June 1, 1906.] 



SCIENCE. 



837 



in the subject of electricity, and with the 

 aid of many friends and acquaintances 

 pursued the subject for four years, with no 

 thought about personal credit for inventing 

 either theories or processes, but simply with 

 delight in experimentation and in eiforts to 

 explain the phenomena he observed. His 

 kite experiment to prove lightning to be an 

 electrical phenomenon very possibly did not 

 really draw lightning from the cloud; but 

 it supplied evidence of electrical energy in 

 the atmosphere which went far to prove 

 that lightning was an electrical discharge. 

 The sagacity of Franklin's scientific in- 

 quiries is well illustrated by his notes on 

 colds and their causes. He maintains that 

 influenzas usually classed as colds do not 

 arise, as a rule, from either cold or damp- 

 ness. He points out that savages and 

 sailors, who are often wet, do not catch 

 cold, and that the disease called a cold is 

 not taken by swimming. He maintained 

 that people who live in the forest, in open 

 barns, or with open windows, do not catch 

 cold, and that the disease called a cold is 

 generally caused by impure air, lack of 

 exercise or overeating. He came to the 

 conclusion that influenzas and colds are 

 contagious— a doctrine which, a century 

 and a half later, was proved, through the 

 advance of bacteriological science, to be 

 sound. The following sentence exhibits re- 

 markable insight, considering the state of 

 medical art at that time : " I have long been 

 satisfied from observation, that besides the 

 general colds now termed influenzas (which 

 may possibly spread by contagion, as well 

 as by a particular quality of the air), 

 people often catch cold from one another 

 when shut up together in close rooms and 

 coaches, and when sitting near and con- 

 versing so as to breathe in each other's 

 transpiration; the disorder being in a cer- 

 tain state. ' ' In the light of present knowl- 

 edge what a cautious and exact statement 

 is that! 



There being no learned society in all 

 America at the time, Franklin's scientific 

 experiments were almost all recorded in 

 letters written to interested friends; and 

 he was never in any haste to write these 

 letters. He never took a patent on any 

 of his inventions, and made no effort 

 either to get a profit from them, or to es- 

 tablish any sort of intellectual proprietor- 

 ship in his experiments and speculations. 

 One of his English correspondents, Mr. 

 Collinson, published in 1751 a number of 

 Franklin's letters to him in a pamphlet 

 called 'New Experiments and Observations 

 in Electricity made at Philadelphia in 

 America.' This pamphlet was translated 

 into several European languages, and estab- 

 lished over the continent— particularly in 

 France— Franklin's reputation as a natural 

 philosopher. A great variety of phenom- 

 ena engaged his attention, such as phos- 

 phorescence in sea water, the cause of the 

 saltness of the sea, the form and the tem- 

 peratures of the Gulf Stream, the effect of 

 oil in stilling waves, and the cause of smoky 

 chimneys. Franklin also reflected and 

 wrote on many topics which are now classi- 

 fied under the head of political economy, — 

 such as paper currency, national wealth, 

 free trade, the slave trade, the effects of 

 luxury and idleness, and the misery and 

 destruction caused by war. Not even his 

 caustic wit could adequately convey in 

 words his contempt and abhorrence for war 

 as a mode of settling questions arising be- 

 tween nations. He condensed his opinions 

 on that subject into the epigram: 'There 

 never was a good war or a bad peace.' 



Franklin's political philosophy inay all 

 be summed up in seven words— first free- 

 dom, then public happiness and comfort. 

 The spirit of liberty was born in him. He 

 resented his brother's blows when he was 

 an apprentice, and escaped from them. As 

 a mere boy he refused to attend church on 

 Sundays in accordance with the custom of 



