CHAPTER IX

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 oProvince. 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 cɶlo 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.