SCIENCE AND THE STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY--BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
Of the Fellows of the Royal Society, Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) is
the most representative of that age of enlightenment which had its
origin in Newton's _Principia_. Franklin represents the eighteenth
century in his steadfast pursuit of intellectual, social, and political
emancipation. And in his long fight, calmly waged, against the forces of
want, superstition, and intolerance, such as still hamper the
development of aspiring youth in America, England, and elsewhere, he
found science no mean ally.
There is some reason for believing that the Franklins (_francus_--free)
were of a free line, free from that vassalage to an overlord, which in
the different countries of Europe did not cease to exist with the Middle
Ages. For hundreds of years they had lived obscurely near Northampton.
They had early joined the revolt against the papal authority. For
generations they were blacksmiths and husbandmen. Franklin's
great-grandfather had been imprisoned for writing satirical verses about
some provincial magnate. Of the grandfather's four sons the eldest
became a smith, but having some ingenuity and scholarly ability turned
conveyancer, and was recognized as able and public-spirited. The other
three were dyers. Franklin's father Josiah and his Uncle Benjamin were
nonconformists, and conceived the plan of emigrating to America in
order to enjoy their way of religion with freedom.
Benjamin, born at Boston, twenty-one years after his father's
emigration, was the youngest of ten sons, all of whom were eventually
apprenticed to trades. The father was a man of sound judgment who
encouraged sensible conversation in his home. Uncle Benjamin, who did
not emigrate till much later, showed interest in his precocious
namesake. Both he and the maternal grandfather expressed in verse
dislike of war and intolerance, the one with considerable literary
skill, the other with a good deal of decent plainness and manly freedom,
as his grandson said.
Benjamin was intended as a tithe to the Church, but the plan was
abandoned because of lack of means to send him to college. After one
year at the Latin Grammar School, and one year at an arithmetic and
writing school, for better or worse, his education of that sort ceased;
and at the age of ten he began to assist in his father's occupation, now
that of tallow-chandler and soap-boiler. He wished to go to sea, and
gave indications of leadership and enterprise. His father took him to
visit the shops of joiners, bricklayers, turners, braziers, cutlers, and
other artisans, thus stimulating in him a delight in handicraft.
Finally, because of a bookish turn he had been exhibiting, the boy was
bound apprentice to his brother James, who about 1720 began to publish
the _New England Courant_, the fourth newspaper to be established in
America.
Among the books early read by Benjamin Franklin were _The Pilgrim's
Progress_, certain historical collections, a book on navigation, works
of Protestant controversy, Plutarch's _Lives_, filled with the spirit
of Greek freedom, Dr. Mather's _Bonifacius_, and Defoe's _Essay on
Projects_. The last two seemed to give him a way of thinking, to adopt
Franklin's phraseology, that had an influence on some of the principal
events of his life. Defoe, an ardent nonconformist, educated in one of
the Academies (established on Milton's model) and especially trained in
English and current history, advocated among other projects a military
academy, an academy for improving the vernacular, and an academy for
women. He thought it barbarous that a civilized and Christian country
should deny the advantages of learning to women. They should be brought
to read books and especially history. Defoe could not think that God
Almighty had made women so glorious, with souls capable of the same
accomplishments with men, and all to be only stewards of our houses,
cooks, and slaves.
Benjamin still had a hankering for the sea, but he recognized in the
printing-office and access to books other means of escape from the
narrowness of the Boston of 1720. Between him and another bookish boy,
John Collins, arose an argument in reference to the education of women.
The argument took the form of correspondence. Josiah Franklin's
judicious criticism led Benjamin to undertake the well-known plan of
developing his literary style.
Passing over his reading of the _Spectator_, however, it is remarkable
how soon his mind sought out and assimilated its appropriate
nourishment, Locke's _Essay on the Human Understanding_, which began the
modern epoch in psychology; the _Port Royal Logic_, prepared by that
brilliant group of noble Catholics about Pascal; the works of Locke's
disciple Collins, whose _Discourse on Freethinking_ appeared in 1713;
the ethical writings (1708-1713) of Shaftesbury, who defended liberty
and justice, and detested all persecution. A few pages of translation of
Xenophon's _Memorabilia_ gave him a hint as to Socrates' manner of
discussion, and he made it his own, and avoided dogmatism.
Franklin rapidly became expert as a printer, and early contributed
articles to the paper. His brother, however, to whom he had been bound
apprentice for a period of nine years, humiliated and beat him. Benjamin
thought that the harsh and tyrannical treatment he received at this time
was the means of impressing him with that aversion to arbitrary power
that stuck to him through his whole life. He had a strong desire to
escape from his bondage, and, after five years of servitude, found the
opportunity. James Franklin, on account of some offensive utterances in
the _New England Courant_, was summoned before the Council and sent to
jail for one month, during which time Benjamin, in charge of the paper,
took the side of his brother and made bold to give the rulers some rubs.
Later, James was forbidden to publish the paper without submitting to
the supervision of the Secretary of the Province. To evade the
difficulty the _New England Courant_ was published in Benjamin's name,
James announcing his own retirement. In fear that this subterfuge might
be challenged, he gave Benjamin a discharge of his indentures, but at
the same time signed with him a new secret contract. Fresh quarrels
arose between the brothers, however, and Benjamin, knowing that the
editor dared not plead before court the second contract, took upon
himself to assert his freedom, a step which he later regretted as not
dictated by the highest principle.
Unable to find other employment in Boston, condemned by his father's
judgment in the matter of the contract, somewhat under public criticism
also for his satirical vein and heterodoxy, Franklin determined to try
his fortunes elsewhere. Thus, at the age of seventeen he made his escape
from Boston.
Unable to find work in New York, he arrived after some difficulties in
Philadelphia in October, 1723. He had brought no recommendations from
Boston; his supply of money was reduced to one Dutch dollar and a
shilling in copper. But he that hath a Trade hath an Estate (as Poor
Richard says). His capital was his industry, his skill as a printer, his
good-will, his shrewd powers of observation, his knowledge of books, and
ability to write. Franklin, recognized as a promising young man by the
Governor, Sir William Keith, as previously by Governor Burnet of New
York, had a growing sense of personal freedom and self-reliance.
But increased freedom for those who deserve it means increased
responsibility; for it implies the possibility of error. Franklin,
intent above all on the wise conduct of life, was deeply perturbed in
his nineteenth and twentieth years by a premature engagement, in which
his ever-passionate nature had involved him, by his failure to pay over
money collected for a friend, and by the unsettled state of his
religious and ethical beliefs. Encouraged by Keith to purchase the
equipment for an independent printing-office, Franklin, though unable to
gain his father's support for the project, went to London (for the
ostensible purpose of selecting the stock) at the close of the year
1724.
He remained in London a year and a half, working in two of the leading
printing establishments of the metropolis, where his skill and
reliability were soon prized. He found the English artisans of that time
great guzzlers of beer, and influenced some of his co-workers to adopt
his own more abstinent and hygienic habits of eating and drinking. About
this time a book, _Religion of Nature Delineated_, by William Wollaston
(great-grandfather of the scientist Wollaston) so roused Franklin's
opposition that he wrote a reply, which he printed in pamphlet form
before leaving London in 1726, and the composition of which he
afterwards regretted.
He returned to Philadelphia in the employ of a Quaker merchant, on whose
death he resumed work as printer under his former employer. He was given
control of the office, undertook to make his own type, contrived a
copper-plate press, the first in America, and printed paper money for
New Jersey. The substance of some lectures in defense of Christianity,
in courses endowed by the will of Robert Boyle, made Franklin a Deist.
At the same time his views on moral questions were clarified, and he
came to recognize that truth, sincerity, and integrity were of the
utmost importance to the felicity of life. What he had attained by his
own independent thought rendered him ultimately more careful rather than
more reckless. He now set value on his own character, and resolved to
preserve it.
In 1727, still only twenty-one, he drew together a number of young men
in a sort of club, called the "Junto," for mutual benefit in business
and for the discussion of morals, politics, and natural philosophy. They
professed tolerance, benevolence, love of truth. They discussed the
effect on business of the issue of paper money, various natural
phenomena, and kept a sharp look-out for any encroachment on the rights
of the people. It is not unnatural to find that in a year or two (1729),
after Franklin and a friend had established a printing business of their
own and acquired the _Pennsylvania Gazette_, the young politician
championed the cause of the Massachusetts Assembly against the claims
first put forward by Governor Burnet, and that he used spirited language
referring to America as a nation and clime foreign to England.
In 1730 Franklin bought out his partner, and in the same year published
dialogues in the Socratic manner in reference to virtue and pleasure,
which show a rapid development in his general views. About the same time
he married, restored the money that had long been owing, and formulated
his ethical code and religious creed. He began in 1732 the _Poor Richard
Almanacks_, said to offer in their homely wisdom the best course in
existence in practical morals.
As early as 1729 Franklin had published a pamphlet on _Paper Currency_.
It was a well-reasoned discussion on the relation of the issue of paper
currency to rate of interest, land values, manufactures, population, and
wages. The want of money discouraged laboring and handicraftsmen. One
must consider the nature and value of money in general. This essay
accomplished its purpose in the Assembly. It was the first of those
contributions which, arising from Franklin's consideration of the social
and industrial circumstances of the times, gained for him recognition as
the first American economist. It was in the same spirit that in 1751 he
discussed the question of population after the passage of the British
Act forbidding the erection or the operation of iron or steel mills in
the colonies. Science for Franklin was no extraneous interest; he was
all of a piece, and it was as a citizen of Philadelphia he wrote those
essays that commanded the attention of Adam Smith, Malthus, and Turgot.
In 1731 he was instrumental in founding the first of those public
libraries, which (along with a free press) have made American tradesmen
and farmers as intelligent, in Franklin's judgment, as most gentlemen
from other countries, and contributed to the spirit with which they
defended their liberties. The diffusion of knowledge became so general
in the colonies that in 1766 Franklin was able to tell the English
legislators that the seeds of liberty were universally found there and
that nothing could eradicate them. Franklin became clerk of the General
Assembly and postmaster, improved the paving and lighting of the city
streets, and established the first fire brigade and the first police
force in America. Then in 1743 in the same spirit of public beneficence
Franklin put forth his _Proposal for Promoting Useful Knowledge among
the British Plantations in America_. It outlines his plan for the
establishment of the American Philosophical Society. Correspondence had
already been established with the Royal Society of London. It is not
difficult to see in Franklin the same spirit that had animated Hartlib,
Boyle, Petty,[2] Wilkins, and their friends one hundred years before. In
fact, Franklin was the embodiment of that union of scientific ideas and
practical skill in the industries that with them was merely a pious
wish.
In this same year of 1743 an eclipse of the moon, which could not be
seen at Philadelphia on account of a northeast storm, was yet visible at
Boston, where the storm came, as Franklin learned from his brother,
about an hour after the time of observation. Franklin, who knew
something of fireplaces, explained the matter thus: "When I have a fire
in my chimney, there is a current of air constantly flowing from the
door to the chimney, but the beginning of the motion was at the
chimney." So in a mill-race, water stopped by a gate is like air in a
calm. When the gate is raised, the water moves forward, but the motion,
so to speak, runs backward. Thus the principle was established in
meteorology that northeast storms arise to the southwest.
No doubt Franklin was not oblivious of the practical value of this
discovery, for, as Sir Humphry Davy remarked, he in no instance
exhibited that false dignity, by which philosophy is kept aloof from
common applications. In fact, Franklin was rather apologetic in
reference to the magic squares and circles, with which he sometimes
amused his leisure, as a sort of ingenious trifling. At the very time
that the question of the propagation of storms arose in his mind he had
contrived the Pennsylvania fireplace, which was to achieve cheap,
adequate, and uniform heating for American homes. His aspiration was for
a free people, well sheltered, well fed, well clad, well instructed.
In 1747 Franklin made what is generally considered his chief
contribution to science. One of his correspondents, Collinson (a Fellow
of the Royal Society and a botanist interested in useful plants, through
whom the vine was introduced into Virginia), had sent to the Library
Company at Philadelphia one of the recently invented Leyden jars with
instructions for its use. Franklin, who had already seen similar
apparatus at Boston, and his friends, set to work experimenting. For
months he had leisure for nothing else. In this sort of activity he had
a spontaneous and irrepressible delight. By March, 1747, they felt that
they had made discoveries, and in July, and subsequently, Franklin
reported results to Collinson. He had observed that a pointed rod
brought near the jar was much more efficacious than a blunt rod in
drawing off the charge; also that if a pointed rod were attached to the
jar, the charge would be thrown off, and accumulation of charge
prevented. Franklin, moreover, found that the nature of the charges on
the inside and on the outside of the glass was different. He spoke of
one as plus and the other as minus. Again, "We say _B_ (and bodies
like-circumstanced) is electricized positively; _A_ negatively." Dufay
had recognized two sorts of electricity, obtained by rubbing a glass
rod and a stick of resin, and had spoken of them as vitreous and
resinous. For Franklin electricity was a single subtle fluid, and
electrical manifestations were owing to the degree of its presence, to
interruption or restoration of equilibrium.
His mind, however, was bent on the use, the applications, the
inventions, to follow. He contrived an "electric jack driven by two
Leyden jars and capable of carrying a large fowl with a motion fit for
roasting before a fire." He also succeeded in driving an "automatic"
wheel by electricity, but he regretted not being able to turn his
discoveries to greater account.
He thought later--in 1748--that there were many points of similarity
between lightning and the spark from a Leyden jar, and suggested an
experiment to test the identity of their natures. The suggestion was
acted upon at Marly in France. An iron rod about forty feet long and
sharp at the end was placed upright in the hope of drawing electricity
from the storm-clouds. A man was instructed to watch for storm-clouds,
and to touch a brass wire, attached to a glass bottle, to the rod. The
conditions seemed favorable May 10, 1752; sparks between the wire and
rod and a "sulphurous" odor were perceived (the manifestations of
wrath!). Franklin's well-known kite experiment followed. In 1753 he
received from the Royal Society a medal for the identification and
control of the forces of lightning; subsequently he was elected Fellow,
became a member of the Académie des Sciences, and of other learned
bodies. By 1782 there were as many as four hundred lightning rods in
use in Philadelphia alone, though some conservative people regarded
their employment as impious. Franklin's good-will, clearness of
conception, and common sense triumphed everywhere.
One has only to recall that in 1753 he (along with Hunter) was in charge
of the postal service of the colonies, that in 1754 as delegate to the
Albany Convention he drew up the first plan for colonial union, and that
in the following year he furnished Braddock with transportation for the
expedition against Fort Duquesne, to realize the distractions amid which
he pursued science. In 1748 he had sold his printing establishment with
the purpose of devoting himself to physical experiment, but the
conditions of the time saved him from specialization.
In 1749 he drew up proposals relating to the education of youth in
Pennsylvania, which led, two years later, to the establishment of the
first American Academy. His plan was so advanced, so democratic,
springing as it did from his own experience, that no secondary school
has yet taken full advantage of its wisdom. The school, chartered in
1753, grew ultimately into the University of Pennsylvania. Moreover, it
became the prototype of thousands of schools, which departed from the
Latin Grammar Schools and the Colleges by the introduction of the
sciences and practical studies into the curriculum.
Franklin deserves mention not only in connection with economics,
meteorology, practical ethics, electricity, and pedagogy; his biographer
enumerates nineteen sciences to which he made original contributions or
which he advanced by intelligent criticism. In medicine he invented
bifocal lenses and founded the first American public hospital; in
navigation he studied the Gulf Stream and waterspouts, and suggested the
use of oil in storms and the construction of ships with water-tight
compartments; in agriculture he experimented with plaster of Paris as a
fertilizer and introduced in America the use of rhubarb; in chemistry he
aided Priestley's experiments by information in reference to marsh gas.
He foresaw the employment of air craft in war. Thinking the English slow
to take up the interest in balloons, he wrote that we should not suffer
pride to prevent our progress in science. Pride that dines on vanity
sups on contempt, as Poor Richard says. When it was mentioned in his
presence that birds fly in inclined planes, he launched a half sheet of
paper to indicate that his previous observations had prepared his mind
to respond readily to the discovery. His quickness and versatility made
him sought after by the best intellects of Europe.
I pass over his analysis of mesmerism, his conception of light as
dependent (like lightning) on a subtle fluid, his experiments with
colored cloths, his view of the nature of epidemic colds, interest in
inoculation for smallpox, in ventilation, vegetarianism, a stove to
consume its own smoke, the steamboat, and his own inventions (clock,
harmonica, etc.), for which he refused to take out patents.
However, from the many examples of his scientific acumen I select one
more. As early as 1747 he had been interested in geology and had seen
specimens of the fossil remains of marine shells from the strata of the
highest parts of the Alleghany Mountains. Later he stated that either
the sea had once stood at a higher level, or that these strata had been
raised by the force of earthquakes. Such convulsions of nature are not
wholly injurious, since, by bringing a great number of strata of
different kinds today, they have rendered the earth more fit for use,
more capable of being to mankind a convenient and comfortable
habitation. He thought it unlikely that a great _bouleversement_ should
happen if the earth were solid to the center. Rather the surface of the
globe was a shell resting on a fluid of very great specific gravity, and
was thus capable of being broken and disordered by violent movement. As
late as 1788 Franklin wrote his queries and conjectures relating to
magnetism and the theory of the earth. Did the earth become magnetic by
the development of iron ore? Is not magnetism rather interplanetary and
interstellar? May not the near passing of a comet of greater magnetic
force than the earth have been a means of changing its poles and thereby
wrecking and deranging its surface, and raising and depressing the sea
level?
We are not here directly concerned with his political career, in his
checking of governors and proprietaries, in his activities as the
greatest of American diplomats, as the signer of the Declaration of
Independence, of the Treaty of Versailles, and of the American
Constitution, nor as the president of the Supreme Executive Council of
Pennsylvania in his eightieth, eighty-first, and eighty-second years.
When he was eighty-four, as president of the Society for Promoting the
Abolition of Slavery, he signed a petition to Congress against that
atrocious debasement of human nature, and six weeks later, within a few
weeks of his death, defended the petition with his accustomed vigor,
humor, wisdom, and ardent love of liberty. Turgot wittily summed up
Franklin's career by saying that he had snatched the lightning from the
heavens and the scepter from the hands of tyrants (_eripuit cœlo fulmen
sceptrumque tyrannis_); for both his political and scientific activities
sprang from the same impelling emotion--hatred of the exercise of
arbitrary power and desire for human welfare. It is no wonder that the
French National Assembly, promulgators of the Rights of Man, paused in
their labors to pay homage to the simple citizen, who, representing
America in Paris from his seventy-first till his eightieth year, had by
his wisdom and urbanity illustrated the best fruits of an instructed
democracy.
REFERENCES
American Philosophical Society, _Record of the Celebration of the Two
Hundredth Anniversary of the Birth of Benjamin Franklin_.
S. G. Fisher, _The True Benjamin Franklin_.
Paul L. Ford, _Many-sided Franklin_.
Benjamin Franklin, _Complete Works_, edited by A. H. Smyth, ten
volumes, vol. X containing biography.
FOOTNOTES:
[2] See _The Advice of W. P. to Mr. Samuel Hartlib for the Advancement
of some Particular Parts of Learning_, in which is advocated a
_Gymnasium Mechanicum_ or a _College of Tradesmen_ with fellowships for
experts. Petty wanted trade encyclopedias prepared, and hoped for
inventions in abundance.