FRANKLIN'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY:

A WORK OF ART OR A WORK OF HISTORY?

NORIO AKASHI

In reading Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography one often forgets some simple facts about it. For example, the intimate language in which he addresses to his son gives the impression that the latter is only a boy of sixteen or seventeen who is about to make a start in life. In fact Franklin's son, William, for whom the Autobiography is written, was at least forty years old and had been governor of New Jersey when Franklin began to write it in 1771. Moreover most of the incidents described in it had taken place long before the writing began. This partly explains why the author is not always accurate in name" and dates.

However the most significant fact that is so often forgotten is that it is a work of art as much as it is a work of history and that it is a product of imagination as much as a statement of fact or argu­ment. To say that it is a work of art does not necessarily mean that it is a fiction nor that there is little if any historical truth contained in it. By" work of art" or "product of imagination" it is meant rather that, contrary to its simple and unpretentious appearances, the Autobiograph:y is an ingenious work written with a definite purpose and based on a carefully laid plan. In other words, the whole intent and design of the work are by no means simple but deliberately cal­culated ones.

The Autobiography is not a simple work as we may think it to be, and the author not an unsophisticated writer as he presents him­self to the reader. It is admittedly so easy to be "taken in" or de­ceived by Franklin's subtle artistry. The careless reader may conclude

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~evidently all too hastily-that it is a charming success story of a self-made man; or that it is a "conduct book" or a moral instruction book intended for young men on the make. To him ~he author may appear to be a candid, open-minded man whose sincerity of mind and sagacity are undeni'l.ble. And finally he may come to believe as true everything that is written in it, assuming that it is an account of the life of an extra-odinary man who dominated much of the eighteenth­century American scene. But this only proves that Franklin is a skillful artist, and also that, to the extent that one believes in his story, his scheme is working as he has planned.

There is no doubt that Franklin uses several literary devices in writing the Autobiography. For example, he selects and arranges his materials, i.e., the incidents and characters he has encountered in the way best suited for his purpose; and he adopts the kind of language that is most appropriate for the theme of the work. As pointed out above, however, this does not mean that he invents fictitious incidents and brings in fictitious characters. Instead he chooses to leave out a few and emphasizes some aspects of his life more than others. This may be shown by his own words which appear on the very opening page of the Autobiography:

I should have no Objection to a Repetition of the same Life from its Beginning, only asking the Advantage Authors have in a second Edi­tion to correct some Faults of the nrst.1

Thus the Autobiography is more a story of his life redone or re· touched than a complete and accurate record of it as it has really been. Fanklin as author takes the liberty of improving it by correct· ing the" Faults "-or as he puts it, the" Errata "-of his life. Our task is then to examine the purpose for which Franklin wrote the Autobiography; the point of view or stance from which he reviews his past experience; and the manner in which he executes his design of work.

1. There are now available many different editions of Franklin's Autobiography. In preparing the present paper The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, ed. Leonard W. Labaree et al. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1964) has been used. The passage cited is from ibid., p. 43. Hereafter only page cita­tions will be given in the text.

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What is most intriguing about the Autobiography is that Franklin has several men and women appear in it, each performing a particular role assigned to him or her. Josiah and Abian Franklin, his parents; James Franklin, his printer brother and one-time employer; Deborah Read, his future wife; Sir William Keith, the Governor of Pennsyl­vania whom he met early in his Philadelphia career; and many others-they are all real historical figures and by no means fictitious ones, but Franklin maIds them into the patterns that he makes for them. In other words they are as it were more of dramatic than of

. historical character. As they appear in Franklin's story, they each perform particular roles assigned them by the author; it is obvious that Franklin as author cannot do without them.

Of course the main character is Franklin himself. He appears not persistently in the same role throughout the story, but in several successive roles. As we read on, we find appear before us many different characters of Franklin: the tallow chandler and soap boiler, the printer, the swimming instructor, the philosopher and scientist, the diplomat, and so on and so forth. To put it in another way, Franklin who appears in the Autobiography, the main character, is a versatile man, a gifted actor capable of playing a number of parts equally well.

We can go even further and say that, for Franklin, to write the story of his own life is in itself a dramatic act. And with good rea­sons we can conjecture that it is the last of his multitudinous acts. To interpret the Autobiography and its author in such a light is meant to be neither a facetious comment on Franklin's artistic talent nor a bold attack on the commonly accepted image of what Franklin was. On the contrary it is expected that such a line of approach will help broaden our understanding of the full dimensions of Franklin's ideas and personality and thus create a more accurate image of him.

To return to the dramatic quality of the Autobiography, it may be pointed out that Franklin the actor and Franklin the author are two different personalities, one observing and directing the life of the other.2 Franklin whose life we read about in the work is in fact the

2. The distinction between Franklin the writer and Franklin the created char­acter have been emphasized by: David Levin, "The Autobiography of

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creation of Franklin wntmg. It will be important to bear this dis. tiction in mind; for, otherwise, we will miss a great deal of Frank­lin's subtle artistry. Apparently he relies heavily on the medium of created characters to get his message across. He deliberately makes a distinction between himself as the writer and the characters he creates. Therefore if we get confused as to the identity of each per· sonality, mistaking the observed for the observer or vice versa, we will do great injustice to Franklin.

Let us stop here awhile and see how Franklin uses his created characters. For this we will choose two incidents which are both described in the Autobiography.

The first instance is his first entry to Philadelphia. Here he in· vents the character of a poor boy running away from his home in Boston and coming to a strange town, hungry and almost penniless.

I was dirty from my Journey; my Pockets were stuff'd out with Shirts and Stockings; I knew no Soul, nor where to look for Lodging. I was fatig'd with Travelling, Rowing and Want of Rest. I was very hungry, and my whole StOCK of Cash consisted of a Dollar and about a Shilling in Copper. The latter I gave the people of the Boat for my Passage. (p. 75)

He decides to buy some roll of bread with the money he has left:

I had him [the baker] give me three pennyworth of any sort. He gave me accordingly great Puffy Rolls. I was surpriz'd at the Quan­tity, but took it, and having no room in my Pockets, walk'd off, with a Roll under each Arm, and eating the other. (p. 76)

More interestingly he is supposed to have met his future wife, Deborah Read, on his very first day in Philadelphia. But neither he nor she appears to have been much aware of the symbolic meaning of their encounter:

Thus I went up Market Street as far as fourth Street, passing by the Door of Mr. Read, my future ·Wife's Father, when she standing at the

Benjamin Franklin: The Puritan Experimenter in Life and Art," In Defense of Historical Literature (New York; Hill and Wang, 1967), pp. 58--76; John Willian Ward, "Who Was Benjamin Franklin ?," The American Scholar, XXXII (Autumn 1963), pp. 541-53; and Robert F. Sayre, The Examined Self: Benjamin Franklin, Henry Adams, Herry James (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1964).

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Door saw me, and thought I made as I certainly did a most awkward ridiculous Appearance. Then I turn'd and went down Chestnut Street and part of Wainut Street, eating my Roll all the way .... (p. 76)

And the first house he "was in or slept in, in Philadelphia" was the meeting house of the Quakers. This is an interesting coincidence, if we remember the long association he later came to have with the Quakers of Philadelphia and also the fact that, though not a Quaker himself, he enjoyed being thought a Quaker and actually exploited it to his o,vn advantage whenever possible.

Franklin mentions the symbolic roll for the third time later in the story: "I remember'd well, that when I first walk'd about the streets of Philadelphia, eating my Roll ... " (p. 124). Upon reading such passages, one may naturally ask: Why does he have to stress so much the act of eating a roll on his first day in Philadelphia? Was he really so poor as to be able only to afford a roll of bread, hungry as he was?

Truly he could have ignored the whole incident or at least could have left out some of the details. However he has chosen to include it and has been "particular" in the description of it, because he wants his reader to "compare such unlikely Beginnings with the Figure I have since made there" (p. 75). This perfectly agrees with the purpose for which he set out to write the Autobiography: name­ly, to tell his son how he succeeded in raising himself from "the Poverty and Obscurity" in which he was born to "a State of Afflu­ence and some Degree of Reputation in the World" (p. 43). Conse­quently he needed at the outset to make himself look as poor and miserable-looking as possible. But the fact is that he was not badly off as we would think, for although he might have looked miserable in his "Working Dress," his "best Clothes" were to "come round by Sea" (p. 75). Actually he has revealed earlier that prior to his departure from New York he had made the arrangement to have his "Chest and Things ... follow me round by Sea" (p. 71). If we miss this and believe what he says about his first entry to Philadelphia, it certainly is our own fault and never his.

Let us now turn to the second incident: the project for moral improvement which he attempted in his youth. It is described in

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the secoed part of the Autobiography, which was written in Paris In 1784 when Franklin was seventy-eight years old.

It was about this time that I coceiv'd the bold and arduous Project of arriving at moral Perfection. I wish'd to live without committing any Fault at any time; I would conquer all that either Natural In­clination, Custom, or Company might lead me into. As I knew or thought I knew, what was right and wrong, I did not see why I might not always do the one and avoid the other. But I soon found I had undertaken a Task of more Difficulty than I had imagined. vVhile my Attention was taken up in guarding against one Fault, I was often surpriz'd by another. Habit took advantage of Inattention. Inclination was sometimes too strong for Reason. (p. 148)

The device that he adopted for this purpose-that of making a list of thirteen virtues he wished to master and making a daily check of his conduct according to these virtues-is well-known, so it needs not be discussed in detail. Neither will we be concerned with the question whether he became frugal, industrious, temperamental, etc. etc., because of it. We are rather more interested in how Franklin, looking back upon the "bold and arduous" experiment of his youth­ful days, evaluates it from the vantage point of age· and experience. He is now in the position better to be able to understand the impli­cations, i.e., the merits and the reasons of the failure, of such a pro­ject.

We know from other sources that when young Franklin possessed vigorous intellectual power and a strongly inquisitive mind; the very fact of attempting such an ambitious project is another proof of this. But in this Autob-iograjJhy every effort is made to present the char­acter of the young intellectual as philosophically naIve though a bit self-conceited on occasion. The author therefore stresses more the areas in which he fails than those. where he succeeds, and writes in a somewhat ironical and humorous tone of language.

First of all Franklin admits innocently that he soon found that he "had undertaken a Task of more Difficulty than I had imagined." Such a statement disarms one of his suspicion of Franklin's arrogance or vanity even to think about becoming a perfect man morally. He then makes a candid admission that he had extreme difficulties in mastering some of the virtues, most notably those of order and hu-

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mility. Without such frank admission of failures, one may well be appalled by the vanity and self-conceit of the young Franklin.

He writes that he had great difficulties in mastering the virtue of order:

Order too, with regard to Places for Things, Papers, &c. I found extreamly difficult to acquire .... something that pretended to be Reason was every now and then suggesting to me, that such extreme Nicety as I exacted of myself might be a kind of Foppery in Morals, which if it were known would make me ridiculous; that a perfect Character might be attended with the Inconvenience of being envied and hated; and that a benevolent Man should allow a few Faults in himself, to keep his Friends in Countenance. (pp. 155-6)

This is all very humorous and may be regarded as a candid admission that he is not a perfect man and that he can never be one; which in the terminology of the Enlightenment means that he is not a ra­tional man. However, it is obvious that, in admitting the failure of his rationality, Franklin is contradicting himself and going against the spirit of his time. For has he not ever been critical of the human tendency to be run by "Inclination" and not by "Principle" and is it not true that he has always believed in a harmonious universe with all its parts organized under a rational, orderly plan? There­fore if he goes too far in ridiculing the folly of the former self, he might fall in a pitfall; that is, he might end up with negating every­thing that he has ever done or stood for. We do not know for sure, but this is probably not what he has meant to do.3

Humility is another virtue which he found hard to master. As a matter of fact, if we follow his reasoning, it 'will never be possible to master it:

3. We see a similar example of Franklin criticizing the power of human rea­son in his treatment of the vegetarian experiment on his first voyage from Boston to New York. He describes his failure in it in equally humorous and ironical language.

I balanc'd some time between Principle and Inclination: till I recol­lected, that when the Fish were opened, I saw smaller Fish taken out of their Stomachs: Then thought I, if you eat one another, I don't see why we mayn't eat you. . .. So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable Creature, since it enables one to find or make a Reason for everything one has a mind to do. (pp. 87-8)

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In reality there is perhaps no one of our natural Passions so hard to subdue as Pride. Disguise it, struggle with it, beat it down, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive, and will every now and then peep out and show itself. You will see it perhaps often in this History. For even if I could conceive that I had compleatly overcome it, I should probably by [be] proud of my Humility. (p. 160)

Coming at the end of the description of the moral perfection project, such confession is a sort of anticlimax. We have been expecting that the young Franklin will overcome all obstacles and march on the path of moral progress. But we are told at the end that he has failed in the most important of all virtues that would have made him a simple and sincere man he wished to become.

However his story does not really end here. He may have failed to acquire" the Reality of this Virtue," but he succeeded in having "a good deal with regard to the Appearance of it" (p. 159). In other words, if he did not become as humble a person as he had hoped to be, he succeeded in making himself appear SO.4

What has just been said above has an important implication for our study of the character of Franklin. For if he could put on the appearance of a humble character which he says he was not really, we are led to wonder if he was actually putting en the appearances of some other characters. That he could disguise himself to be a char­acter which he was not whenever the occasion demanded it, may be evidenced by the following episode taken from the Autobiography:

I now open'd a little Stationer's Shop. . .. In order to secure my Credit and Character as a Tradesman, I took care not only to be in Reality industrious and frugal, but to avoid all Appearances of the Contrary. I drest plainly: I was seen at no Places of idle Diversion; I never went out a-fishing or shooting ... and to show that I was not above my Business, I sometimes brought home the Paper I purchas'd at the Stores, thro' the Streets on a ·Wheelbarrow. (pp. 125-6)

He not only worked hard in his trade; he also worked it out so that

4. Sayre looks at Franklin's failure in a slightly different light. He writes, "The story of that failure was an opportunity to create a plain, reasonable, somewhat comical origin for the sage whose worldliness expressed itself in simplicity" (op. cit., p. 31). According to him Franklin included it in order to reconcile the opposite tendencies in him, "young philosopher's hubris" and " , Quaker' simplicity" (ibid.).

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he should look industrious and hard-working. As a result his friends and neighbors came to regard him as an "industrious thriving your Man," and he could go on in business "swimmingly."

For Franklin to create a dramatic character and speak through him or her is an important means of communication. He has used the same device on several occasions prior to the writing of the Auto­biography: Mrs. Silence Dogood, Richard Saunders and Father Ab­raham, to name a few. In 1722 when he was only sixteen years old and still working at his brother's print shop, he wrote a series of letters for his brother's newspaper, the lVew-England Courant. He wrote them not in his own name but in the name of Mrs. Silence Dogood, for fear that his brother would not print anything he wrote. This is what he says in the Autobiography. But more probably, as the nature of his letters was such as to be a criticism of the College of Harvard and the ministry in general, hardly a commendable sub­ject to write derogatively about in the Boston of his time, he was careful to keep the identity of the author concealed. If anyone was going to get hurt, he had made sure that it was not him but his created character.

Franklin published his first almanac in 1732; this time in the name of a Richard Saunders or more popularly known as "Poor Richard." He published it in part to earn additional income; but more importantly perhaps, to secure an outlet for him to speak out.5

He was going to make fun of the people's uncritical acceptance of astrology and superstition. But young as he was, he might not be listened to in his own person; hence his adoption of the character of a wise old man who was himself an astrologer. Father Abraham, the old sage who appears in the preface for the almanac for 1758 which was later reprinted separately as The Way to Wealth, is also Frank­lin's creation. In this case Franklin the real author .is twice removed from the printed work, for it takes the form of "Poor Richard" retelling the story which he had heard the sage tell at the auction. But we all know by now that Father Abraham is again Franklin in

5. Carl Van Doren, Benjamin Franklin (New York: Viking Press, 1938), p. 114.

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disguise and preaching the virtues of industry and frugality. In addition to the device of creating as it were dramatic charac­

ters, he adopts a few other literary devices in telling the history of his life. For example, he uses a simple and clear language to match the seemingly unpretentious style of his narrative. Also he stops his story every now and then to insert a wise and useful comment on life or proverb. And finally he takes care not to reveal his animosity against anyone, even against his adversaries. Nowhere in the Auto­biography we come across a passage in which he speaks ill of his fellow men. He always has something good to say about them, even when it is obvious that he must have suffered a great deal of wrong­doing at their hands.6

The various devices that Franklin uses seem to work well-but, paradoxical as it may sound, perhaps too well. What is meant by this is not that his message does not get across to the reader; but rather that his artistry is so subtle that he may not get the credit he certainly deserves. It will be discovered and appreciated only by the most careful reader. For the rest it will remain a delightful reading but not much more.

For this failure in communication Franklin himself is partly re­sponsible. In other words, where he is best he is also most vulner­able. In the first place, he detaches himself so far from the incidents and character he describes that it is not always certain where he stands. 'Such posture enables him to keep himself from being emo­tionally involved in the past events and instead to take an objective, critical view of them. As already noted, he can even ridicule his own follies he committed in his youth. But his posture sometimes appears too dispassionate, too rational. We would rather wish him to be more personal; we are, for example, interested to see how he might juxtapose his former self with what he is now; and also to see how he might allow himself emotionally to be involved in the past, putting aside temporarily

6. Franklin has every reason to condemn his friend James Ralph for not hav­ing paid back the 27 pounds, "a great sum" for him when the loan was made. But he shows his affection for the latter by saying that he "had many amiable Qualities" and that his "Conversation was of great Advantage to me" (p. 106).

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what he seems to claim to be an unprejudiced observation of it. Secondly, his ever claim of naivete is the proof that he is a per­

son of sophisticated mind. To give an example, in spite of his can­did admission of his failure in it and his humorous self-ridicule, the moral perfection project is the most artful of all the contrivances he· ever attempted in his life. He calls it a "little Artifice" (p. 157). It is an "Artifice" for sure, but it is never a "little Artifice." No matter how one calls it, it has implications far greater than the mere name suggests. We can cite another example: the story of how he came to get the contract to print the Pennsylvania paper money:

... I was on the Side of an Addition [0£ paper currency].... Our Debates possess'd me so fully of the Subject, that I wrote and printed an anonymous Pamphlet on it, entitled, The Nature and Necessity of a Paper Currency. It was well receiv'd by the common People in general; but the Rich Men dislik'd it; for it increas'd and strengthen'd the Clamour for more Money ... and the Point was carried by a Majority in the House. My Friends there, who conceiv'd I had been of some Service, thought fit to reward me, by employing me in print­ing the Money, a very profitable Jobb, and a great Help to me. (p. 124)

Reading such an account, we may get the impression that he was a disinterested civic projector. But can we be sure that there was no private motive on his part to advocate the issuance of paper money? May we not conjecture that there was some behind-the-stage maneu­vering by Franklin to get his proposal accepted by influential mem­bers of the House? And after all his getting the contract to print the money-if this was not political in nature, what else could it be? With his remarkable skill of understatement he only says that he was "of some Service" and that his friends "thought fit to reward me."

Thirdly, his device is effective in stating the negative argument but "not conducive to the exposition of positive, complex theory."7 To cite an example, although he is highly critical of the tendency of the Christian churches "principally to divide us and make us un­friendly to one another," he never develops his speculation on doc­trinal differences among them (p. 146). He only denies categorically

7. Levin, op. cit., p. 74.

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that there should not be any such differences. He then says that, respecting all religions, he avoids "all Discourse that might tend to lessen the good Opinion another might have of his own Religion." As far as he makes it known, this is the extent of his belief in re­ligious toleration. But we are not told whether he believes in ex­tending it to its logical conclusion, i.e., the separation of church and state.

Now we come to our last question; Who is Benjamin Franklin writing the Autobiography? That is to say, we have yet to establish the identity of Franklin the author.8 As noted earlier in the present paper, to write an autobiography is for Franklin the last act of his life and the author writing the Autobiography the last character he creates to play. In so doing he conceives himself to be "an inquiring man, self-educated, testing for himself, in morality, in business, in religion, in science,,,g and offers himself to the world as "a represen­tative type, the American."lo In other words he seems to consider it as his role to act as the prototype of his age, which is experimen­tal and rational, and of his country, which is fluid and open. The society he represents, the American society, is in contrast with the old world society where superstition is supposed to govern and blind obedience to authority-religious as well as political-is supposed to be the accepted rule.

That Franklin was not alone in viewing the character of the American society thus may be evidenced by the remarks of one of his contemporaries. Benjamin Vaughn, in his letter to Franklin urging him to continue the Autobiography from where he had left eleven years before, writes as follows:

All that has happened to you is also connected with the detail of the manners and situation of a rising people; and in this respect I do not

8. It may be pointed out that some of the factors that make such identifica­tion difficult are: the disarmingly simple but really deceptive design and lan­guage of the Autobiography; the fact that it is never complete, leaving out the last thirty years of his life; and the inconclusiveness of his self-examination compared with that of some of his contemporaries, most notably 30nathan Edwards and John vVoolman.

9. Levin, op. cit. pp. 66-7. 10. Ward, op cif p. 544.

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think that the writings of Caesar and Tacitus can be more interesting to a true judge of human nature and society. (p. 135)

American adapted themselves successfully to the changing conditions of their country, a requirement that was necessary for them to sur­vive in and develop the hitherto un manned open space. As one scholar puts it, they" believed that they were the chosen instruments of God appointed to carry out the Protestant mission in the New World, which was to set up a 'city on the hill' as an example to Europe and the rest of the world of the true Reformation."ll Vaughn continues:

Let Englishmen be made not only to respect, but even to love you. \Vhen they think well of individuals in your native country, they will go nearer to thinking well of your country.. .. Extend your views ever further; do not stop at those who speak the English tongue; but after having settled so many points in nature and politics, think of bettering the whole race of men. (p. 140)

However what Franklin did is not always received favorably. Nor is he liked by every Englishman. D. H. Lawrence for one does not particularly like~in fact he detests immensely~Franklin and the America he is supposed to represent. Although he has enough in­sight to see through the" pattern American" that Flanklin creates or what he calls "the first dummy American," what he finds is not in the least to his liking:

The perfectibility of man, dear God! when every man as long as he remains alive is in himself a multitude of conflicting men. \Vhich of these do you choose to perfect, at the expense of every other?

Old Daddy Franklin will tell you. He'll rig him up for you, the pattern American. Oh, Franklin was the first downright American. He set up the first dummy American.'"

11. Charles L. Sanford, " An American Pilgrim's Progress," Bemjamin Franklin and the American Character, ed. Charles L. Sanford (Boston: Heath, 1955), pp. 66-7. Sanford therefore sees a direct causal relationship between moral effort of the English settlers in America and their material prosperity, and from this he infers a close parallelism between Franklin's ~4utobiography and John Bunyan's famous allegory, The Pilgrim's Progress. But it may be sug­gested that in so doing he overstresses Franklin's secular use of moral allegory.

12. D. H. Lawrence, "Benjamin Franklin," in Sanford, ibid., p. 58.

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To Lawrence Americans appear to be crassly meterialistic and a symbol of vulgar taste. They are, Franklin not excepted-or more probably because of him-a terrible bore all trapped in the" barbed­wire moral enclosure." There is no doubt that Lawrence thinks Franklin was very much responsible for erecting such a high moral wall with his moral perfection project and all. He admires the power and vitality of America but can never come to like it. In fact he even says that America is "just a farce."13 But clearly this is all a matter of artistic taste rather than that of historical judgment.14 Over­anxious to apply his aesthetic standard to what he sees in America, it is obvious that he commits the unmistakable error of grossly under­estimating the dimensions of Franklin's ideas and personality. That is to say, he fails to take note of the man behind the mask; namely the real actor behind the unpretentious disguise of moral earnestness and open simplicity.

Should anyone conclude after reading Franklin's Autobiography that the author was a man of simple pattern, it would show that he is "taken in" or deceived by franklin's subtle artistry. The real Franklin was on the contrary a versatile man in life as in the Auto­biography. One biographer of him aptly calls him as "a harmonious human multitude."15 As we have already seen, Franklin was capable of putting on many appearances that were expected of him. He could easily and gracefully adjust himself to the changing situations. It came natural to him to play the expected roles; as a matter of fact he seemed extremely to enjoy it. Also he had within his own person several traits that were apparently contradictory to each other.16 He might have looked a convinced materialist but there was enough of

13. Ibid., p. 64. 14. Lawrence's interpretation of Franklin's influuence on the moral thinking of

Americans has been subject to many critical reexaminations. Herbert W. Schneider, "Ungodly Puritans," ibid., pp. 77-83, is one and it emphasizes that Franklin's real goal of life was to attain" health, wealth, and wisdom" and "to be free and easy" (p. 81) and never to master the thirteen virtues. Ac­cording to him these were only means and" to attempt to read ideal content into them is Lawrence's, not Franklin's, mistake" (ibid.).

15. Van Doren, op. cit., p. 782. 16. The point that there are contradictory traits in Franklin's personality is

emphasized by Ward, op. cit., p. 541.

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idealism in him to aspire to moral perfection; he was both a believer and skeptic of the efficacy of reason; he preached frugality and in­dustry, but retired from business at the still prime age of forty-two; and he was concerned equally with personal advancement and welfare of his fellow men. Which of these traits should we believe as best characterizing the many-sided personality that Franklin was?

Our final word on Franklin's Autobiography will be that it should be accepted as both a work of art and a work of history. That it is a work of art it will not be difficult to see. His by and large success­ful adoption of certain literary devices makes it a delightful reading rich in imagery and elegant in style. But it may not be so easy to recognize it as a work of history. Certainly it is not history as the word is commonly used. It is not a complete record of Franklin's life based on careful research and written with a critical point of view. Neither is it an accurate one. However in a sense-in an important sense-it is more complete as history than a straight narrative account would have been.

Being an account of how the author conceived himself to be in relation to the age and society he lived in, Franklin's Autobiography tells more about Franklin the observer of his own life than about, say, Franklin the printer, Franklin the diplomat or anyone aspect of his life. For Franklin whose life we read about in it is after all a dramatic character and not a true historical character. But Frank­lin the author is. Moreover he manipulates the life of his created character to serve his own purpose. And in so doing he reveals, consciously or unconsciously, his true identity. Therefore if there are found some elements of playfulness and humorousness on the part of the author of the Autobiography, we will know that this is the aspect of Franklin, the real Franklin, that has hitherto been taken little note of.