Note i-407 — INTRODUCTION (continued 2)

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 asserts 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, assuring 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.