Samuel Johnson's General Nature: Tradition and Transition in Eighteenth-Century Discourse

169 Pages·1999·76.193 MB·English

by  Scott Evans

SAMUEL JOHNSON'S
''GENERAL NATURE''

SAMUEL JOHNSON'S
''GENERAL NATURE''
Tradition and Transition
in Eighteenth-Century Discourse
Scott D. Evans
DEi.AWARE
Newark: University of Delaware Press
London: Associated University Presses
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Evans, Scott D., 1953-
Samueljohnson's "general nature": tradition and transition in
eighteenth-century discourse / Scott D. Evans.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
ISBN 0-87413-69~2 (alk. paper)
1. Johns~m, Samuel, 1709-1784-Philosophy. 2. Philosophy of
nature-History-18th century. 3. Philosophy, English-18th
century. I. Title.
PR3537.P5E73 1999
828'.609-dc21 99-15623
CIP
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
For my father
and in memory of my mother

Contents
Acknowledgments 9
Preface 11
1. Classical "Nature" 21
2. Medieval "Nature" 36
3. "Nature" in Eighteenth-Century Discourse 49
4. Nature and Value in the Rambler, Idler, and Adventurer 71
5. Johnson on the Experimental Philosophy 88
6. Representation, Imagination, and Nature inJohnson's
Literary Criticism 108
7. Johnson and Eighteenth-Century Reductionism 130
1~
Selected Bibliography 156
Index 163

Acknowledgments
I am grateful to Professor OM Brack, Professor Emeritus John X.
Evans, and Professor Mark Lussier, all of Arizona State University,
for reading the preliminary version of this manuscript and offering
helpful comments and criticisms, and for their invaluable encour-
agement. I am also indebted to Professor Walter Nicgorski of the
University of Notre Dame, whose seminar on "Nature, Political
Order, and Modern Democracy" first set me to thinking on the
topic of "nature" in relation to its employment by Johnson. Finally,
I have profited from the comments and suggestions of the editors,
Professor Donald C. Mell and the editorial staff of the University of
Delaware Press and the editors of Associated University Presses, and
I appreciate their support. In particular, I thank the first reader, Dr.
Chester Chapin, for his helpful suggestions and some important
criticisms. I rely on the notes to indicate the extent of my indebted-
ness to the work of scholars past and present, and I here add my
sincere thanks.
Quotations from the following works in copyright appear in this
volume with the kind permission of the publishers: David Hume, A
Treatise of Human Nature, 2d ed., edited by L.A. Selby-Bigge, revised
by P. H. Nidditch. Copyright Clarendon Press, 1978. Quotations
used by permission of Oxford University Press.
Volumes from The Yale Edition of the Works of Samuel Johnson;
quotations used by permission of Yale University Press: Vol. 2, The
Idler and The Adventurer, edited by W. J. Bate, John M. Bullitt, and
L. F. Powell. Copyright Yale University, 1963. Vols. 3-5, The Ram-
J.
bler, edited by W. Bate and Albrecht B. Strauss. Copyright Yale
University, 1969. Vol. 7,johnson on Shakespeare, edited by Arthur
Sherbo, introduction by Bertrand Bronson. Copyright Yale Univer-
sity, 1968. Vol. 9, A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland, edited
by Mary Lascelles. Copyright Yale University, 1971. Vol. 16, Rasselas
10 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
J.
and Other Tales, edited by Gwin Kolb. Copyright Yale University,
1990.
Samuel Johnson, Lives of the English Poets, edited by George Birk-
beck Hill. 3 vols. Copyright Clarendon Press, 1905. Quotations used
by permission of Oxford University Press.
St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, translated by Fathers of
the English Dominican Province. Copyright Benziger Brothers, Inc.,
1947. Quotations used by permission of Glencoe/McGraw-Hill.