HKB
unaware of any inclination to pursue natural science to the exclusion of those political achievements which have identified him as one of the wiliest and sagest diplomats of the Enlightenment.
It may be learned, however (not without astonishment), that Franklin almost from the beginning of his participation in politics resented the time given over to such activities, as so much time lost to his speculations and research in natural science. As early as 1752 he wistfully (though realistically) confessed that "business sometimes obliges one to postpone philosophical amusements."[i-368] A month after this, he wrote to Cadwallader Colden: "I congratulate you on the prospect you have, of passing the remainder of life in philosophical retirement."[i-369] In the midst of investigating waterspouts, he observed to John Perkins: "How much soever my Inclinations lead me to philosophical Inquiries, I am so engag'd in Business, public and private, that those more pleasing pursuits [of natural science] are frequently interrupted...."[i-370] He urged Dr. John Fothergill to give himself "repose, delight in viewing the Operations of nature in the vegetable creation."[i-371] In 1765, upon completing his negotiations in behalf of the Pennsylvania Assembly, he promised Lord Kames that he would "engage in no other" political affairs.[i-372] To the notable professor of physics of the University of Turin, Giambatista Beccaria, he wrote in 1768 from London (where he had sought to have the Stamp Act rescinded) that he had to "take away entirely" his "attention from philosophical matters, though I have constantly cherished the hope of returning home where I could find leisure to resume the studies that I have shamefully put off from time to time."[i-373] Again, in 1779, he confessed to Beccaria: "I find myself here [Passy] immers'd in Affairs, which absorb my Attention, and prevent my pursuing those Studies in which I always found the highest Satisfaction; and I am now grown so old, as hardly to hope for a Return of that Leisure and Tranquillity so necessary for Philosophical Disquisitions."[i-374] He longed (in 1782) to have Congress release him so that he might "spend the Evening of Life more agreeably in philosophic [devoted to natural science] Leisure."[i-375] He who, John Winthrop claimed, "was good at starting Game for Philosophers,"[i-376] acknowledged that he had thrown himself on the public, which, "having as it were eaten my flesh, seemed now resolved to pick my bones."[i-377] Reverend Manasseh Cutler visited Franklin a few months before the patriarch's death. They ardently discussed botany, Franklin boyish in his eagerness to show the Reverend Mr. Cutler a massive book, containing "the whole of Linnaeus' Systema Vegetabilies." "The Doctor seemed extremely fond, through the course of the visit, of dwelling on Philosophical subjects, and particularly that of natural History, while the other Gentlemen were swallowed up with politics."[i-378] In a fictitious (?) conversation between Joseph II of Austria and Franklin, the Newton of electricity is reported as explaining that he was early in life attracted by natural philosophy: "Necessity afterwards made me a politician.... I was Franklin, the Philosopher to the world, long after I had in fact, become Franklin the Politician."[i-379] After reviewing the evidence, it seems incredulous to doubt that, regardless of his achievements in other fields, Franklin sought his greatest intellectual pleasure in scientific research and speculation, and that his doctrines of scientific deism antedated and conditioned his political, economic, and humanitarian interests.