I came across a line from the poem An Essay on Man: Epistle II by Alexander Pope, and I don't understand it in terms of grammar and meaning. Could you help me understand it, please? The passage is:
Know then thyself, presume not God to scan,
The proper study of mankind is Man.
The part that I don't understand is "presume not God to scan". As far as I understand, it means "Don't think about God you could deeply research him". But I am not exactly sure.
Best Answer
Building on the answers of verbose and Acccumulation, “verb not” was a way of expressing a negative imperative (equivalent to “don’t verb”). Some examples I was able to find:
This usage is archaic, but you should learn to recognize it, especially if you’re going to read 300-year-old literature.
On the other hand, you should be aware that “subject verb not” is sometimes used for simple negation: