838 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXIII. No. 596. 



his family and his town, and devoted his 

 Sundays to reading and study. In prac- 

 tising his trade he claimed and diligently 

 sought complete freedom. In public and 

 pi'ivate business alike he tried to induce 

 people to take any action desired of them 

 by presenting to them a motive they could 

 understand and feel— a motive which acted 

 on their own wills and excited their hopes. 

 This is the only method possible under a 

 regime of liberty. A perfect illustration 

 of his practise in this respect is found in 

 his successful provision of one hundred and 

 fifty four-horse wagons for Braddock's 

 force, when it was detained on its march 

 from Annapolis to western Pennsylvania 

 by the lack of wagons. The military 

 method would have been to seize horses, 

 wagons and drivers wherever found. 

 Franklin persuaded Braddock, instead of 

 using force, to allow him (Franklin) to 

 offer a good hire for horses, wagons and 

 drivers, and proper compensation for the 

 equipment in case of loss. By this appeal 

 to the frontier farmers of Pennsylvania he 

 secured in two weeks all the transportation 

 required. To defend public order Frank- 

 lin was perfectly ready to use public force, 

 as, for instance, when he raised and com- 

 manded a regiment of militia to defend the 

 northwestern frontier from the Indians 

 after Braddock's defeat, and again when 

 it became necessary to defend Philadelphia 

 from a large body of frontiersmen who had 

 lynched a considerable number of friendly 

 Indians, and were bent on revolutionizing 

 the Quaker government. But his abhor- 

 rence of all war was based on the facts, 

 first, that during war the law must be 

 silent, and secondly, that military dis- 

 cipline, which is essential for effective 

 fighting, annihilates individual liberty. 

 "Those," he said, "who would give up 

 essential liberty for the sake of a little 

 temporary safety deserve neither liberty 

 nor safety." The foundation of his firm 



resistance on behalf of the colonies to the 

 English Parliament was his impregnable 

 conviction that the love of liberty was the 

 ruling passion of the people of the colonies. 

 In 1766 he said of the American people: 

 "Every act of oppression will sour their 

 tempers, lessen greatly, if not annihilate, 

 the profits of your commerce with them, 

 and hasten their final revolt; for the seeds 

 of liberty are universally found there, and 

 nothing can eradicate them." Because 

 they loved liberty, they would not be taxed 

 without representation; they would not 

 have soldiers quartered on them, or their 

 governors made independent of the people 

 in regard to their salaries; or their ports 

 closed, or their commerce regulated by 

 Parliament. It is interesting to observe 

 how Franklin's experiments and specula- 

 tions in natural science often had a favor- 

 able influence on freedom of thought. His 

 studies in economics had a strong tendency 

 in that direction. His views about re- 

 ligious toleration were founded on his in- 

 tense faith in civil liberty; and even his 

 demonstration that lightning was an elec- 

 trical phenomenon brought deliverance for 

 mankind from an ancient terror. It re- 

 moved from the domain of the supernatural 

 a manifestation of formidable power that 

 had been supposed to be a weapon of the 

 arbitrary gods ; and since it increased man 's 

 power over nature, it increased his freedom. 

 This faith in freedom was fully developed 

 in Franklin long before the American 

 Revolution and the French Revolution 

 made the fundamental principles of libei-ty 

 familiar to civilized mankind. His views 

 concerning civil liberty were even more re- 

 markable for his time than his views con- 

 cerning religious liberty ; but they were not 

 developed in a passionate nature inspired 

 by an enthusiastic idealism. He was the 

 very embodiment of common sense, moder- 

 ation and sober honesty. His standard of 

 human society is perfectly expressed in the 



