Note i-91 — INTRODUCTION

Questions suggestive of the Junto's interest in moral, political, and philosophical topics are: "Is self-interest the rudder that steers mankind, the universal monarch to whom all are tributaries?" which causes one to suspect that Franklin had challenged his friends with The Fable of the Bees; "Can any one particular form of government suit all mankind?" which may have stirred controversies in the Junto between logical relativists and historic absolutists, the realists and those motivated by a priori abstractions, as, for example, in the Burke-Paine intellectual duel; "Whether it ought to be the aim of philosophy to eradicate the passions?" which may tend to suggest that Franklin would gear philosophy to moral action rather than to arid metaphysics.