DR. FRANKLIN'S TRACT ON LIBERTY AND NECESSITY.
In Dr. Franklin's Autobiography, he mentions as his first work a pamphlet printed in London in 1725 on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain. It was written by him when he was eighteen years of age, and partly in answer to Wollaston's Religion of Nature. The object was to prove, from the attributes of God, his infinite wisdom, goodness, and power, that nothing could possibly be wrong in the world; and that vice and virtue were empty distinctions, no such things existing. He printed, he says, only a hundred copies, of which he gave a few to his friends; and afterwards disliking the piece, as conceiving it might have an ill tendency, he burnt the rest except one copy. This tract, most curious as the first publication of this extraordinary man, seems to have eluded hitherto every search. In Jared Sparks's elaborate edition of Dr. Franklin's Works in 10 vols., it is of course not to be found. In a note (vol. viii., p. 405.), the editor observes, "No copy of this tract is now known to be in existence." Nor do I find that any writer on the subject of Franklin, or the history of metaphysics, or moral philosophy, appears to have seen it. Sir Jas. Mackintosh was long in search of it, but was compelled ultimately to give it up in despair.
I am happy to inform those who may take an interest in Dr. Franklin's first performance—and what is there in literary history more attractive than to compare the earliest works of great men with their maturer efforts?—that I fortunately possess a copy of this tract. It is bound up in a volume of tracts, and came from the library of the Rev. S. Harper. The title is, "A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain, in a Letter to a Friend:
'Whatever is, is in its causes just,
Since all things are by fate; but purblind man
Sees but a part o' th' chain, the nearest link,
His eyes not carrying to the equal beam,
That poises all above.'—DRYD."
It is addressed to Mr. J(ames) R(alph), and commences: "Sir, I have here, according to your request, given you my present thoughts on the general state of things in the universe;" and concludes, "Truth will be truth, though it sometimes proves mortifying and distasteful." The pamphlet contains sixteen very closely printed pages in octavo; and the author proceeds by laying down his propositions, and then enlarging upon them, so as to form, in his opinion, a regular chain of consequences. It displays, as might be anticipated, considerable acuteness, though the reasonings, as he admits in his Autobiography, were such as to his maturer intellect appeared inconclusive. He subsequently wrote another pamphlet, in which he took the other side of the question; but it was never published, and I suppose is not now in existence.
JAS. CROSSLEY.