5 - The Science of Virtue

Summary

While Franklin adored the providence, or order, of nature, his frequent reflection on evil in the world was the starting point for his inquiry into the life of virtue. It was not his natural curiosity or genius alone that propelled him to inquire into sentiments of justice. He was enflamed by a melancholy awareness of injustice, in the world and in himself. His examination of nature's providence revealed a contradiction: that nature's majestic order exists side by side with its cruel injustice and indifference. His thoughts on death in his Journal were the beginning of a protracted dialectic with himself about the way he should live his life. From this came his 1726 “Plan of Conduct,” written so that he might act like a “rational creature” by ordering his life. In 1727 both Franklin and Denham, whom Franklin “respected and lov’d,” contracted illnesses; Denham died, his estate picked over by executors, with nothing left for the young apprentice. Franklin writes, “My Distemper was a Pleurisy, which very nearly carried me off. I suffered a good deal, gave up the Point in my own mind, and was rather disappointed when I found my Self recovering.” After languishing in sickness, he recovered to hear of the death of his uncle, and to tend to his dying friend Joseph Watson, who “died in [Franklin’s] Arms.” Three years after his optimistic departure for England, and without any seeming improvement in wealth or status, Franklin had to return to Keimer for work. Sometime in the next year, in melancholy reflection, he wrote his printer's Epitaph, reflecting on how he might be remembered after his death.

In a 1731 letter to his sister Jane Mecom, Franklin reflects on the great uncertainty of human affairs. He begins with “the melancholy news of the death of [our] sister [Sarah Franklin] Deavenport, a loss, without doubt, regretted by all that knew her, for she was a good woman.” To this he adds, “I had before heard of the death of your first child, and am pleased that the loss is in some measure made up to you by the birth of a second.”