between that gentleman and myself, and we never had any personal difference. I have sometimes since thought that his little or no resentment against me, for the answers it was known I drew up to his messages, might be the effect of professional habit, and that, being bred a lawyer, he might consider us both as merely advocates for contending clients in a suit, he for the proprietaries and I for the Assembly. He would, therefore, sometimes call in a friendly way to advise with me on difficult points, and sometimes, though not often, take my advice.

We acted in concert to supply Braddock's army with provisions; and when the shocking news arrived of his defeat, the governor sent in haste for me to consult with him on measures for preventing the desertion of the back counties. I forget now the advice I gave; but I think it was, that Dunbar should be written to, and prevailed with, if possible, to post his troops on the frontiers for their protection, till, by reënforcements from the colonies, he might be able to proceed on the expedition. And, after my return from the frontier, he would have had me undertake the conduct of such an expedition with provincial troops, for the reduction of Fort Duquesne, Dunbar and his men being otherwise employed ; and he proposed to commission me as general. I had not so good an opinion of my military abilities as he professed to have, and I believe his professions must have exceeded his real sentiments; but probably he might think that my popularity would facilitate the raising of the men, and my influence in Assembly, the grant of money to pay them, and that, perhaps, without taxing the proprietary estate. Finding me not so forward to

engage as he expected, the project was dropped, and he soon after left the government, being superseded by Captain Denny.

Before I proceed in relating the part I had in public affairs under this new governor's administration, it may not be amiss here to give some account of the rise and progress of my philosophical reputation.

XI. EXPERIMENTS IN ELECTRICITY. MEMBER OF

ROYAL SOCIETY, LONDON

1746-1756

COMMENT. Franklin's success in scientific experiments and his discoveries have been somewhat obscured in popular estimation by his distinguished service in promoting the formation and recognition of our government. But we should not forget that for many years he was one of the greatest of living scientists. Yet no man was ever more sincere and modest in regard to his own scientific studies. We must sometimes pardon the self-satisfied tone of the successful man, when he refers to the general tenor of his life, or to his own part in affairs of importance, but in his experiments and studies he showed a genuinely scientific spirit, and, more wonderful still, he at once perceived the dependence of scientific knowledge upon careful, repeated, unprejudiced observation. "I wish,” he writes a friend, "I had more of your patience and accuracy in making observations on which alone true philosophy can be founded. And I assure you nothing can be more obliging to me than your kind communication of those you make, however they may disagree with my preconceived notions."

From the beginning, he kept a sort of laboratory note-book, even as men do now, entering in it minutes of the experiments he made "with memorandums "1 of such as he purposed to make, the reasons for making them, and the observations that arose upon them. From this note-book, he quoted for one of his correspondents a list of observations made upon experiments to determine in what particulars the electrical fluid agrees with lightning. Of his inventiveness and skill in making experiments, Lord Brougham said, "He could make an

1 Franklin's spelling.

2

2 S. III. p. 255.

experiment with less apparatus and conduct his experimental inquiry to a discovery with more ordinary materials than any other philosopher we ever saw. With an old key, a silk thread, some sealing wax, and a sheet of paper he discovered the identity of lightning and electricity." "A singular felicity," said Sir Humphrey Davy, "guided all Franklin's researches and by very small means he established very grand truths. The manner and style of his publication on electricity are almost as worthy of admiration as the doctrine it contains."

The clearness, accuracy, and far-reaching character of Franklin's thought on scientific subjects is even more remarkable than the inventive genius shown in his experiments. In science, the men who experiment are like an army of engineers building a road into an unknown country; each new section completed, becomes, in turn, the way over which the builders go to make the next. So, in scientific knowledge, each generation makes some small advance at the price of a lifetime of effort; in the next, young scientists pass quickly over whatever has been done before, beginning their own researches where the older men ceased. Only men of the clearest mind, of the greatest power, outrun their own fellow workers and anticipate in their conclusions the results to be won by later generations of scientists. One of these was Benjamin Franklin, but in proof of this opinion we can rely only upon the testimony of the scientific men of our own time, for the rest of us are unable to compare his discoveries and explanations with the present state of knowledge. One of these, J. J. Thomson, in Electricity and Matter, published in 1904, says, "We shall, I am sure, be struck by the similarity between some of the views which we are led to take by the results of the most recent researches, with those enunciated by Franklin in the very infancy of the subject."

Again, in Heroes of Science, 1885, Dr. William Garnett says that the statements in Franklin's first letters to Collinson on the subject of electricity "are perfectly consistent with the

views held by Cavendish and by Clerk Maxwell, and though the phraseology is not that of the modern text-books, the statements themselves can hardly be improved upon to-day."1 We cannot doubt the conclusion reached by the editor of the latest edition of Franklin's writings, namely, that "no other mind as acute as Franklin's existed in the world at that time." In electrical theory, "after one hundred and fifty years the world is returning at the present moment to the amazing generalizations made by Franklin." D.

Franklin's Outline. Success of my Electrical Experiments. Medal sent me. Present Royal Society, and Speech of President.

In 1746, being at Boston, I met there with a Dr. Spence, who was lately arrived from Scotland, and showed me some electric experiments. They were imperfectly performed, as he was not very expert; but, being on a subject quite new to me, they equally surprised and pleased me. Soon after my return to Philadelphia, our library company received from Mr. P. Collinson, Fellow of the Royal Society of London, a present of a glass tube, with some account of the use of it in making such experiments. I eagerly seized the opportunity of repeating what I had seen at Boston; and, by much practice, acquired great readiness in performing those, also, which we had an account of from England, adding a number of new ones. I say much practice, for my house was continually full, for some time, with people who came to see these new wonders.

To divide a little this incumbrance among my friends, I caused a number of similar tubes to be blown at our glass-house, with which they furnished themselves, so

1 From quotations given in Introduction, S. I. p. 96,