Part 14 (1/2)
[Footnote i-391: _Essays to do Good_, with an Introductory Essay by A.
Thomson (Glasgow, 1825), 102.]
[Footnote i-392: _Ibid._, 213-4.]
[Footnote i-393: _Works of Daniel Defoe_, ed. by Wm. Hazlitt (London, 1843), I, 22.]
[Footnote i-394: _Writings_, I, 239.]
[Footnote i-395: See _New England Courant_, No. 48, June 25-July 2, 1722.]
[Footnote i-396: _Writings_, I, 244.]
[Footnote i-397: Consecrated to piety, Robert Boyle at his death left 50 per annum, for a clergyman elected to ”preach eight sermons in the year for proving the Christian religion against notorious infidels, _viz._ Atheists, Theists, Pagans, Jews, and Mahometans....” (_Works of Robert Boyle_, London, 1772, I, clxvii.)]
[Footnote i-398: _Writings_, I, 295.]
[Footnote i-399: In his Introduction to _Selections from Cotton Mather_ (New York, 1926), xlix-li, K. B. Murdock agrees with I. W. Riley that _The Christian Philosopher_ (1721) represents the first stage of the reaction from scriptural Calvinism to the scientific deism of Paine and Franklin. T. Hornberger's ”The Date, the Source, and the Significance of Cotton Mather's Interest in Science” (_loc. cit._) shows that ”as early as 1693 Cotton Mather was expressing that delight in the wonder and beauty of design in the external world which Professors Murdock and Riley regard as deistic in tendency,” that he ”was unconsciously vacillating between two points of view.”]
[Footnote i-400: _Works of Richard Bentley_, ed. by A. Dyce (London, 1838), III, 74-5.]
[Footnote i-401: _Ibid._, III, 79.]
[Footnote i-402: _Physico-Theology ..._ (5th ed., London, 1720), 25-6.
G.o.d's ”exquisite Workmans.h.i.+p” is seen in ”every Creature” (p. 27).]
[Footnote i-403: See _A Discourse of Free-Thinking_ (London, 1713).]
[Footnote i-404: _Priestcraft in Perfection ..._ (London, 1710).]
[Footnote i-405: _Writings_, I, 243.]
[Footnote i-406: A. C. Fraser ed. (Oxford, 1894), II, 425-6.]
[Footnote i-407: _Ibid._, II, 121. For Locke and his place in the age see S. G. Hefelbower's _The Relation of John Locke to English Deism_.
About the time he read Locke, Franklin notes he studied Arnauld and Nicole's _La logique ou l'art de penser_. Mr. G. S. Eddy has informed one of the editors that the Library Company of Philadelphia owns John Ozell's translation of the work (London, 1718), and that this was the copy owned by Franklin. (See Lowndes's _Bibliographer's Manual_, IV, 1930, and _Dictionary of National Biography_, ”John Ozell.”) In accord with the English deistic and rationalistic tendency, _La logique_ admits that Aristotle's authority is not good, that ”Men cannot long endure such constraint” (Thomas S. Bayne's trans., 8th ed., Edinburgh and London, n.d., 23). Indebted to Pascal and Descartes, it admits with the latter that geometry and astronomy may help one achieve justness of mind, but it vigorously a.s.serts that this justness of mind is more important than speculative science (p. 1). Anti-sensational, it denies ”that all our ideas come through sense” (p. 34), affirming that we have within us ideas of things (p. 31). It is uncertain of the value of induction, which ”is never a certain means of acquiring perfect knowledge” (p. 265; see also 304, 307, 308, 350). It accords little praise to the sciences and reason, and seems wary of metaphysical speculation, a.s.suring more humbly that ”Piety, wisdom, moderation, are without doubt the most estimable qualities in the world” (p. 291). As we shall discover, this work on the whole seems to have had (with the exception of the last very general principle) little formative influence on the young mind which was fast impregnating itself with scientific deism. Were it not for the recurring implications (particularly in the harvest of editions of the _Autobiography_) that _La logique_ is as significant for our study as, for example, the works of Locke and Shaftesbury, this note would be pedantic supererogation.]
[Footnote i-408: A. C. Fraser, _op. cit._, I, 99. See also 190, 402-3; II, 65, 68, 352.]
[Footnote i-409: Cited in C. A. Moore, ”Shaftesbury and the Ethical Poets in England, 1700-1760,” _Publications of the Modern Language a.s.sociation_, x.x.xI (N. S. XXIV), 276 (June, 1916).]
[Footnote i-410: _Ibid._, 271.]
[Footnote i-411: J. M. Robertson, ed., _Characteristics ..._ (New York, 1900), I, 27.]
[Footnote i-412: _Ibid._, I, 241-2.]
[Footnote i-413: Moore, _op. cit._, 267.]
[Footnote i-414: In _Dogood Paper_ No. XIV Franklin suggests (autobiographically?): ”In Matters of Religion, he that alters his Opinion on a _religious Account_, must certainly go thro' much Reading, hear many Arguments on both Sides, and undergo many Struggles in his Conscience, before he can come to a full Resolution” (_Writings_, II, 46).]
[Footnote i-415: He read Thomas Tryon's _The Way to Health, Long Life and Happiness_, probably the second edition (London, 1691), a copy of which is in the W. S. Mason Collection. Tryon holds that no ”greater Happiness” than Attic sobriety is ”attainable upon Earth” (p. 1). Divine Temperance is the ”spring head of all Virtues” (p. 33). Inward harmony ”is both the Glory and the Happiness, the Joy and Solace of created Beings, the celebrated Musick of the Spheres, the Eccho of Heaven, the Business of Seraphims, and the Imployment of Eternity” (p. 500). From Xenophon he learned that ”self-restraint” is ”the very corner-stone of virtue.” The cla.s.sic core of the _Memorabilia_ is the love of the moderate contending with the love of the incontinent. Franklin has impressed many as representing an American Socrates. Emerson was certain that Socrates ”had a Franklin-like wisdom” (Centenary Ed., IV, 72).