Benjamin Franklin, Self-Revealed, Volume 1 (of 2): A Biographical and Critical Study Based Mainly on his own WritingsBruce, Wiliam Cabell
History
Benjamin Franklin, Self-Revealed, Volume 1 (of 2): A Biographical and Critical Study Based Mainly on his own Writings
Bruce, Wiliam Cabell
Franklin, Benjamin, 1706-1790
in serving the common interests of mankind." And after all, he further
said, as in the case of other lotteries, while a few of the adventurers
secured prizes, the mass, for reasons that he stated very clearly, were
losers.
We have already seen how strongly his mind leaned in the direction of
arbitration as the proper method for settling international differences.
But a grave error it would be to think of Franklin as merely a wise,
placid, humane Quaker, or as simply a benignant, somewhat visionary Friend
of Man. He knew what the world ought to be, and might be made to be, but he
also knew what the world was, and was likely for some time to be. He
resembled the Quaker in his shrewd capacity to take care of himself, in his
love of thrift and of all that appertains to the rational and useful side
of life, and especially in his broad, unreserved, human sympathies. It was
for this reason that, though not a Quaker himself, he could usually count
with more or less certainty upon the support of Quakers in his public
undertakings and political struggles. But rigid, dogged scruples like those
which made an effort in Franklin's time to coerce a Pennsylvania Quaker
into taking up arms as impotent, as a rule, as blows upon an unresisting
punch-bag were wholly out of keeping with such a character as Franklin's.
For all that was best in the enthusiastic philanthropy of the French, too,
he had no little affinity, but what Lecky has called his "pedestrian
intellect" saved him from inane dreams of patriarchal innocence and
simplicity in a world from which Roland was to hurry himself because it was
too polluted with crime.
It was a good story that Franklin's Quaker friend, James Logan, told of
William Penn. He was coming over to Pennsylvania as the Secretary of Penn,
when their ship was chased by an armed vessel. Their captain made ready for
an engagement, but said to Penn that he did not expect his aid or that of
his Quaker companions, and that they might retire to the cabin, which they
all did except Logan, who remained on deck, and was quartered to a gun. The
supposed enemy proved to be a friend, and, when this fact was announced by
Logan to Penn and the other refugees below, Penn rebuked him for violating
the Quaker principle of non-resistance. Nettled by being reproved before so
many persons, Logan replied, "_I being thy servant, why did thee not order
me to come down? But thee was willing enough that I should stay and help to
fight the ship when thee thought there was danger._" Franklin abhorred the
Medusa locks of war, and loved the fair, smiling face of peace as much as
any Quaker, but, when there was peril to be braved, he could always be
relied upon to incur his share.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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