Professor Sachs shows the inner coherence of Samuel Johnson's thought by pointing out the interconnectedness of his remarks on religious, moral, aesthetic, political, and psychological subjects. Reason and imagination, the central concepts in the Johnsonian ethos, are elucidated with reference to "vacuity," "attention," "novelty," "diversity," and other words to which Johnson attached special significance. Johnson emerges as an original thinker of the English Christian-humanist heritage; he "is to be read in the same spirit as Pascal." Primarily concerned with the relation between Johnson's...
Professor Sachs shows the inner coherence of Samuel Johnson's thought by pointing out the interconnectedness of his remarks on religious, moral, aesth...