68 Eliot: Franklin 



hilate, 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 

 speculations in natural science often had a favorable in- 

 fluence on freedom of thought. His studies in economics 

 had a strong tendency in that direction. His views about 

 religious toleration were founded on his intense faith in 

 civil liberty; and even his demonstration that lightning 

 was an electrical phenomenon brought deliverance for 

 mankind from an ancient terror. It removed from the 

 domain of the supernatural a manifestation of formid- 

 able 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 liberty 

 familiar to civilized mankind. His views concerning 

 civil liberty were even more remarkable for his time 

 than his views concerning religious liberty; but they 

 were not developed in a passionate nature inspired by 



