A Benjamin Franklin Reader

by Walter Isaacson

  But this subject raises in me an indignation not to be born; and if we have had, or are like to have any instances of this nature in New England, we cannot better manifest our love to religion and the country, than by setting the deceivers in a true light, and undeceiving the deceived, however such discoveries may be represented by the ignorant or designing enemies of our peace and safety.

  I shall conclude with a paragraph or two from an ingenious political writer in the London Journal, the better to convince your readers, that public destruction may be easily carried on by hypocritical pretenders to religion.

  A raging passion for immoderate gain had made men universally and intensely hard-hearted: they were every where devouring one another. And yet the directors and their accomplices, who were the acting instruments of all this outrageous madness and mischief, set up for wonderful pious persons, while they were defying almighty god, and plundering men; and they set apart a fund of subscriptions for charitable uses; that is, they mercilessly made a whole people beggars, and charitably supported a few necessitous and worthless favorites. I doubt not, but if the villainy had gone on with success, they would have had their names handed down to posterity with encomiums; as the names of other public robbers have been! We have historians and ode makers now living, very proper for such a task. It is certain, that most people did, at one time, believe the directors to be great and worthy persons. And an honest country clergyman told me last summer, upon the road, that sir john was an excellent public-spirited person, for that he had beautified his chancel.

  Upon the whole we must not judge of one another by their best actions; since the worst men do some good, and all men make fine professions: but we must judge of men by the whole of their conduct, and the effects of it. Thorough honesty requires great and long proof, since many a man, long thought honest, has at length proved a knave. And it is from judging without proof, or false proof, that mankind continue unhappy. I am, sir, Your humble Servant,

  Silence Dogood

  Silence Dogood Proposes

  Civic Improvements

  Picking up on the ideas of Mather and Defoe for voluntary civic associations, Franklin devoted two of his Silence Dogood essays to the topic of relief for single women. For widows like herself, Mrs. Dogood proposes an insurance scheme funded by subscriptions from married couples. The next essay extends the idea to spinsters and cheekily notes that those who claim the money and then marry will have to repay it if they unduly brag about their husbands. In these essays, Franklin was being gently satirical rather than fully serious. But his interest in civic associations would later become more earnest when he became established as a young tradesman in Philadelphia.

  SILENCE DOGOOD # 10, THE NEW-ENGLAND COURANT,

  August 13, 1722

  Optim societas hominum servabitur.

  —Cicero

  Sir,

  Discoursing lately with an intimate friend of mine of the lamentable condition of widows, he put into my hands a book, wherein the ingenious author proposes (I think) a certain method for their relief. I have often thought of some such project for their benefit my self, and intended to communicate my thoughts to the public; but to prefer my own proposals to what follows, would be rather an argument of vanity in me than good will to the many hundreds of my fellow-sufferers now in New England…

  Suppose an office to be erected, to be called An Office Of Insurance For Widows, upon the following conditions:

  Two thousand women, or their husbands for them, enter their names into a register to be kept for that purpose, with the names, age, and trade of their husbands, with the place of their abode, paying at the time of their entering 5s. down with 1s. 4d. per quarter, which is to the setting up and support of an office with clerks, and all proper officers for the same; for there is no maintaining such without charge; they receive every one of them a certificate, sealed by the secretary of the office, and signed by the governors, for the articles hereafter mentioned.

  If any one of the women becomes a widow, at any time after six months from the date of her subscription, upon due notice given, and claim made at the office in form, as shall be directed, she shall receive within six months after such claim made, the sum of 500 in money, without any deductions, saving some small fees to the officers, which the trustees must settle, that they may be known.

  In consideration of this, every woman so subscribing, obliges her self to pay as often as any member of the society becomes a widow, the due proportion or share allotted to her to pay, towards the 500 for the said widow, provided her share does not exceed the sum of 5s.

  No seamen’s or soldiers’ wives to be accepted into such a proposal as this, on the account before mentioned, because the contingences of their lives are not equal to others, unless they will admit this general exception, supposing they do not die out of the kingdom.

  It might also be an exception, that if the widow that claimed had really, bona fide, left her by her husband to her own use, clear of all debts and legacies, 2000 she should have no claim; the intent being to aid the poor, not add to the rich. But there lies a great many objections against such an article: as

  It may tempt some to forswear themselves.

  People will order their wills so as to defraud the exception.

  One exception must be made; and that is, either very unequal matches, as when a woman of nineteen marries an old man of seventy; or women who have infirm husbands, I mean known and publicly so. To remedy which, two things are to be done.

  1. The office must have moving officers without doors, who shall inform themselves of such matters, and if any such circumstances appear, the office should have 14 days time to return their money, and declare their subscriptions void.

  2. No woman whose husband had any visible distemper, should claim under a year after her subscription.

  One grand objection against this proposal, is, how you will oblige people to pay either their subscription, or their quarteridge.

  To this I answer, by no compulsion (though that might be performed too) but altogether voluntary; only with this argument to move it, that if they do not continue their payments, they lose the benefit of their past contributions.

  I know it lies as a fair objection against such a project as this, that the number of claims are so uncertain, that no body knows what they engage in, when they subscribe, for so many may die annually out of two thousand, as may perhaps make my payment 20 or 25 per ann., and if a woman happen to pay that for twenty years, though she receives the 500 at last she is a great loser; but if she dies before her husband, she has lessened his estate considerably, and brought a great loss upon him.

  First, I say to this, that I would have such a proposal as this be so fair and easy, that if any person who had subscribed found the payments too high, and the claims fall too often, it should be at their liberty at any time, upon notice given, to be released and stand obliged no longer; and if so, volenti non fit injuria; every one knows best what their own circumstances will bear.

  In the next place, because death is a contingency, no man can directly calculate, and all that subscribe must take the hazard; yet that a prejudice against this notion may not be built on wrong grounds, let’s examine a little the probable hazard, and see how many shall die annually out of 2000 subscribers, accounting by the common proportion of burials, to the number of the living.

  Sir William Petty in his Political Arithmetick, by a very ingenious calculation, brings the account of burials in London, to be 1 in 40 annually, and proves it by all the proper rules of proportioned computation; and I’ll take my scheme from thence. If then one in forty of all the people in England should die, that supposes fifty to die every year out of our two thousand subscribers; and for a woman to contribute 5s. To every one, would certainly be to agree to pay 12 10s. per ann. upon her husband’s life, to receive 500 when he did, and lose it if she did first; and yet this would not be a hazard beyond reason too great for the gain.

  But I shall offer some reasons to prove
this to be impossible in our case; first, Sir William Petty allows the city of London to contain about a million of people, and our yearly bill of mortality never yet amounted to 25,000 in the most sickly years we have had, plague years excepted, sometimes but to 20,000, which is but one in fifty: now it is to be considered here, that children and ancient people make up, one time with another, at least one third of our bills of mortality; and our assurances lies upon none but the middling age of the people, which is the only age wherein life is any thing steady; and if that be allowed, there cannot die by his computation, above one in eighty of such people, every year; but because I would be sure to leave room for casualty, I’ll allow one in fifty shall die out of our number subscribed.

  Secondly, it must be allowed, that our payments falling due only on the death of husbands, this one in fifty must not be reckoned upon the two thousand; for ’tis to be supposed at least as many women shall die as men, and then there is nothing to pay; so that one in fifty upon one thousand, is the most that I can suppose shall claim the contribution in a year, which is twenty claims a year at 5s. each, and is 5 per ann. And if a woman pays this for twenty years, and claims at last, she is gainer enough, and no extraordinary loser if she never claims at all: and I verily believe any office might undertake to demand at all adventures not above 6 per ann. and secure the subscriber 500 in case she come to claim as a widow.

  I would leave this to the consideration of all who are concerned for their own or their neighbor’s temporal happiness; and I am humbly of opinion, that the country is ripe for many such Friendly Societies, whereby every man might help another, without any disservice to himself. We have many charitable gentlemen who yearly give liberally to the poor, and where can they better bestow their charity than on those who become so by providence, and for ought they know on themselves. But above all, the clergy have the most need of coming into some such project as this. They as well as poor men (according to the proverb) generally abound in children; and how many clergymen in the country are forced to labor in their fields, to keep themselves in a condition above want? How then shall they be able to leave any thing to their forsaken, dejected, and almost forgotten wives and children. For my own part, I have nothing left to live on, but contentment and a few cows; and though I cannot expect to be relieved by this project, yet it would be no small satisfaction to me to see it put in practice for the benefit of others. I am, sir, &c.

  Silence Dogood

  SILENCE DOGOOD # 11, THE NEW-ENGLAND COURANT, August 20, 1722

  Neque licitum interea est meam amicam visere.

  Sir,

  From a natural compassion to my fellow creatures, I have sometimes been betrayed into tears at the sight of an object of charity, who by a bare relation of his circumstances, seemed to demand the assistance of those about him. The following petition represents in so lively a manner the forlorn state of a virgin well stricken in years and repentance, that I cannot forbear publishing it at this time, with some advice to the petitioner.

  To Mrs. Silence Dogood.

  The humble petition of Margaret Aftercast,

  Sheweth,

  1. That your petitioner being puffed up in her younger years with a numerous train of humble servants, had the vanity to think, that her extraordinary wit and beauty would continually recommend her to the esteem of the gallants; and therefore as soon as it came to be publicly known that any gentleman addressed her, he was immediately discarded.

  2. That several of your petitioners humble servants, who upon their being rejected by her, were, to all appearance in a dying condition, have since recovered their health, and been several years married, to the great surprise and grief of your petitioner, who parted with them upon no other conditions, but that they should die or run distracted for her, as several of them faithfully promised to do.

  3. That your petitioner finding her self disappointed in and neglected by her former adorers, and no new offers appearing for some years past, she has been industriously contracting acquaintance with several families in town and country, where any young gentlemen or widowers have resided, and endeavored to appear as conversable as possible before them: she has likewise been a strict observer of the fashion, and always appeared well dressed. And the better to restore her decayed beauty, she has consumed above fifty pounds worth of the most approved cosmetics. But all wont do.

  Your petitioner therefore most humbly prays, that you would be pleased to form a project for the relief of all those penitent mortals of the fair sex, that are like to be punished with their virginity until old age, for the pride and insolence of their youth.

  And your petitioner (as in duty bound) shall ever pray, &c.

  Margaret Aftercast

  Were I endowed with the faculty of match-making, it should be improved for the benefit of Mrs. Margaret, and others in her condition: but since my extreme modesty and taciturnity, forbids an attempt of this nature, I would advise them to relieve themselves in a method of friendly society; and that already published for widows, I conceive would be a very proper proposal for them, whereby every single woman, upon full proof given of her continuing a virgin for the space of eighteen years, (dating her virginity from the age of twelve,) should be entitled to 500 in ready cash.

  But then it will be necessary to make the following exceptions.

  1. That no woman shall be admitted into the society after she is twenty five years old, who has made a practice of entertaining and discarding humble servants, without sufficient reason for so doing, until she has manifested her repentance in writing under her hand.

  2. No member of the society who has declared before two credible witnesses, that it is well known she has refused several good offers since the time of her subscribing, shall be entitled to the 500 when she comes of age; that is to say, thirty years.

  3. No woman, who after claiming and receiving, has had the good fortune to marry, shall entertain any company with encomiums on her husband, above the space of one hour at a time, upon pain of returning one half the money into the office, for the first offence; and upon the second offence to return the remainder. I am, sir, your humble servant,

  Silence Dogood

  A Dissertation on Liberty

  and Necessity

  A year after he had run away to Philadelphia, Franklin traveled to London, where he worked for 18 months in two of the city’s best print shops. Among the books he helped to publish was an edition of William Wollaston’s The Religion of Nature Delineated, an Enlightenment tract which argued that religious truths were to be gleaned through the study of science and nature rather than through divine revelation. With the intellectual spunk that comes from being youthful and untutored, Franklin decided that Wollaston was right in general but wrong in parts, and he set out his own thinking in a piece in which he mixed theological premises with logical syllogisms to get himself quite tangled up. He inscribed it to his erstwhile friend James Ralph, who had absconded on some debts he owed him. The result was, as Franklin later conceded, so shallow and unconvincing as to be embarrassing. He printed a hundred copies, called it an “erratum,” and burned as many as he could retrieve.

  In his defense, philosophers greater and more mature than Franklin have, over the centuries, gotten lost when trying to sort out the question of free will and reconcile it with that of an all-knowing God. The primary value of his “Dissertation” lies in what it reveals about Franklin’s willingness to abandon Puritan theology.

  LONDON, 1725

  A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, &c. To Mr. J. R.

  Sir,

  I have here, according to your request, given you my present thoughts of the general state of things in the universe. Such as they are, you have them, and are welcome to them; and if they yield you any pleasure or satisfaction, I shall think my trouble sufficiently compensated. I know my scheme will be liable to many objections from a less discerning reader than your self; but it is not designed for those who can’t understand it. I need not give you any caution to distinguish
the hypothetical parts of the argument from the conclusive: you will easily perceive what I design for demonstration, and what for probability only. The whole I leave entirely to you, and shall value my self more or less on this account, in proportion to your esteem and approbation.

  Sect. I. Of liberty and necessity.

  I. There is said to be a first mover, who is called god, maker of the universe.

  II. He is said to be all-wise, all-good, all powerful.

  These two propositions being allowed and asserted by people of almost every sect and opinion; I have here supposed them granted, and laid them down as the foundation of my argument; what follows then, being a chain of consequences truly drawn from them, will stand or fall as they are true or false.

  III. If he is all-good, whatsoever he doth must be good.

  IV. If he is all-wise, whatsoever he doth must be wise. The truth of these propositions, with relation to the two first, I think may be justly called evident; since, either that infinite goodness will act what is ill, or infinite wisdom what is not wise, is too glaring a contradiction not to be perceived by any man of common sense, and denied as soon as understood.

  V. If he is all-powerful, there can be nothing either existing or acting in the universe against or without his consent; and what he consents to must be good, because he is good; therefore evil doth not exist.