19 - Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin

Penned as a heartfelt letter to his son, Benjamin Franklins autobiography is not just a chronicle of his life, but also a pioneer in the self-help genre in America. The book is an intriguing blend of personal history and timeless advice on success, beautifully edited by Frank Woodworth Pine (1869-1919). Join us as we delve into Franklins wisdom-filled world. (Summary by Gary)

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, Chapter eighteen. This is a
LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, edited by Frank Woodworth Pine,

(00:21):
Chapter eighteen Scientific Experiments. Before I proceed in relating the
part I had in public affairs under the new Governor's administration,
it may not be amiss here to give some account
of the rise and progress of my philosophical reputation. In
seventeen forty six, being at Boston, I met there with

(00:42):
a doctor Spence, who was lately arrived from Scotland, and
showed me some electric experiments. They were imperfectly performed, as
he was not very expert, but being on a subject
quite new to me, they equally surprised and pleased me.
Soon after my return to Philadelphia, our Library company received
from mister P. Collinson, fellow of the Royal Society of London,

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a present of a glass tube, with some account of
the use of it in making such experiments. I eagerly
seized the opportunity of repeating what I had seen at Boston,
and by such practice acquired great readiness in performing those
also which we had an account of from England, adding
a number of new ones. I say much practice, for

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my house was continually full for some time with people
who came to see these new wonders begin footnote. The
Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge was founded
in sixteen sixty and holds the foremost place among English
societies for the advancement of science and footnote. To divide

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a little of this encumbrance among my friends, I caused
a number of similar tubes to be blown at our
glass house, with which they furnished themselves, so that we
had at length several performers. Among these, the principal was
mister Kennesley, an ingenious neighbor, who, being out of business,
I encouraged to undertake showing the experiments for money, and

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drew up for him two lectures in which the experiments
were ranged in such order and accompanied with such explanations
in such method as the foregoing should assist in comprehending
the following. He procured an elegant apparatus for the purpose,
in which all the little machines that I had roughly
made for myself, were nicely formed by instrument makers. His

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lectures were well attended and gave great satisfaction, and after
some time he went through the colonies, exhibiting them in
every capital town, and picked up some money in the
West Indies. Indeed, it was with difficulty the experiments could
be made from the general moisture of the air. Obliged
as we were to mister Collinson for his present of

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the tube, et cetera, I thought it right he should
be informed of our success in using it, and wrote
him several letters containing accounts of our experiments. He got
them read at the Royal Society, where they were not
at first thought worth so much notice as to be
printed in their transactions. One paper, which I wrote for
mister Kennisley, on the sameness of lightning with electricity, I

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sent to doctor Mitchell, an acquaintance of mine, and one
of the members also of that society, who wrote me
word that it had been read, but was laughed at
by the connoisseurs. The papers, however, being shown to Doctor Fothergill,
he thought them of too much value to be stifled,
and advised the printing of them. Mister Collinson then gave

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them to Cave for publication in his Gentleman's magazine, but
he chose to print them separately in a pamphlet, and
doctor Fothergill wrote the preface Cave. It seems judged rightly
for his profit, for by the additions that arrived after,
they swelled to a quatro volume, which has had five editions,

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and cost him nothing for copy money. It was, however,
some time before those papers were much taken notice of
in England, a copy of them happening to fall into
the hands of the Count de Beauffon, a philosopher deservedly
of great reputation in France and indeed all over Europe.
He prevailed with Monsieur de la Bard to translate them

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into French, and they were printed at Paris. The publication
offended the abbe Nolet, preceptor of the natural philosophy to
the royal family and an able experimenter who had formed
and published a theory of electricity which then had the
general vogue. He could not at first believe that such
a work came from America, and said it must have

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been fabricated by his enemies at Paris to decry his system. Afterwards,
having been assured that there really existed such a person
as Franklin at Philadelphia, which he had, he wrote and
published a volume of letters chiefly addressed to me, defending
his theory and denying the verity of my experiments and

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of the position educed from them. I once proposed answering
the Abbey, and actually began the answer, But on consideration
that my writings contained a description of experiments which any
one might repeat and verify, and, if not to be verified,
could not be defeated, or of observations offered as conjectures

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and not delivered dogmatically, therefore not laying me under any
obligation to defend them. And reflecting that a dispute between
two persons writing in different languages might be lengthened greatly
by mistranslations and thence misconceptions of one another's meaning, much
of one of the Abbey's letters being founded on an

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error in the translation, I concluded to let my papers
shift for themselves, believing it was better to spend what
time I could spare from public business in making new
experiments than in disputing about those already made. I therefore
never answered moncheon Relay, and the event gave me no
cause to repeat my silence, for my friend Monsieur le

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Roy of the Royal Academy of Sciences took up my
cause and refuted him. My book was translated into Italian, German,
and Latin languages, and the doctrine it contained was, by
degrees universally adopted by the philosophers of Europe in preference
to that of the abbey, so that he lived to
see himself the last of his sect, except Monsieur Ville

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of Paris, his immediate disciple. What gave my book the
more sudden and general celebrity was the success of one
of its proposed experiments, made by Monsieur de Labard and
Delire at Marley, for drawing lightning from the clouds. This
engaged the public attention everywhere. Monsieur de LRTs, who had

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an apparatus for exit experimental philosophy and lectured at the
branch of science, undertook to repeat what he called the
Philadelphia experiments, and after they were performed before the King
and court, all the curious of Paris flocked to see them.
I will not swell this narrative with an account of
that capital experiment, nor of the infinite pleasure I received

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in the process of a similar one I made soon
after with a kite at Philadelphia, as both are to
be found in the histories of electricity. Doctor Wright, an
English physician, when at Paris, wrote to a friend who
was of the Royal Society, an account of the high
esteem my experiments were in among the learned abroad, and

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of their wonder that my writings had been so little
noticed in England. The Society, on this resumed the consideration
of the letters that had been read to them, and
the celebrated doctor Watson drew up a summary account of
them and of all I had afterwards sent to England
on the subject, which he accompanied with some praise of

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the writer. This summary was then printed in the Transactions,
and some members of the Society in London, particularly the
very ingenious mister Canton, having verified the experiment of producing
lightning from the clouds by appointed Rod, had acquainted them
with the success. They soon made me more than amends

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for the slight with which they had before treated me,
without my having made any application for that honor. They
chose me a member and voted that I should be
excused the customary payments which would have amounted to twenty
five guineas, and ever since have given me their transactions gratis.
They also presented me with the gold medal of Sir

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Godfrey Copley for the year seventeen fifty three, the delivery
of which was accompanied by a very handsome speech of
the President, Lord mackel Field, where I was highly honored.
Began footnote. Sir Godfrey Copley, an English baronet, died in
seventeen o nine, donator of a fund of one hundred

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pounds in trust for the Royal Society of London for
improving natural knowledge. End footnote end of chapter eighteen