HKB
Shaftesbury and since as late as 1730 he borrowed heavily from the Characteristics, it seems probable that Shaftesbury lent Franklin in this case some sanction for his only metaphysical venture.[i-438]
As one result of his printing A Dissertation he made the acquaintance of Lyons, author of The Infallibility of Human Judgement[i-439] who introduced him to Mandeville[i-440] and Dr. Henry Pemberton, who in turn "Promis'd to give me an opportunity, some time or other, of seeing Sir Isaac Newton, of which I was extreamly desirous; but this never happened [the italics are the editors']."[i-441] Dr. Pemberton, physician and mathematician, met Newton in 1722, and during the time Franklin enjoyed his friendship was helping Newton to prepare the third edition of the Principia. As a result of his aiding Newton "to discover and understand his writings,"[i-442] Pemberton in 1728 published A View of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophy. It is obvious that Franklin could have discovered few men with a more concentrated and enthusiastic knowledge of Newtonianism than that possessed by Dr. Pemberton. As we have already noted, Franklin undoubtedly derived his appreciation of Newtonian speculation not from grubbing in the Principia but from secondary sources. There is no reason to apologize for Franklin on this score when we remember that Voltaire, who popularized Newtonianism in France, exclaimed: "Very few people read Newton because it is necessary to be learned to understand him. But everybody talks about him." Desaguliers, coming to London from Oxford in 1713, observed that "he found all Newtonian philosophy generally receiv'd among persons of all ranks and professions, and even among the ladies by the help of experiments."[i-443] Pemberton wrote that the desire after knowledge of Newtonianism "is by nothing more fully illustrated, than by the inclination of men to gain an acquaintance with the operations of nature; which disposition to enquire after the causes of things is so general, that all men of letters, I believe, find themselves influenced by it."[i-444] Through the sublimated mathematics of the Principia, Pemberton observed, "the similitude found in all parts of the universe makes it undoubted, that the whole is governed by one supreme being, to whom the original is owing of the frame of nature, which evidently is the effect of choice and design."[i-445] To what extent Franklin later gave evidence of his knowledge of Newtonian speculation we shall further discover in his Articles of Belief.