158 Dr. A. Schuster on 



" again, complaining of nothing. A person so struck, sinks 

 "down doubled or folded together as it were, the joints 

 " losing their strength and stiffness at once, so that he drops 

 "on the spot where he stood, instantly, and there is no 

 " previous staggering, nor does he ever fall length-wise. 

 " Too great a charge might, indeed, kill a man, but I have 

 " not yet seen any hurt done by it. It would certainly, as 

 " you observe, be the easiest of all deaths." 



But electricity was by no means the only subject which 

 occupied his mind, and some passages may be quoted to 

 shew the wideness of his range of thought. It is well known 

 that the undulatory theory of light originated before 

 Franklin's time, but he seemed to be unaware of this, and 

 the way in which he independently thought of and argued 

 in favour of the same idea at a time when most philosophers 

 held to the corpuscular theory deserves quotation in full. It 

 must not be forgotten, however, that Franklin did not 

 probably realise the difficulties in the way of the wave 

 theory which led Newton to pronounce against it. 



"Experiments" page 264. 



" I thank you for communicating the illustration of the 

 " theorem concerning light. It is very curious. But I 

 " must own I am much in the dark about light. 1 am not 

 " satisfied with the doctrine that supposes particles of matter 

 " called light, continually driven off from the sun's surface, 

 " with a swiftness so prodigious ! Must not the smallest 

 "particle conceivable, have with such a motion, a force 

 "exceeding that of a twenty-four pounder, discharged from 

 " a cannon ? Must not the sun diminish exceedingly by 

 " such a waste of matter ; and the planets, instead of draw- 

 " ing nearer to him, as some have feared, recede to greater 

 " distances through the lessened attraction. Yet these par- 

 " tides, with this amazing motion, will not drive before 

 " them, or remove the least or lightest dust they meet with. 

 " And the sun, for aught we know, continues of his antient 

 " dimensions, and his attendants move in their antient 

 " orbits. 



