Benjamin Franklin : $b Representative selections, with introduction, bibliograpy, and notesFranklin, Benjamin
General
Benjamin Franklin : $b Representative selections, with introduction, bibliograpy, and notes
Franklin, Benjamin
Franklin, Benjamin, 1706-1790
Then he directly referred to the Archbishop of Cambray's _Traité de
l'existence et des attributs de Dieu_. Oliver Elton observes that this
work "with its appeal to popular science, is the chief counterpart in
France to the 'physico-theology' current at the time in England."[i-451]
From the skeleton of the smallest animal, "the bones, the tendons, the
veins, the arteries, the nerves, the muscles, which compose the body of
a single man"[i-452] to "this vaulted sky" which turns "around so
regularly,"[i-453] all show "the infinite skill of its Author."[i-454]
Although Fénelon is applying Cartesian physics, here Descartes
reinforced Newtonianism; like Newton, Fénelon argued that cosmic motion
is ordered by "immutable laws," so "constant and so salutary."
Blackmore's _Creation, a Philosophical Poem_ (1712), aiming to
demonstrate "the existence of a God from the marks of wisdom, design,
contrivance, and the choice of ends and means, which appear in the
universe"[i-455] also furnished additional sanction for Franklin's
emphasis on the wondrous laws of the creation and the discovery of the
Deity in his Work. Like James Thomson, Blackmore seeks to show how
The long coherent chain of things we find
Leads to a Cause Supreme, a wise Creating Mind.[i-456]
In revolt against the contractile elements in Calvinism, Franklin
believed that God "is not offended, when he sees his Children solace
themselves in any manner of pleasant exercises and Innocent
Delights."[i-457] In his _Articles of Belief_ Franklin retains from his
_Dissertation_ his a priori concept of the Deity as a creator and
sustainer of "Wondrous Laws," immutable and beneficent. To the
depersonalized First Mover, however, he has added "some of those
Passions he has planted in us," and he suggests furthermore that the
Deity is mildly providential. A maker of systematic, if inhuman,
metaphysics in the _Dissertation_, the author of the _Articles_, in
spite of the superficial and embryonic metaphysics, succeeds better in
making himself at home in his world. To this embryonic religion (linked
with Franklin's obsession with the plurality of worlds and gods--of no
real significance save to indicate picturesquely the extent to which he
had, with the scientists of his age, extended the limits of the physical
universe) Franklin welded a pattern of ethics, prudential but stern.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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