the world,"[i-424] at "the chorus of planets moving periodically, by
uniform laws." Rapt in wonder, he gazed "up to the fixt stars, that
radiant numberless host of heaven." Like a Blackmore, Ray, Fontenelle,
or Newton, he felt that they were "probably all possest by proper
inhabitants."[i-425] He wondered at the "just and geometrical
arrangement of things."[i-426] These are all sentiments that Franklin
expressed in his philosophical juvenilia.[i-427] But then, Franklin
(after reading this sublimated geometry which reduced the parts of
creation to an equally sublime simplicity) noted in Wollaston that man
must be a free agent,[i-428] that good and evil are as black and white,
distinguishable,[i-429] that empirically the will is free, the author
urging with Johnsonian good sense, "The short way of knowing this
certainly is to try."[i-430] Franklin's _Dissertation_ was dedicated to
his friend James Ralph and prefaced by a misquotation from Dryden and
Lee's _Oedipus_. It purports, as Franklin wrote in 1779, "to prove the
doctrine of fate, from the supposed attributes of God ... that in
erecting and governing the world, as he was infinitely wise, he knew
what would be best; infinitely good, he must be disposed, and infinitely
powerful, he must be able to execute it: consequently all is
right."[i-431] With confidence lent him by his a priori method, he
proposed: "I. There is said to be a First Mover, who is called God,
Maker of the Universe. II. He is said to be all-wise, all-good,
all-powerful."[i-432] With the nonchalance of an abstractionist, he
concluded, "Evil doth not exist."[i-433] Transcending the sensational
necessitarianism[i-434] of Anthony Collins and John Locke, Franklin
observed (with an eye on Newton's law of gravitation) that man has
liberty, the "Liberty of the same Nature with the Fall of a heavy Body
to the Ground; it has Liberty to fall, that is, it meets with nothing to
hinder its Fall, but at the same Time it is necessitated to fall, and
has no Power or Liberty to remain suspended."[i-435] As a disciple of
Locke's psychology, Franklin reflected his concept of the _tabula rasa_
in describing an infant's mind which "is as if it were not." "All our
Ideas are first admitted by the Senses and imprinted on the Brain,
increasing in Number by Observation and Experience; there they become
the Subjects of the Soul's Action."
In the _Dissertation_ one can discover the extent to which Franklin had
absorbed (if not from Newton's own works, then from his popularizers and
intellectual sons such as Pemberton, Franklin's friend) several of the
essential tenets of Newtonianism. Here we see his belief in a universe
motivated by immutable natural laws comprising a sublimely harmonious
system reflecting a Wise Geometrician; a world in which man desires to
affect a corresponding inner heaven. Enraptured by the order of the
natural laws of Newtonianism, and like a Shaftesbury searching for a
demonstrable inner harmony, Franklin (carrying his a priorism to logical
absurdity) was unable to reconcile free will with Omniscience,
Omnipotence, and Goodness. (In how far was this partly the result of his
having been steeped in Calvinism's doctrine of Election?)
The _Dissertation_ is as appreciative of Newton's contribution to
physics and thought as Thomson's[i-436] _To the Memory of Sir Isaac
Newton_. Not unlike Franklin's framework is Shaftesbury's thought in
_An Inquiry Concerning Virtue or Merit_.[i-437] Since Franklin
acknowledged his reading of 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_.
He returned in the summer of 1726 on the _Berkshire_ to Philadelphia
with Mr. Denham, a sweetly reasonable Quaker.[i-446] During this
journey he wrote his _Journal of a Voyage from London to Philadelphia_,
indicating a virtuoso's interest in all novel phenomena of nature. In
Philadelphia he worked for Denham, then Keimer, and finally established
his own printing house in 1728, a year after founding the Junto,[i-447]
and the year of his _Articles of Belief_. By this time, Franklin, like
Hume, wearied of metaphysics. Commonly this creed has been described as
illustrating the deism of Lord Herbert of Cherbury. It is true that
Franklin admits a God who ought to be worshipped, the chief parts of
worship being the cultivation of virtue and piety; but there is no
suggestion of Lord Herbert's fourth and fifth dogmas, that sin must be
atoned for by repentance, and that punishment and rewards follow this
life. His reaction against Calvinism may be shown in his failure to
include reference to scripture, the experience of faith, and the triune
godhead presided over by the redeemer Christ. As a deist he accepted
"one supreme, most perfect Being." This Deity is the "Author and Father
of the Gods themselves." "Infinite and incomprehensible," He has created
many gods, each having "made for himself one glorious Sun, attended with
a beautiful and admirable System of Planets." Franklin offered his
adoration to that "Wise and Good God, who is the author and owner of our
System." It is conventional to suggest that his interest in the
plurality of worlds and gods should be traced to Plato's
_Timaeus_.[i-448] In the absence of any conclusive evidence concerning
Franklin's study of Plato, and in view of his profound awareness of
contemporary scientific and philosophical thought, it seems more
reasonable to see the source of this idea in the thought of his own age.
Let us remember that with the growth of the heliocentric cosmology there
resulted a vast expanse of the unknown, bound to intrigue the
speculations of the philosophers of the age. We know that Ray, Fénelon,
Blackmore, Huygens, Fontenelle, Shaftesbury, Locke, and Newton all
wondered about the plurality of worlds and gods.
In company with the supernatural rationalists and deists, Franklin
exalted Reason as the experience through which God is discovered and
known. Through Reason he is "capable of observing his Wisdom in the
Creation." With Newtonian zeal, upon observing "the glorious Sun, with
his attending Worlds," he saw the Deity responsible first for imparting
"their prodigious motion," and second for maintaining "the wondrous Laws
by which they move." As we have seen above, this argument from the
design of creation to a Creator was one of the most influential and
popular of the impacts of Newtonian physics. Like Fénelon, Blackmore,
and Ray, whom he read and recommended that others read,[i-449] Franklin
exclaimed:
Thy Wisdom, thy Power, and thy Goodness are everywhere
clearly seen; in the air and in the water, in the Heaven and
on the Earth; Thou providest for the various winged Fowl, and
the innumerable Inhabitants of the Water; thou givest Cold
and Heat, Rain and Sunshine, in their Season, [et cetera].
In addition to the works mentioned above which aided Franklin in
arriving at a natural religion, it is certain that his views and even
idiom received stout reinforcement from such a passage as follows from
Ray's classic work:
There is no greater, at least no more palpable and convincing
argument of the existence of a Deity, than the admirable act
and wisdom that discovers itself in the make and
constitution, the order and disposition, the ends and uses of
all the parts and members of this stately fabric of heaven
and earth; for if in the works of art ... a curious edifice
or machine, counsel, design, and direction to an end
appearing in the whole frame, and in all the several pieces
of it, do necessarily infer the being and operation of some
intelligent architect or engineer, why shall not also in the
works of nature, that grandeur and magnificence, that
excellent contrivance for beauty, order, use &c. which is
observable in them, wherein they do as much transcend the
effects of human art as infinite power and wisdom exceeds
finite, infer the existence and efficacy of an omnipotent and
all-wise Creator?[i-450]
Then he directly referred to the Archbishop of Cambray's _Traité de
l'existence et des attributs de Dieu_. Oliver Elton observes that this
work "with its appeal to popular science, is the chief counterpart in
France to the 'physico-theology' current at the time in England."[i-451]
From the skeleton of the smallest animal, "the bones, the tendons, the
veins, the arteries, the nerves, the muscles, which compose the body of
a single man"[i-452] to "this vaulted sky" which turns "around so
regularly,"[i-453] all show "the infinite skill of its Author."[i-454]
Although Fénelon is applying Cartesian physics, here Descartes
reinforced Newtonianism; like Newton, Fénelon argued that cosmic motion
is ordered by "immutable laws," so "constant and so salutary."
Blackmore's _Creation, a Philosophical Poem_ (1712), aiming to
demonstrate "the existence of a God from the marks of wisdom, design,
contrivance, and the choice of ends and means, which appear in the
universe"[i-455] also furnished additional sanction for Franklin's
emphasis on the wondrous laws of the creation and the discovery of the
Deity in his Work. Like James Thomson, Blackmore seeks to show how
The long coherent chain of things we find
Leads to a Cause Supreme, a wise Creating Mind.[i-456]
In revolt against the contractile elements in Calvinism, Franklin
believed that God "is not offended, when he sees his Children solace
themselves in any manner of pleasant exercises and Innocent
Delights."[i-457] In his _Articles of Belief_ Franklin retains from his
_Dissertation_ his a priori concept of the Deity as a creator and
sustainer of "Wondrous Laws," immutable and beneficent. To the
depersonalized First Mover, however, he has added "some of those
Passions he has planted in us," and he suggests furthermore that the
Deity is mildly providential. A maker of systematic, if inhuman,
metaphysics in the _Dissertation_, the author of the _Articles_, in
spite of the superficial and embryonic metaphysics, succeeds better in
making himself at home in his world. To this embryonic religion (linked
with Franklin's obsession with the plurality of worlds and gods--of no
real significance save to indicate picturesquely the extent to which he
had, with the scientists of his age, extended the limits of the physical
universe) Franklin welded a pattern of ethics, prudential but stern.
Mr. Hefelbower's description of the growth of free thought might
appropriately be applied to Franklin's _Articles_: "As the supernatural
waned in radical Deism, the ethical grew in importance, until religion
was but a moral system on a theistic background."[i-458] Although the
metaphysical portions of this work are far too neighborly and casual to
be inspiring and provocative of saintliness, the ethical conclusions
(would that they were uttered less consciously and complacently!) are
worthy of the introspective force of New England's stern mind, of the
classic tradition of Socrates and Aristotle, and of England's unbending
emphasis on the middle way.[i-459] One could learn from the _Articles_
how to be just, if he did not discover what is meant by the beauty of
holiness. In 1728 Franklin, though bewildered by the tenuousness of
metaphysics, based his religion on the "everlasting tables of right
reason," plumbing the "mighty volumes of visible nature." He was thus
our pioneer scientific deist, who discovered his chief sanction in
popularized Newtonian physics.
Following Franklin's formal profession of deism buttressed by Newtonian
science in 1728, one must depend on scattered references to plot the
persistence of his philosophic ideology. His _Dialogues between
Philocles and Horatio_ (1730), borrowed[i-460] from Shaftesbury's _The
Moralists_, suggest that his _moral_ speculations were dual and not
reconciled; he seems torn between humanitarian compassion and the
self-development of the individual, unable to decide which is the nobler
good. One may observe that this moral bifurcation was inveterate in
Franklin's mind, never resolving itself into a fondness for the idea
that human nature is inexorably the product of institutions and outward
social forms. _A Witch Trial at Mount Holly_ suggests that he felt free
to handle scriptures with Aristophanic levity. His intellectual
conviction of a matchless physical harmony, as yet unmatched in the
world by a corresponding moral harmony, is joyously seen in _Preface to
Poor Richard, 1735_:
Whatever may be the Musick of the Spheres, how great soever
the Harmony of the Stars, 'tis certain there is no Harmony
among the Stargazers; but they are perpetually growling and
snarling at one another like strange Curs....[i-461]
Even Polly Baker is made to appeal to "nature and nature's God,"[i-462]
discovering in her bastard children the Deity's "divine skill and
admirable workmanship in the formation of their bodies." In _Proposals
Relating to the Education of Youth in Pensilvania_ (1749) Franklin
remarked in a note on Natural Philosophy that "Proper Books may be,
Ray's _Wisdom of God in the Creation_, Derham's _Physico-Theology_,
[Pluche's?] _Spectacle de la Nature, &c._"[i-463] _Poor Richard_, in
addition to prognostications of weather, survey of roads, Rabelaisian
wit, and aphoristic wisdom, was a popular vehicle for the diffusion of
a Newtonianism bordering on a mild form of deism.[i-464]
Since Franklin's interest in science is too commonly discussed as if his
research were synonymous with a tinkering and utilitarian inventiveness,
it is pertinent to inquire in how far it was at least partially (or even
integrally) the result of his philosophic acceptance of Newtonianism.
Since his philosophic rationale preceded his activities in science, it
will not do to suggest that his interest in science was responsible for
his scientific deism. He wrote (August 15, 1745) to Cadwallader Colden,
who was receptive to Newtonianism, that he [Franklin] "ought to _study_
the sciences" in which hitherto he had merely dabbled.[i-465] Then
follow his electrical experiments. In one of his famous letters on the
properties and effects of electricity (sent to Peter Collinson, July 29,
1750) he allowed that the principle of repulsion "affords another
occasion of adoring that wisdom which has made all things by weight and
measure!"[i-466] Investigating--like a Newton--nature's _laws_, Franklin
at first hand added to his philosophic assurance of the existence of a
Deity, observable in the physical order.
In 1739 Franklin met Reverend George Whitefield, whose sermons and
journals he printed while the evangelist remained in the
colonies.[i-467] He first angled public opinion through the
_Pennsylvania Gazette_, promising to print Whitefield's pieces "if I
find sufficient Encouragement."[i-468] The _Pennsylvania Gazette_
piously hoped that Whitefield's heavenly discourses would be ever
remembered: "May the Impression on all our Souls remain, to the Honour
of God, both in Ministers and People!"[i-469] As editor (perhaps even
writer of some of those notices) Franklin must have squirmed in praising
the activities of one who daily cast all deists in hell! But it should
be observed that if Franklin could not accept Methodistic zeal, he loved
Whitefield, the man.[i-470] Even so did Whitefield regard Franklin, the
man and printer--though not the scientific deist. Waiting to embark for
England in 1740, Whitefield wrote to Franklin from Reedy Island: "Dear
Sir, adieu! I do not despair of your seeing the reasonableness of
Christianity. Apply to God, be willing to do the Divine Will, and you
shall know it."[i-471] Twelve years later Whitefield wrote to his
printer-deist friend: "I find that you grow more and more famous in the
learned world. As you have made a pretty considerable progress in the
mysteries of electricity, I would now humbly recommend to your diligent
unprejudiced pursuit and study the mysteries of the new birth."[i-472]
When troops had been sent to Boston, Franklin wrote a letter to
Whitefield (after January 21, 1768) which offers a significant clue for
estimating Franklin's philosophy: "I _see_ with you that our affairs are
not well managed by our rulers here below; I wish I could _believe_ with
you, that they are well attended to by those above; I rather suspect,
from certain circumstances, that though the general government of the
universe is well administered, our particular little affairs are perhaps
below notice, and left to take the chance of human prudence or
imprudence, as either may happen to be uppermost. It is, however, an
uncomfortable thought, and I leave it."[i-473] Whitefield "endorsed his
friend's letter with the words, '_Uncomfortable_ indeed! and blessed be
God, _unscriptural_!'"[i-474] If in 1786 Franklin wrote to an unknown
correspondent (perhaps Tom Paine?)[i-475] that any arguments "against
the Doctrines of a particular Providence" strike "at the Foundation of
all Religion,"[i-476] he also had written not long before that "the
Dispensations of Providence in this World puzzle my weak Reason."[i-477]
Beneath the taciturn and allegedly complacent, imperturbable Franklin
there is apparent a haunting inquietude. Never dead to his Calvinist
heritage, he sought to establish a providential relationship between the
Deity and man's fortunes, not a little chilled in the presence of the
virtually depersonalized Deity of the Enlightenment. If Calvin's God was
wrathful, he was providential; his own Deity, if benevolent and
omnipotent, seemed strangely remote from the ken of man's moral
experience. Science had shown him a Deity existing at the head of a
fagot of immutable laws. If this Creator was picturesquely unlike the
fickle gods of Olympus, he was strangely like them to the extent that he
seemed to exist apart from man's moral nature. When he wrote to his
friend, the Bishop of St. Asaph, "It seems my Fate constantly to wish
for Repose, and never to obtain it,"[i-478] was he in part longing for
the retirement when he would be able to resolve his doubts as to the
workings of Providence?
M. Marbois, discussing Franklin's religion with John Adams, quietly
noted that "Mr. Franklin adores only great Nature."[i-479] Joseph
Priestley "lamented that a man of Dr. Franklin's general good character
and great influence should have been an unbeliever in Christianity, and
also have done so much as he did to make others unbelievers."[i-480]
This evidence appears untrustworthy in light of his diffident attitude
toward church attendance, even toward scriptures, as it may be
discovered in his collected works.[i-481] Even if he did not feel the
desire to attend formal services, he seemed, like Voltaire, to feel that
they were salutary, if only to furnish the _canaille_ with the will to
obey authority. In 1751 Franklin's mother, Abiah Franklin, wrote to her
son: "I hope you will lookup to God, and thank Him for all His good
providences towards you."[i-482] If he were unable to understand God's
providences, it was certain that he did not seek to disturb others by
calling the concept of a providential deity into question.
In England and France Franklin was revered as the answer to the
Enlightenment's prayer for the ideal philosopher-scientist. Sir John
Pringle,[i-483] one of his warmest friends, in a Royal Society lecture
in honor of Maskelyne, might well have been describing Franklin's place
in eighteenth-century science when he said: "As much then remains to be
explored in the celestial regions, you [Maskelyne] are encouraged, Sir,
by what has been already attained, to persevere in these hallowed
labours, from which have been derived the greatest improvements in the
most useful arts, and the loudest declarations of the power, the wisdom,
and the goodness of the Supreme Architect in the Spacious and beautiful
fabric of the world."[i-484] To his age Franklin was "that judicious
philosopher," judicious and "enlightened" to the extent that his
experiments showed how men "may perceive not only the direction of
Divine Wisdom, but the _goodness_ of Providence towards mankind, in
having so admirably settled all things in the sublime arrangement of the
world, that it should be in the power of men to secure themselves and
their habitations against the dire effects of lightning."[i-485]
Turgot's famous epigram on Franklin, the republican-deist, that he
snatched sceptres from kings and lightning from the heavens, in part
expressed the extent to which the French public conceived of Franklin,
the scientist, as detracting from the terror in the cosmos, hence making
their reasonable world more habitable.[i-486] In the popular mind
death-dealing lightning had been the visible symbol and proof of
Calvin's wrathful and capricious Jehovah. Franklin's dramatic and widely
popularized proof that even lightning's secrets were not past finding
out, that it acted according to immutable laws and could be made man's
captive and menial slave, no doubt had a powerful influence in
encouraging the great untheological public to become ultimately more
receptive to deism. If Franklin was apotheosized as the apostle of
liberty, he was no less sanctified as a "Modern Prometheus." In his own
words, he saw science as freeing man "from vain Terrors."[i-487] To
Condorcet, his friend and disciple, Franklin was one who "was enabled to
wield a power sufficient to disarm the wrath of Heaven."[i-488]