James Logan’s “The Duties of Man As They May Be Deduced from Nature”

James Logan (1674-1751) of Philadelphia was a luminary with few equals in British America in the first half of the 18th century. He amassed the largest scholar’s library in the colonies, wrote and published on botanical science and optics, was an accomplished mathematician and astronomer, and a master of languages ancient and modern. As the representative of the Penn family in the colony, he was enmeshed in Pennsylvania politics, holding several major positions, including Chief Justice. In 1734 Logan turned his creative drive to moral philosophy, He compiled six or seven chapters, but in the end could not finish his treatise, and they survived only in a manuscript which was found about 1969. This analysis gives Logan’s effort new life.