Chapter 5

Since then the precepts of Natural Religion are plain, and very intelligible to all mankind, and seldom to come to be controverted; and other revealed truths, which are conveyed to us by books and languages, are liable to the common and natural obscurities and difficulties incident to words; methinks it would become us to be more careful and diligent in observing the former, and less magisterial, positive, and imperious, in imposing our own sense and interpretations of the latter.[i-407]

In addition Franklin may have been influenced by Locke's implied Newtonianism; he would suspect the subtleties of the Old South Church when he read: "For the visible marks of extraordinary wisdom and power appear so plainly in all the works of the creation, that a rational creature, who will but seriously reflect on them, cannot miss the discovery of a Deity."[i-408]Like Newton, Locke inferred an infinite and benevolent Geometrician from "the magnificent harmony of the universe."

Franklin also read Shaftesbury'sCharacteristics, which Warburton quotes Pope as saying "had done more harm to revealed religion in England than all the works of infidelity put together."[i-409]Although he may have pondered over Shaftesbury's "virtuoso theory of Benevolence," he was not one to be readily convinced of the innate altruism of man. His Puritan heritage linked with an empirical realism prevented him from becoming prey to Shaftesbury's a priori optimism. He was aware of the potential danger of a complacent trust in natural impulses, which often lead to

The love of sweet security in sin.

To what extent did Franklin's nascent humanitarianism—mildly provoked by the neighborliness of Mather and Defoe—receiveadditional sanction from Shaftesbury's doctrine that "compassion is the supreme form of moral beauty, the neglect of it the greatest of all offenses against nature's ordained harmony"?[i-410]Identifying self-love and social, Shaftesbury saw the divine temper achieved through affection for the public, the "universal good."[i-411]Born among men who were convinced of the supremacy of scripture, Franklin would at first be astonished (then perhaps liberated) upon reading in theCharacteristicsthat "Religion excludes only perfect atheism."[i-412]From such a piece as Shaftesbury'sAn Inquiry Concerning Virtue or MeritFranklin learned that not all men preserved a union between theology and ethics, scripture and religion. Although Shaftesbury occasionally indicated a reverence for sacred scriptures, the totality of his thought was cast in behalf of natural religion. He was convinced that the "Deity is sufficiently revealed through natural Phenomena."[i-413]Extolling the apprehension of the Deity through man's uniform reason, Shaftesbury urbanely lampooned enthusiasm, that private revelation which threatened to prevail against theconsensus gentium.

By 1725 Franklin had divorced theology from morality and morality from conscience, having punctuated his youth with faunish "errata."[i-414]Although he was as a youth too much at ease in Zion, he did not lose substantial (if then a theoretic) faith in the struggle between the law of the spirit and the law of the members. Nurtured by the Bible, Bunyan, Addison and Steele, Tryon, Socrates, and Xenophon—a blend of Christian and classical traditions—he felt the reasonableness, if not the saintliness, of curbing the resolute sway of his natural self.[i-415]

After five years with James, a year in Philadelphia where part of the time he worked with Samuel Keimer,[i-416]a fanaticand bearded Camisard, Franklin, through the duplicity of Governor Keith, found himself in November, 1724, aboard theLondon-Hope, England-bound. It would be unfair to Franklin were we to think him a primitive colonist to whom England was an unreal, incalculable land. We remember that James knew the London of Anne, Addison, Steele, Locke, and Newton. And we have seen that theNew England Courantlibrary was one of which no London gentleman and scholar need have been ashamed. As a worker on this newspaper Franklin had set up the names and some indications of the thoughts of such men as Fénelon, Tillotson, Defoe, Swift, Butler, Bayle, Isaac Watts, Blount, Burnet, Whiston, Temple, Trenchard and Gordon, Denham, Garth, Dryden, Milton, Locke, Flamstead, and Newton.[i-417]

During his two years in London, working successively in the printing houses of Samuel Palmer and James Watts, he mingled with many of the leaders of the day. Probably because he had, while yet in America, read (in the transactions of the Royal Society) of the virtuosi's interest in asbestos, he wrote to Sir Hans Sloane, offering to show him purses made of that novel stuff.[i-418]And we know that Sir Hans Sloane receivedFranklin in his home at Bloomsbury Square. Before he met other notables he published (what he called later an "erratum")A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain(1725).[i-419]Franklin himself said this work was the result of his setting up Wollaston'sThe Religion of Nature Delineated[i-420]at Palmer's and his not agreeing with the author's "reasonings." Coming to Wollaston's work (with Franklin'sDissertationandArticles of Beliefin mind) we can, however, see much that Franklin agreed with, general principles which do little more than reflect the current patterns of thought. Like Franklin, Wollaston saw Reason as "the great law of our nature."[i-421]With Locke he denied innate ideas.[i-422]That part ofThe Religion of Nature Delineatedin which he searched with laborious syllogistic reasoning for the Ultimate Cause (which could not produce itself) may have been boring to the less agile mind of the young printer. Wollaston, however, apologized for his syllogistic gymnastics offered in proof of Deity since "much more may those greater motions we see in the world, and the phenomena attending them" afford arguments for such a proof:

I mean the motions of the planets and the heavenly bodies. Forthesemust be put into motion, either by one Common mighty Mover, acting upon them immediately, or by causes and laws of His Appointment; or by their respective movers, who, for reasons to which you can by this time be no stranger, must depend upon someSuperior, that furnished them with the power of doing this.[i-423]

With Newtonian rapture he marveled at "the grandness of this fabric of 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'sDissertationwas dedicated to his friend James Ralph and prefaced by a misquotation from Dryden and Lee'sOedipus. 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 thetabula rasain 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 theDissertationone 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?)

TheDissertationis 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 inAn Inquiry Concerning Virtue or Merit.[i-437]Since Franklin acknowledged his reading of Shaftesbury and since as late as 1730 he borrowed heavily from theCharacteristics, it seems probable that Shaftesbury lent Franklin in this case some sanction for his only metaphysical venture.[i-438]

As one result of his printingA Dissertationhe made the acquaintance of Lyons, author ofThe 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 thePrincipia. As a result of his aiding Newton "to discover and understand his writings,"[i-442]Pemberton in 1728 publishedA 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 thePrincipiabut 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 thePrincipia, 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 hisArticles of Belief.

He returned in the summer of 1726 on theBerkshireto Philadelphia with Mr. Denham, a sweetly reasonable Quaker.[i-446]During this journey he wrote hisJournal 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 hisArticles 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'sTimaeus.[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 bywhich 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'sTraité de l'existence et des attributs de Dieu. Oliver Elton observesthat 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'sCreation, 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 findLeads 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 hisArticles of BeliefFranklin retains from hisDissertationhis a priori concept of the Deityas 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 theDissertation, the author of theArticles, 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'sArticles: "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 theArticleshow 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. HisDialogues between Philocles and Horatio(1730), borrowed[i-460]from Shaftesbury'sThe Moralists, suggest that hismoralspeculations 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 Hollysuggests 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 inPreface 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." InProposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pensilvania(1749) Franklin remarked in a note on Natural Philosophy that "Proper Books may be, Ray'sWisdom of God in the Creation, Derham'sPhysico-Theology, [Pluche's?]Spectacle de la Nature, &c."[i-463]Poor Richard, in addition to prognostications of weather, survey of roads, Rabelaisian wit, andaphoristic 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 tostudythe 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'slaws, 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 thePennsylvania Gazette, promising to print Whitefield's pieces "if I find sufficient Encouragement."[i-468]ThePennsylvania Gazettepiously 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: "Iseewith you that our affairs are not well managed by our rulers here below; I wish I couldbelievewith 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, 'Uncomfortableindeed! and blessed be God,unscriptural!'"[i-474]If in 1786 Franklinwrote 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 tomake 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 thecanaillewith 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 perceivenot only the direction of Divine Wisdom, but thegoodnessof 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]

He expressed his creed just before his death in the often-quoted letter to Ezra Stiles.[i-489]Bearing in mind his inveterate scientific deism, we are not surprised that his religion is one created apart from Christian scripture, that Jesus is the conventional, amiable philosopher, respected but not worshipped bythe Enlightenment. If he seems convinced in this letter that God "governs" the universe "by his Providence," we have seen above that his attitude toward the Deity's relation to man and his world was anything but sure and free from disturbing reflection. Convinced that the Deity "ought to be worshipped," he next observed "that the most acceptable service we render to him is doing good to his other children." His a priori concept of a benevolent Deity whose goodness is expressed in the harmony of the creation, in effect challenged him to attempt to approximate this kindness in his relations with his fellow men. Apart from provoking humanitarianism, primarily an ethical experience guided not by sentimentality but by reason and practicality. Franklin's natural religion—like deism in general—failed, as scriptural religion does not, to establish a union between theology, the religious life, and ethical behavior. It must be seen that Franklin had no confidence in achieving the good life through mere fellow-service: he continually urged man to conquer passion through reason, seeming to covet pagan sobriety more than he did the satisfaction of having aided man to achieve greater physical ease. If he felt that "to relieve the misfortunes of our fellow creatures is concurring with the Deity; it is godlike,"[i-490]he warned against helping those who had failed to help themselves, implying that the inner growth of the individual is more significant than his outward charity to others. Whatever be the ultimate resolution of these antithetic principles, we see that his humanitarianism was the offspring of his a priori conceived Deity, augmented by his experiments in science which led to discovery of nature's laws. His emphasis on the inward and vertical growth of the individual toward perfection, on the other hand, may be viewed as the expression of the introspective force of his Puritan heritage and his knowledge, direct and indirect, of classical literature. As in the polarity of his thoughts concerning Providence, so here we see that themodus operandiof his mind is explicable in terms of the interplay of the old and the new, Greek paganism (Socratic self-knowledge) and Christianity and the rationale of the Enlightenment.

Before he became an economist, a statesman, a man of letters, a scientist, he had embraced scientific deism, primarily impelled by Newtonianism. We have observed that it is not improbable that his agrarianism, emphasis on free trade, and tendency toward laissez faire were partially at least the result of his efforts to parallel in economics the harmony of the physical order. Likewise, his views on education were conditioned by his faith in intellectual progress, in the might of Reason, which in turn was in part the result of his scientific deism. Then too, it may well be suggested that his theories of rhetoric were to some degree the result of his rationalistic and scientific habits of mind. We have also seen that his scientific deism was among the motivating factors of his belief in natural rights, which, coupled with his empirical awareness of concrete economic and political abuses issuing from monarchy and imperialistic parliamentarians, made him alive to the sovereignty of the people in their demands for civil and political liberty. This introduction, it is hoped, has made apparent the fact that the growth of Franklin's mind was a complex matter and that it was moulded by a vast multitude of often diverse influences, no one of which alone completely "explains" him. Puritanism, classicism, and neoclassicism were all important influences. Yet perhaps themodus operandiof this myriad-minded colonial, this provincial Leonardo, is best explained in reference to the thought pattern of scientific deism. To see the reflection of Newton and his progeny in Franklin's activities, be they economic, political, literary, or philosophical, lends a compelling organic unity to the several sides of his genius, heretofore seen as unrelated. Franklin's mind represents an intellectual coherence—an imperfect counterpart to the physical harmony of the Newtonian order, of which all through his life he was a disciple.

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