Four American Leaders | Page 4

to leeward. The Pennsylvania
fireplace he invented was an ingenious application to the warming and
ventilating of an apartment of the laws that regulate the movement of
hot air. At the age of forty-one he became interested 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 efforts 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 inquiries 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 dampness. 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 maintains 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 comes 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 remarkable
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 conversing so as to breathe in each other's transpiration;
the disorder being in a certain state." In the light of present knowledge
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 establish any sort of intellectual
proprietorship 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
established over the continent--particularly in France--Franklin's
reputation as a natural philosopher. A great variety of phenomena
engaged his attention, such as phosphorescence in sea water, the cause
of the saltness of the sea, the form and the temperatures 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 classified 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 between
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 may all be summed up in seven
words--"first freedom, 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 his family
and his town, and devoted his Sundays to reading and study. In
practising his trade he claimed and diligently sought complete freedom.
In public and private 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 régime of
liberty. A perfect illustration of his practice 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