Sir Robert S. Ball,Great Astronomers.Robert Boyle,Works(edited by Thomas Birch).Sir David Brewster,Martyrs of Science.J. L. E. Dreyer,Tycho Brahe.Sir Oliver Lodge,Pioneers of Science.Flora Masson,Robert Boyle; a Biography.
Sir Robert S. Ball,Great Astronomers.
Robert Boyle,Works(edited by Thomas Birch).
Sir David Brewster,Martyrs of Science.
J. L. E. Dreyer,Tycho Brahe.
Sir Oliver Lodge,Pioneers of Science.
Flora Masson,Robert Boyle; a Biography.
The period from 1637 to 1687 affords a good illustration of the value for the progress of science of the coöperation in the pursuit of truth of men of different creeds, nationalities, vocations, and social ranks. At, or even before, the beginning of that period the need of coöperation was indicated by the activities of two men of pronouncedly social temperament and interests, namely, the French Minim father, Mersenne, and the Protestant Prussian merchant, Samuel Hartlib.
Mersenne was a stimulating and indefatigable correspondent. His letters to Galileo, Jean Rey, Hobbes, Descartes, Gassendi, not to mention other scientists and philosophers, constitute an encyclopedia of the learning of the time. A mathematician and experimenter himself, he had a genius for eliciting discussion and research by means of adroit questions. Through him Descartes was drawn into debate with Hobbes, and with Gassendi, a champion of the experimental method. Through him the discoveries of Harvey, Galileo, and Torricelli, as well as of many others, became widely known. His letters, in the dearth of scientific associations and the absence of scientific periodicals, served as a general news agency among the learned of his time. It is not surprising that a coterie gathered about him at Paris. Hobbesspent months in daily intercourse with this group of scientists in the winter of 1636-37.
Hartlib, though he scarcely takes rank with Mersenne as a scientist, was no less influential. Of a generous and philanthropic disposition, he repeatedly impoverished himself in the cause of human betterment. His chief reliance was on education and improved methods of husbandry, but he resembled Horace Greeley in his hospitality to any project for the public welfare.
One of Hartlib's chief hopes for the regeneration of England, if not of the whole world, rested on the teachings of the educational reformer Comenius, a bishop of the Moravian Brethren. In 1637, Comenius having shown himself rather reluctant to put his most cherished plans before the public, his zealous disciple precipitated matters, and on his own responsibility, and unknown to Comenius, issued from his library at OxfordPreludes to the Endeavors of Comenius. Besides Hartlib's preface it contained a treatise by the great educator on aSeminary of Christian Pansophy, a method of imparting an encyclopedic knowledge of the sciences and arts.
The two friends were followers of the Baconian philosophy. They were influenced, as many others of the time, by theNew Atlantis, which went through ten editions between 1627 and 1670, and which outlined a plan for an endowed college with thirty-six Fellows divided into groups—what would be called to-day a university of research endowed by the State. It is not surprising to find Comenius (who in his student days had been under the influence of Alsted, author of an encyclopedia on Baconian lines) speaking in 1638 on the need of a collegiate society for carrying on the educational work that he himself had at heart.
In 1641 Hartlib published a work of fiction in the manner of theNew Atlantis, and dedicated it to the Long Parliament. In the same year he urged Comenius to come to London, and published another work,A Reformation of Schools. He had great influence and did not hesitate to use it in his adoptive country. Everybody knew Hartlib, and he was acquainted with all the strata of English society; for although his father had been a merchant, first in Poland and later in Elbing, his mother was the daughter of the Deputy of the English Company in Dantzic and had relatives of rank in London, where Hartlib spent most of his life. He gained the good-will of the Puritan Government, and even after Cromwell's death was working, in conjunction with Boyle, for the establishment of a national council of universal learning with Wilkins as president.
When Comenius arrived in London he learned that the invitation had been sent by order of Parliament. This body was very anxious to take up the question of education, especially university education. Bacon's criticisms of Oxford and Cambridge were still borne in mind; the legislators considered that the college curriculum was in need of reformation, that there ought to be more fraternity and correspondence among the universities of Europe, and they even contemplated the endowment by the State of scientific experiment. They spoke of erecting a university at London, where Gresham College had been established in 1597 and Chelsea College in1610. It was proposed to place Gresham College, the Savoy, or Winchester College, at the disposition of the pansophists. Comenius thought that nothing was more certain than that the design of the great Verulam concerning the opening somewhere of a universal college, devoted to the advancement of the sciences, could be carried out. The impending struggle, however, between Charles I and the Parliament prevented the attempt to realize the pansophic dream, and the Austrian Slav, who knew something of the horrors of civil war, withdrew, discouraged, to the Continent.
Nevertheless, Hartlib did not abandon the cause, but in 1644 broached Milton on the subject of educational reform, and drew from him the brief but influential tract onEducation. In this its author alludes rather slightingly to Comenius, who had something of Bacon's infelicity in choice of titles and epithets and who must have seemed outlandish to the author ofLycidasandComus. But Milton joined in the criticism of the universities—the study of words rather than things—and advocated an encyclopedic education based on the Greek and Latin writers of a practical and scientific tendency (Aristotle, Theophrastus, Cato, Varro, Vitruvius, Seneca, and others). He outlined a plan for the establishment of an institution to be known by the classical (and Shakespearian) name "Academy"—a plan destined to have a great effect on education in the direction indicated by the friends of pansophia.
In this same year Robert Boyle, then an eager student of eighteen just returned to England from residence abroad, came under the influence of thegenial Hartlib. In 1646 he writes his tutor inquiring about books on methods of husbandry and referring to the new philosophical college, which valued no knowledge but as it had a tendency to use. A few months later he was in correspondence with Hartlib in reference to the Invisible College, and had written a third friend that the corner-stones of the invisible, or, as they termed themselves, the philosophical college, did now and then honor him with their company. These philosophers whom Boyle entertained, and whose scientific acumen, breadth of mind, humility, and universal good-will he found so congenial, were the nucleus of the Royal Society of London, of which, on its definite organization in 1662, he was the foremost member. They had begun to meet together in London about 1645, worthy persons inquisitive into natural philosophy—Wilkins, interested in the navigation of the air and of waters below the surface; Wallis, mathematician and grammarian; the many-sided Petty, political economist, and inventor of a double-bottomed boat, who had as a youth of twenty studied with Hobbes in Paris in 1643, and in 1648 was to write his first treatise on industrial education at the suggestion of Hartlib, and finally make a survey of Ireland and acquire large estates; Foster, professor of astronomy at Gresham College; Theodore Haak from the Pfalz; a number of medical men, Dr. Merret, Dr. Ent, a friend of Harvey, Dr. Goddard, who could always be relied upon to undertake an experiment, Dr. Glisson, the physiologist, author in 1654 of a treatise on the liver (De Hepate), and others. They met once a week at Goddard's in Wood Street, at the Bull's Head Tavern in Cheapside, and at Gresham College.
Dr. Wilkins, the brother-in-law of Cromwell, who is regarded by some as the founder of the Royal Society, removed to Oxford, as Warden of Wadham, in 1649. Here he held meetings and conducted experiments in conjunction with Wallis, Goddard, Petty, Boyle, and others, including Ward (afterwards Bishop of Salisbury) interested in Bulliau's Astronomy; and the celebrated physician and anatomist, Thomas Willis, author of a work on the brain (Cerebri Anatome), and another on fevers (De Febribus), in which he described epidemic typhoid as it occurred during the Civil War in 1643.
In the mean time the weekly meetings in London continued, and were attended when convenient by members of the Oxford group. At Gresham College by 1658 it was the custom to remain for discussion Wednesdays and Thursdays after Mr. Wren's lecture and Mr. Rooke's. During the unsettled state of the country after Cromwell's death there was some interruption of the meetings, but with the accession of Charles II in 1660 there came a greater sense of security. New names appear on the records, Lord Brouncker, Sir Robert Moray, John Evelyn, Brereton, Ball, Robert Hooke, and Abraham Cowley.
From a print of 1675WADHAM COLLEGE, OXFORD
Plans were discussed for a more permanent form of organization, especially on November 28, 1660, when something was said of a design to found a college for the promotion of physico-mathematical experimental learning. A few months later was published Cowley's proposition for an endowed college with twenty professors, four of whom should be constantly traveling in the interests of science. The sixteen resident professors "should be bound to studyand teach all sorts of natural, experimental philosophy, to consist of the mathematics, mechanics, medicine, anatomy, chemistry, the history of animals, plants, minerals, elements, etc.; agriculture, architecture, art military, navigation, gardening; the mysteries of all trades and improvement of them; the facture of all merchandise, all natural magic or divination; and briefly all things contained in the Catalogue of Natural Histories annexed to my Lord Bacon'sOrganon." The early official history of the Royal Society (Sprat, 1667) says that this proposal hastened very much the adoption of a plan of organization. Cowley wished to educate youth and incur great expense (£4,000), but "most of the other particulars of his draught the Royal Society is now putting in practice."
A charter of incorporation was granted in July, 1662; and, later, Charles II proclaimed himself founder and patron of the Royal Society for the advancement of natural science. Charles continued to take an interest in this organization, devoted to the discovery of truth by the corporate action of men; he proposed subjects for investigation, and asked their coöperation in a more accurate measurement of a degree of latitude. He showed himself tactful to take account of the democratic spirit of scientific investigation, and recommended to the Royal Society John Graunt, the author of a work on mortality statistics first published in 1661. Graunt was a shop-keeper of London, and Charles said that if they found any more such tradesmen, they should be sure to admit them all without more ado.
It was a recognized principle of the Society freelyto admit men of different religions, countries, professions. Sprat said that they openly professed, not to lay the foundation of an English, Scotch, Irish, Popish or Protestant philosophy, but a philosophy of mankind. They sought (hating war as most of them did) to establish a universal culture, or, as they phrased it, a constant intelligence throughout all civil nations. Even for the special purposes of the Society, hospitality toward all nations was necessary; for the ideal scientist, the perfect philosopher, should have the diligence and inquisitiveness of the northern nations, and the cold and circumspect and wary disposition of the Italians and Spaniards. Haak from the German Palatinate was one of the earliest Fellows of the Society, and is even credited by Wallis with being the first to suggest the meetings of 1645. Oldenburg from Bremen acted as secretary (along with Wilkins) and carried on an extensive foreign correspondence. Huygens of Holland was one of the original Fellows in 1663, while the names of Auzout, Sorbière, the Duke of Brunswick, Bulliau, Cassini, Malpighi, Leibnitz, Leeuwenhoek (as well as Winthrop and Roger Williams) appear in the records of the Society within the first decade. It seemed fitting that this cosmopolitan organization should be located in the world's metropolis rather than in a mere university town. Sprat thought London the natural seat of a universal philosophy.
As already implied, the Royal Society was not exclusive in its attitude toward the different vocations. A spirit of true fellowship prevailed in Gresham College, as the Society was sometimes called. The medical profession, the universities, the churches, thecourt, the army, the navy, trade, agriculture, and other industries were there represented. Social partition walls were broken down, and the Fellows, sobered by years of political and religious strife, joined, mutually assisting one another, in the advance of science for the sake of the common weal. Their express purpose was the improvement of all professions from the highest general to the lowest artisan. Particular attention was paid to the trades, the mechanic arts, and the fostering of inventions. One of their eight committees dealt with the histories of trades; another was concerned with mechanical inventions, and the king ordained in 1662 that no mechanical device should receive a patent before undergoing their scrutiny. A great many inventions emanated from the Fellows themselves—Hooke's hygroscope; Boyle's hydrometer, of use in the detection of counterfeit coin; and, again, the tablet anemometer used by Sir Christopher Wren (the Leonardo da Vinci of his age) to register the velocity of the wind. A third committee devoted itself to agriculture, and in the Society's museum were collected products and curiosities of the shop, mine, sea, etc. One Fellow advised that attention should be paid even to the least and plainest of phenomena, as otherwise they might learn the romance of nature rather than its true history. So bent were they on preserving a spirit of simplicity and straightforwardness that in their sober discussions they sought to employ the language of artisans, countrymen, and merchants rather than that of wits and scholars.
Of course there was in the Society a predominance of gentlemen of means and leisure, "free and unconfined." Their presence was thought to serve a double purpose. It checked the tendency to sacrifice the search of truth to immediate profit, and to lay such emphasis on application, as, in the words of a subsequent president of the Society, would make truth, and wisdom, and knowledge of no importance for their own sakes. In the second place their presence was held to check dogmatism on the part of the leaders, and subservience on the part of their followers. They understood how difficult it is to transmit knowledge without putting initiative in jeopardy and that quiet intellect is easily dismayed in the presence of bold speech. The Society accepted the authority of no one, and adopted as its mottoNullius in Verba.
In this attitude they were aided by their subject and method. Search for scientific truth by laboratory procedure does not favor dogmatism. The early meetings were taken up with experiments and discussions. The Fellows recognized that the mental powers are raised to a higher degree in company than in solitude. They welcomed diversity of view and the common-sense judgment of the onlooker. As in the Civil War the private citizen had held his own with the professional soldier, so here the contribution of the amateur to the discussion was not to be despised. They had been taught to shun all forms of narrowness and intolerance. They wished to avoid the pedantry of the mere scholar, and the allied states of mind to which all individuals are liable; they valued the concurring testimony of the well-informed assembly. In the investigation of truth by the experimental method they even arrived at theview that "true experimenting has this one thing inseparable from it, never to be a fixed and settled art, and never to be limited by constant rules." In its incipience at least it is evident that the Royal Society was filled with the spirit of tolerance and coöperation, and was singularly free from the spirit of envy and faction.
Not least important of the joint labors of the Society were its publications, which established contacts and stimulated research throughout the scientific world. Besides thePhilosophical Transactions, which, since their first appearance in 1665, are the most important source of information concerning the development of modern science, the Royal Society printed many important works, among which the following will indicate its early achievements:—
Hooke, Robert,Micrographia: or some Physiological Descriptions of Minute Bodies made by Magnifying Glasses. 1665.Graunt, John,Natural and Political Observations ... made upon the Bills of Mortality, with reference to the Government, Religion, Trade, Growth, Air, Diseases, and the several changes of the City. 3d edition, 1665.Sprat, Thomas,The History of the Royal Society of London, for the Improving of Natural Knowledge. 1667.Malpighi, Marcello,Dissertatio epistolica de Bombyce; Societati Regiæ Londini dicata. 1669. (On the silkworm.)Evelyn, John,Sylva, or a Discourse of Forest Trees. 1670.Horrocks, Jeremiah,Opera [Astronomica] postuma. 1673.Malpighi, Marcello,Anatome Plantarum. 1675.Willughby, Francis,Ornithology(revised by John Ray). 1676.Evelyn, John,A Philosophical Discourse of Earth, relating to the Culture and Improvement of it for Vegetation. 1676.Grew, Nehemiah,The Anatomy of Plants. 1682.Willughby, F.,Historia Piscium. 1686.Ray, John,Historia Plantarum. 2 vols., 1686-88.Flamsteed, John,Tide-Table for 1687.Newton, Isaac,Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica. Autore Is. Newton. Imprimatur: S. Pepys, Reg. Soc. Præses. Julii 5, 1686. 4to. Londini, 1687.
Hooke, Robert,Micrographia: or some Physiological Descriptions of Minute Bodies made by Magnifying Glasses. 1665.
Graunt, John,Natural and Political Observations ... made upon the Bills of Mortality, with reference to the Government, Religion, Trade, Growth, Air, Diseases, and the several changes of the City. 3d edition, 1665.
Sprat, Thomas,The History of the Royal Society of London, for the Improving of Natural Knowledge. 1667.
Malpighi, Marcello,Dissertatio epistolica de Bombyce; Societati Regiæ Londini dicata. 1669. (On the silkworm.)
Evelyn, John,Sylva, or a Discourse of Forest Trees. 1670.
Horrocks, Jeremiah,Opera [Astronomica] postuma. 1673.
Malpighi, Marcello,Anatome Plantarum. 1675.
Willughby, Francis,Ornithology(revised by John Ray). 1676.
Evelyn, John,A Philosophical Discourse of Earth, relating to the Culture and Improvement of it for Vegetation. 1676.
Grew, Nehemiah,The Anatomy of Plants. 1682.
Willughby, F.,Historia Piscium. 1686.
Ray, John,Historia Plantarum. 2 vols., 1686-88.
Flamsteed, John,Tide-Table for 1687.
Newton, Isaac,Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica. Autore Is. Newton. Imprimatur: S. Pepys, Reg. Soc. Præses. Julii 5, 1686. 4to. Londini, 1687.
After the Society had ordered that Newton'sMathematical Principles of Natural Philosophyshould be printed, it was found that the funds had been exhausted by the publication of Willughby's book on fishes. It was accordingly agreed that Halley should undertake the business of looking after it, and printing it at his own charge, which he had engaged to do. Shortly after, the President of the Royal Society, Mr. Samuel Pepys, was desired to license Mr. Newton's book.
It was not merely by defraying the expense of publication that Halley contributed to the success of thePrincipia. He, Wren, Hooke, and other Fellows of the Royal Society, concluded in 1684 that if Kepler's third law were true, then the attraction exerted on the different planets would vary inversely as the square of the distance. What, then, would be the orbit of a planet under a central attraction varying as the inverse square of the distance? Halley found that Newton had already determined that the form of the orbit would be an ellipse. Newton had been occupied with the problem of gravitation for about eighteen years, but until Halley induced him to do so, had hesitated, on account of certain unsettled points, to publish his results.
He writes: "I began (1666) to think of gravity extending to the orb of the moon, ... and therebycompared the force requisite to keep the moon in her orb with the force of gravity at the surface of the earth, and found them answer pretty nearly." As early as March of that same year Hooke had communicated to the Society an account of experiments in reference to the force of gravity at different distances from the surface of the earth, either upwards or downwards. At this and at every point in Newton's discovery the records of co-workers are to be found.
By Flamsteed, the first Royal Astronomer, were supplied more accurate data for the determination of planetary orbits. To Huygens Newton was indebted for the laws of centrifugal force. Two doubts had made his meticulous mind pause—one, of the accuracy of the data in reference to the measurement of the meridian, another, of the attraction of a spherical shell upon an external point. In the first matter the Royal Society, as we have seen, had been long interested, and Picard, who had worked on the measurement of the earth under the auspices of the Académie des Sciences, brought his results, which came to the attention of Newton, before the Royal Society in 1672. The second difficulty was solved by Newton himself in 1685, when he proved that a series of concentric spherical shells would act on an external point as if their mass were concentrated at the center. For his calculations henceforth the planets and stars, comets and all other bodies are points acted on by lines of force, and "Every particle of matter in the universe attracts every other particle with a force varying inversely as the square of their mutual distances, and directly as the mass of theattracting particle." He deduced from this law that the earth must be flattened at the poles; he determined the orbit of the moon and of comets; he explained the precession of the equinoxes, the semi-diurnal tides, the ratio of the mass of the moon and the earth, of the sun and the earth, etc. No wonder that Laplace considered that Newton'sPrincipiawas assured a preëminence above all the other productions of the human intellect. It is no detraction from Newton's merit to say that Halley, Hooke, Wren, Huygens, Bulliau, Picard, and many other contemporaries (not to mention Kepler andhispredecessors), as well as the organizations in which they were units, share the glory of the result which they coöperated to achieve. On the contrary, he seems much more conspicuous in the social firmament because, in spite of the austerity and seeming independence of his genius, he formed part of a system, and was under its law.
Portrait by John Van der BankBy permission of W. A. Maxwell & Co.SIR ISAAC NEWTON
Shortly after the founding of the Royal Society, correspondence, for which a committee was appointed, had been adopted as a means of gaining the coöperation of men and societies elsewhere. Sir John Moray, as President, wrote to Monsieur de Monmort, around whom, after the death of Mersenne, the scientific coterie in Paris had gathered. This group of men, which toward the close of the seventeenth century regarded itself, not unnaturally, as the parent society, was in 1666 definitely organized as the Académie Royale des Sciences. Finally, Leibnitz, who had been a Fellow of the Royal Society as early as 1673, and had spent years in the service of the Dukes of Brunswick, was instrumental in the establishment in 1700 of the Prussian Akademie der Wissenschaften at Berlin.
Sir David Brewster,Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton.E. Conradi, Learned Societies and Academies in Early Times,Pedagogical Seminary, vol.XII(1905), pp. 384-426.Abraham Cowley,A Proposition for the Advancement of Experimental Philosophy.D. Masson,Life of Milton. Vol.III, chap.II.Thomas Sprat,The History of the Royal Society of London.The Record of the Royal Society(third edition, 1912).
Sir David Brewster,Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton.
E. Conradi, Learned Societies and Academies in Early Times,Pedagogical Seminary, vol.XII(1905), pp. 384-426.
Abraham Cowley,A Proposition for the Advancement of Experimental Philosophy.
D. Masson,Life of Milton. Vol.III, chap.II.
Thomas Sprat,The History of the Royal Society of London.
The Record of the Royal Society(third edition, 1912).
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'sPrincipia. 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 theNew England Courant, the fourth newspaper to be established in America.
Among the books early read by Benjamin Franklin wereThe Pilgrim's Progress, certain historical collections, a book on navigation, works of Protestantcontroversy, Plutarch'sLives, filled with the spirit of Greek freedom, Dr. Mather'sBonifacius, and Defoe'sEssay 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 theSpectator, however, it is remarkable how soon his mind sought out and assimilated its appropriate nourishment, Locke'sEssay on the Human Understanding, which began the modern epoch in psychology; thePort Royal Logic,prepared by that brilliant group of noble Catholics about Pascal; the works of Locke's disciple Collins, whoseDiscourse on Freethinkingappeared 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'sMemorabiliagave 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 theNew 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 theNew England Courantwas 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 thebrothers, 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 Keithto 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 thePennsylvania 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 thePoor 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 onPaper 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 hisProposal 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 andcircles, 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 sayB(and bodies like-circumstanced) is electricized positively;Anegatively." Dufay hadrecognized 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 fourhundred 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 greatbouleversementshould 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.