An Introduction to the History of Science Part 9

Evelyn, John, _Sylva, or a Discourse of Forest Trees_. 1670.

Horrocks, Jeremiah, _Opera [Astronomica] postuma_. 1673.

Malpighi, Marcello, _Anatome Plantarum_. 1675.

Willughby, Francis, _Ornithology_ (revised by John Ray). 1676.

Evelyn, John, _A Philosophical Discourse of Earth, relating to the Culture and Improvement of it for Vegetation_. 1676.

Grew, Nehemiah, _The Anatomy of Plants_. 1682.

Willughby, F., _Historia Piscium_. 1686.

Ray, John, _Historia Plantarum_. 2 vols., 1686-88.

Flamsteed, John, _Tide-Table for 1687_.

Newton, Isaac, _Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica_. Autore Is. Newton. Imprimatur: S. Pepys, Reg. Soc. Praeses. Julii 5, 1686.

4to. Londini, 1687.

After the Society had ordered that Newton's _Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy_ should be printed, it was found that the funds had been exhausted by the publication of Willughby's book on fishes. It was accordingly agreed that Halley should undertake the business of looking after it, and printing it at his own charge, which he had engaged to do.

Shortly after, the President of the Royal Society, Mr. Samuel Pepys, was desired to license Mr. Newton's book.

It was not merely by defraying the expense of publication that Halley contributed to the success of the _Principia_. He, Wren, Hooke, and other Fellows of the Royal Society, concluded in 1684 that if Kepler's third law were true, then the attraction exerted on the different planets would vary inversely as the square of the distance. What, then, would be the orbit of a planet under a central attraction varying as the inverse square of the distance? Halley found that Newton had already determined that the form of the orbit would be an ellipse. Newton had been occupied with the problem of gravitation for about eighteen years, but until Halley induced him to do so, had hesitated, on account of certain unsettled points, to publish his results.

He writes: "I began (1666) to think of gravity extending to the orb of the moon, ... and thereby compared the force requisite to keep the moon in her orb with the force of gravity at the surface of the earth, and found them answer pretty nearly." As early as March of that same year Hooke had communicated to the Society an account of experiments in reference to the force of gravity at different distances from the surface of the earth, either upwards or downwards. At this and at every point in Newton's discovery the records of co-workers are to be found.

By Flamsteed, the first Royal Astronomer, were supplied more accurate data for the determination of planetary orbits. To Huygens Newton was indebted for the laws of centrifugal force. Two doubts had made his meticulous mind pause--one, of the accuracy of the data in reference to the measurement of the meridian, another, of the attraction of a spherical sh.e.l.l upon an external point. In the first matter the Royal Society, as we have seen, had been long interested, and Picard, who had worked on the measurement of the earth under the auspices of the Academie des Sciences, brought his results, which came to the attention of Newton, before the Royal Society in 1672. The second difficulty was solved by Newton himself in 1685, when he proved that a series of concentric spherical sh.e.l.ls would act on an external point as if their ma.s.s were concentrated at the center. For his calculations henceforth the planets and stars, comets and all other bodies are points acted on by lines of force, and "Every particle of matter in the universe attracts every other particle with a force varying inversely as the square of their mutual distances, and directly as the ma.s.s of the attracting particle." He deduced from this law that the earth must be flattened at the poles; he determined the orbit of the moon and of comets; he explained the precession of the equinoxes, the semi-diurnal tides, the ratio of the ma.s.s of the moon and the earth, of the sun and the earth, etc. No wonder that Laplace considered that Newton's _Principia_ was a.s.sured a preeminence above all the other productions of the human intellect. It is no detraction from Newton's merit to say that Halley, Hooke, Wren, Huygens, Bulliau, Picard, and many other contemporaries (not to mention Kepler and _his_ predecessors), as well as the organizations in which they were units, share the glory of the result which they cooperated to achieve. On the contrary, he seems much more conspicuous in the social firmament because, in spite of the austerity and seeming independence of his genius, he formed part of a system, and was under its law.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Portrait by John Van der Bank_ _By permission of W. A.

Maxwell & Co._

SIR ISAAC NEWTON]

Shortly after the founding of the Royal Society, correspondence, for which a committee was appointed, had been adopted as a means of gaining the cooperation of men and societies elsewhere. Sir John Moray, as President, wrote to Monsieur de Monmort, around whom, after the death of Mersenne, the scientific coterie in Paris had gathered. This group of men, which toward the close of the seventeenth century regarded itself, not unnaturally, as the parent society, was in 1666 definitely organized as the Academie Royale des Sciences. Finally, Leibnitz, who had been a Fellow of the Royal Society as early as 1673, and had spent years in the service of the Dukes of Brunswick, was instrumental in the establishment in 1700 of the Prussian Akademie der Wissenschaften at Berlin.

REFERENCES

Sir David Brewster, _Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton_.

E. Conradi, Learned Societies and Academies in Early Times, _Pedagogical Seminary_, vol. XII (1905), pp. 384-426.

Abraham Cowley, _A Proposition for the Advancement of Experimental Philosophy_.

D. Ma.s.son, _Life of Milton_. Vol. III, chap. II.

Thomas Sprat, _The History of the Royal Society of London_.

_The Record of the Royal Society_ (third edition, 1912).

CHAPTER IX

SCIENCE AND THE STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY--BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

Of the Fellows of the Royal Society, Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) is the most representative of that age of enlightenment which had its origin in Newton's _Principia_. Franklin represents the eighteenth century in his steadfast pursuit of intellectual, social, and political emanc.i.p.ation. And in his long fight, calmly waged, against the forces of want, superst.i.tion, and intolerance, such as still hamper the development of aspiring youth in America, England, and elsewhere, he found science no mean ally.

There is some reason for believing that the Franklins (_francus_--free) were of a free line, free from that va.s.salage to an overlord, which in the different countries of Europe did not cease to exist with the Middle Ages. For hundreds of years they had lived obscurely near Northampton.

They had early joined the revolt against the papal authority. For generations they were blacksmiths and husbandmen. Franklin's great-grandfather had been imprisoned for writing satirical verses about some provincial magnate. Of the grandfather's four sons the eldest became a smith, but having some ingenuity and scholarly ability turned conveyancer, and was recognized as able and public-spirited. The other three were dyers. Franklin's father Josiah and his Uncle Benjamin were nonconformists, and conceived the plan of emigrating to America in order to enjoy their way of religion with freedom.

Benjamin, born at Boston, twenty-one years after his father's emigration, was the youngest of ten sons, all of whom were eventually apprenticed to trades. The father was a man of sound judgment who encouraged sensible conversation in his home. Uncle Benjamin, who did not emigrate till much later, showed interest in his precocious namesake. Both he and the maternal grandfather expressed in verse dislike of war and intolerance, the one with considerable literary skill, the other with a good deal of decent plainness and manly freedom, as his grandson said.

Benjamin was intended as a t.i.the to the Church, but the plan was abandoned because of lack of means to send him to college. After one year at the Latin Grammar School, and one year at an arithmetic and writing school, for better or worse, his education of that sort ceased; and at the age of ten he began to a.s.sist in his father's occupation, now that of tallow-chandler and soap-boiler. He wished to go to sea, and gave indications of leadership and enterprise. His father took him to visit the shops of joiners, bricklayers, turners, braziers, cutlers, and other artisans, thus stimulating in him a delight in handicraft.

Finally, because of a bookish turn he had been exhibiting, the boy was bound apprentice to his brother James, who about 1720 began to publish the _New England Courant_, the fourth newspaper to be established in America.

Among the books early read by Benjamin Franklin were _The Pilgrim's Progress_, certain historical collections, a book on navigation, works of Protestant controversy, Plutarch's _Lives_, filled with the spirit of Greek freedom, Dr. Mather's _Bonifacius_, and Defoe's _Essay on Projects_. The last two seemed to give him a way of thinking, to adopt Franklin's phraseology, that had an influence on some of the princ.i.p.al events of his life. Defoe, an ardent nonconformist, educated in one of the Academies (established on Milton's model) and especially trained in English and current history, advocated among other projects a military academy, an academy for improving the vernacular, and an academy for women. He thought it barbarous that a civilized and Christian country should deny the advantages of learning to women. They should be brought to read books and especially history. Defoe could not think that G.o.d Almighty had made women so glorious, with souls capable of the same accomplishments with men, and all to be only stewards of our houses, cooks, and slaves.

Benjamin still had a hankering for the sea, but he recognized in the printing-office and access to books other means of escape from the narrowness of the Boston of 1720. Between him and another bookish boy, John Collins, arose an argument in reference to the education of women.

The argument took the form of correspondence. Josiah Franklin's judicious criticism led Benjamin to undertake the well-known plan of developing his literary style.

Pa.s.sing over his reading of the _Spectator_, however, it is remarkable how soon his mind sought out and a.s.similated its appropriate nourishment, Locke's _Essay on the Human Understanding_, which began the modern epoch in psychology; the _Port Royal Logic_, prepared by that brilliant group of n.o.ble Catholics about Pascal; the works of Locke's disciple Collins, whose _Discourse on Freethinking_ appeared in 1713; the ethical writings (1708-1713) of Shaftesbury, who defended liberty and justice, and detested all persecution. A few pages of translation of Xenophon's _Memorabilia_ gave him a hint as to Socrates' manner of discussion, and he made it his own, and avoided dogmatism.

Franklin rapidly became expert as a printer, and early contributed articles to the paper. His brother, however, to whom he had been bound apprentice for a period of nine years, humiliated and beat him. Benjamin thought that the harsh and tyrannical treatment he received at this time was the means of impressing him with that aversion to arbitrary power that stuck to him through his whole life. He had a strong desire to escape from his bondage, and, after five years of servitude, found the opportunity. James Franklin, on account of some offensive utterances in the _New England Courant_, was summoned before the Council and sent to jail for one month, during which time Benjamin, in charge of the paper, took the side of his brother and made bold to give the rulers some rubs.

Later, James was forbidden to publish the paper without submitting to the supervision of the Secretary of the Province. To evade the difficulty the _New England Courant_ was published in Benjamin's name, James announcing his own retirement. In fear that this subterfuge might be challenged, he gave Benjamin a discharge of his indentures, but at the same time signed with him a new secret contract. Fresh quarrels arose between the brothers, however, and Benjamin, knowing that the editor dared not plead before court the second contract, took upon himself to a.s.sert his freedom, a step which he later regretted as not dictated by the highest principle.

Unable to find other employment in Boston, condemned by his father's judgment in the matter of the contract, somewhat under public criticism also for his satirical vein and heterodoxy, Franklin determined to try his fortunes elsewhere. Thus, at the age of seventeen he made his escape from Boston.

Unable to find work in New York, he arrived after some difficulties in Philadelphia in October, 1723. He had brought no recommendations from Boston; his supply of money was reduced to one Dutch dollar and a shilling in copper. But he that hath a Trade hath an Estate (as Poor Richard says). His capital was his industry, his skill as a printer, his good-will, his shrewd powers of observation, his knowledge of books, and ability to write. Franklin, recognized as a promising young man by the Governor, Sir William Keith, as previously by Governor Burnet of New York, had a growing sense of personal freedom and self-reliance.

But increased freedom for those who deserve it means increased responsibility; for it implies the possibility of error. Franklin, intent above all on the wise conduct of life, was deeply perturbed in his nineteenth and twentieth years by a premature engagement, in which his ever-pa.s.sionate nature had involved him, by his failure to pay over money collected for a friend, and by the unsettled state of his religious and ethical beliefs. Encouraged by Keith to purchase the equipment for an independent printing-office, Franklin, though unable to gain his father's support for the project, went to London (for the ostensible purpose of selecting the stock) at the close of the year 1724.

He remained in London a year and a half, working in two of the leading printing establishments of the metropolis, where his skill and reliability were soon prized. He found the English artisans of that time great guzzlers of beer, and influenced some of his co-workers to adopt his own more abstinent and hygienic habits of eating and drinking. About this time a book, _Religion of Nature Delineated_, by William Wollaston (great-grandfather of the scientist Wollaston) so roused Franklin's opposition that he wrote a reply, which he printed in pamphlet form before leaving London in 1726, and the composition of which he afterwards regretted.

He returned to Philadelphia in the employ of a Quaker merchant, on whose death he resumed work as printer under his former employer. He was given control of the office, undertook to make his own type, contrived a copper-plate press, the first in America, and printed paper money for New Jersey. The substance of some lectures in defense of Christianity, in courses endowed by the will of Robert Boyle, made Franklin a Deist.

At the same time his views on moral questions were clarified, and he came to recognize that truth, sincerity, and integrity were of the utmost importance to the felicity of life. What he had attained by his own independent thought rendered him ultimately more careful rather than more reckless. He now set value on his own character, and resolved to preserve it.

In 1727, still only twenty-one, he drew together a number of young men in a sort of club, called the "Junto," for mutual benefit in business and for the discussion of morals, politics, and natural philosophy. They professed tolerance, benevolence, love of truth. They discussed the effect on business of the issue of paper money, various natural phenomena, and kept a sharp look-out for any encroachment on the rights of the people. It is not unnatural to find that in a year or two (1729), after Franklin and a friend had established a printing business of their own and acquired the _Pennsylvania Gazette_, the young politician championed the cause of the Ma.s.sachusetts a.s.sembly against the claims first put forward by Governor Burnet, and that he used spirited language referring to America as a nation and clime foreign to England.

In 1730 Franklin bought out his partner, and in the same year published dialogues in the Socratic manner in reference to virtue and pleasure, which show a rapid development in his general views. About the same time he married, restored the money that had long been owing, and formulated his ethical code and religious creed. He began in 1732 the _Poor Richard Almanacks_, said to offer in their homely wisdom the best course in existence in practical morals.

As early as 1729 Franklin had published a pamphlet on _Paper Currency_.

It was a well-reasoned discussion on the relation of the issue of paper currency to rate of interest, land values, manufactures, population, and wages. The want of money discouraged laboring and handicraftsmen. One must consider the nature and value of money in general. This essay accomplished its purpose in the a.s.sembly. It was the first of those contributions which, arising from Franklin's consideration of the social and industrial circ.u.mstances of the times, gained for him recognition as the first American economist. It was in the same spirit that in 1751 he discussed the question of population after the pa.s.sage of the British Act forbidding the erection or the operation of iron or steel mills in the colonies. Science for Franklin was no extraneous interest; he was all of a piece, and it was as a citizen of Philadelphia he wrote those essays that commanded the attention of Adam Smith, Malthus, and Turgot.

In 1731 he was instrumental in founding the first of those public libraries, which (along with a free press) have made American tradesmen and farmers as intelligent, in Franklin's judgment, as most gentlemen from other countries, and contributed to the spirit with which they defended their liberties. The diffusion of knowledge became so general in the colonies that in 1766 Franklin was able to tell the English legislators that the seeds of liberty were universally found there and that nothing could eradicate them. Franklin became clerk of the General a.s.sembly and postmaster, improved the paving and lighting of the city streets, and established the first fire brigade and the first police force in America. Then in 1743 in the same spirit of public beneficence Franklin put forth his _Proposal for Promoting Useful Knowledge among the British Plantations in America_. It outlines his plan for the establishment of the American Philosophical Society. Correspondence had already been established with the Royal Society of London. It is not difficult to see in Franklin the same spirit that had animated Hartlib, Boyle, Petty,[2] Wilkins, and their friends one hundred years before. In fact, Franklin was the embodiment of that union of scientific ideas and practical skill in the industries that with them was merely a pious wish.