply listen [to someone or something].'

b

PS I've just thought that the problem word may be 'reason'. It's nothing, here, to do with 'cause and effect'. Pope is using it to refer the faculty of rational thought.