Note i-106 — INTRODUCTION

Franklin was unable to prevail upon Johnson to accept the provostship of the Academy. In 1752 he printed Johnson's Elementa Philosophica and suggested in Idea of the English School that it be used in the Academy. In a letter of 1754 Franklin informs Johnson that the grammatical and mathematical parts were already being used—the rest would be when the instructors and pupils were ready for it (E. E. Beardsley, Life and Correspondence of S. Johnson, D. D., 2d ed., New York, 1874, 180-1). In the Elementa Philosophica Johnson stresses the use of mathematics in man's study of nature (p. xv). Through mathematics, an indispensable aid in "considering that wonderful and amazing Power, that All-comprehending Wisdom, that inimitable Beauty, that surprizing Harmony, that immutable Order, which abundantly discover themselves in the Formation and Government of the Universe, we are led to their divine Original, who is the unexhausted Source, the glorious Fountain of all Perfection ..." (ibid., xiii). The Elementa is a rhapsodic manual extolling the discovery of the Deity in his Work, through the study of the physical laws of the creation. Although subordinated to this, there are frequent reactions against Lockian sensationalism, suggesting an ecstatic mystical union between man and God. On the whole, the volume is a treatise on the glories of a natural religion (a religion of course which buttresses rather than refutes scriptural religion).