The Books: “The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin” (Benjamin Franklin)

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Next book in my American history section is The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin

A must-read. I struggled with which excerpt to choose. I love the part when he decides to be a vegetarian (which he pretty much was for his whole life). I love his determination to be perfect – and his whole journey with that – making charts with all of the virtues, checking them off. I love his discussions of the books that really helped him, the people who took a shine to him. But it’s so unvarnished – that’s why I love it. You get a sense of what an amazing character he was – going to England at so young an age, being swindled out of his money, having to make his own way …

He also was such an earthy kind of person. Or – at least he admitted his earthiness. You totally get the sense of the frolics he’s having left and right, with this or that girl … His main revelation in life was that moderation was the key to all that was good. He liked to drink. In moderation. He was a vegetarian. But he didn’t make it a religion. He was moderate about it. He liked the ladies. In moderation. He had massive appetites – and as long as he kept them a bit under control, they were fine. I don’t know – I just really like that about him.

I love the excerpt I’ve chosen. It’s advice about writing – advice that REALLY resonates with me. It’s why I can’t read the majority of political blogs. They’re too certain they are RIGHT. And that kind of certainty, in my opinion, makes for terrible writing. Boring terrible harangues. Franklin’s advice, while about writing, also ends up being a philosophy of life – it gets into deeper issues, not just writing issues – and it’s stuff I don’t care to discuss – but Franklin’s writing advice goes a long way towards understanding who he was, why he was beloved the world round, why some people despised him, and why his career was so long and fruitful. Also – his scientific inquiries fall under this category as well … His inquisitive mind, his curiosity, his ability to – even as a grown man – look at the natural world and say: “Why is it LIKE that?” His ability to take NOTHING for granted. All of this also seems to come under the philosophy he puts out in the second paragraph below. It’s not about not having opinions or having ideas. Not at all! It’s about how you express them – Is the point to just walk around feeling that you were right? Well, if it is – then good luck with persuading anyone to come to your side. People, in general, do not like to hang around self-righteous jagoffs. But what if the point is to persuade?? Are you able to ADJUST how you express yourself so that it is not so odious to others? The powers of persuasion … Franklin was a master at it. Reading this book, you realize he was such a master at persuasion because he PRACTICED it.

Oh – it was great – last week I went to the Library Company of Philadelphia. Founded by Franklin (and his buddies) in 1731. That reading room!!!!! DROOLING OVER THE READING ROOM. (I wrote a bit about the Library Company here.)

Franklin is, of course, everywhere in Philadelphia – even more so than William Penn. Franklin has trickled down to the most trivial level of life. Franklin Liquors. Franklin Cafe. Franklin Bar & Grill. Franklin Mall. Franklin Lingerie. Just pop his name onto the beginning and you’ve got yourself a business!!

From The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin

While I was intent on improving my language I met with an English grammar (I think it was Greenwood’s) having at the end of it two little sketches on the arts of rhetoric and logic, the latter finishing with a dispute in the Socratic method; and soon after I procured Xenophon’s Memorable Things of Socrates, wherein there are many examples of the same method. I was charmed with it, adopted it, dropped my abrupt contradictions and positive argumentation, and put on the humble inquirer. And being then, from reading Shaftesbury and Collins, made a doubter, as I already was in many points of our religious doctrines, I found this method the safest for myself and very embarrassing to those against whom I used it; therefore I took delight in it, practiced it continually, and grew very artful and expert in drawing people even of superior knowledge into concessions the consequence of which they did not foresee, entangling them in difficulties out of which they could not extricate themselves, and so obtaining victories that neither myself nor my cause always deserved.

I continued this method some few years, but gradually left it, retaining only the habit of expressing myself in terms of modest diffidence, never using, when I advanced anything that may possibly be disputed, the words certainly, undoubtedly, or any others that give the air of positiveness to an opinion; but rather say, I conceive or apprehend a thing to be so and so; It appears to me, or I should not think it so or so, for such and such reasons; or, I imagine it to be so; or, It is so, if I am not mistaken. This habit, I believe, has been of great advantage to me when I have had occasion to inculcate my opinions and persuade men into measures that I have been from time to time engaged in promoting. And as the chief ends of conversation are to inform or to be informed, to please or to persuade, I wish well-meaning and sensible men would not lessen their power of doing good by a positive assuming manner that seldom fails to disgust, tends to create opposition, and to defeat most of those purposes for which speech was given to us. In fact, if you wish to instruct others, a positive dogmatical manner in advancing your sentiments may occasion opposition and prevent a candid attention. If you desire instruction and improvement from others, you should not at the same time express yourself fixed in your present opinions. Modest and sensible men, who do not love disputation, will leave you undisturbed in the possession of your errors. In adopting such a manner, you can seldom expect to please your hearers or obtain the concurrence you desire. Pope judiciously observes —

“Men must be taught as if you taught them not,
And things unknown proposed as things forgot.”

He also commended it to us

“To speak, though sure, with seeming diffidence.”

And he might have joined with this line that which he has coupled with another, I think, less properly —

“For want of modesty is want of sense.”

If you ask, Why less propoerly? I must repeat the lines,

“Immodest words admit of no defense,
For want of modesty is want of sense.”

Now, is not the want of sense, where a man is so unfortunate as to want it, some apology for his want of modesty? And would not the lines stand more justly thus?

“Immodest words admit but this defense,
That want of modesty is want of sense.”

This, however, I should submit to better judgments.