Researches in Electricity 121 



was violent and prolonged. It lasted, indeed, until the 

 interest in electricity itself began to wane towards the 

 end of the century. 



That Benjamin Franklin should be the author of the 

 one theory of electricity which of all the views on this 

 subject comes nearest to our twentieth century concept 

 may seem strange; for with him electricity after all was 

 merely an episode, a form of intellectual diversion into 

 which he was drawn by accident in middle life and 

 which he abandoned after a few years for other, and, as 

 it seemed to him, more practical things. We need not, 

 however, be astonished that he left his imperishable im- 

 press upon the science of his time. A man who in the 

 middle of the eighteenth century rejected the doctrine 

 of action at a distance and insisted upon the necessity of 

 a universal medium pervading all space, and who, at 

 the very zenith of Newton's fame, repudiated the cor- 

 puscular theory and thought of light as transmitted by 

 a vibratory motion, must be recognized as possessing a 

 native endowment unequaled by any of the intellects of 

 his day. Had the many-sided Franklin been one-sided, 

 and that side turned to science, what might he not have 

 accomplished? But then he would not have been our 

 Benjamin Franklin! 



