Benjamin Franklin
The following passage is adapted from an article that originally appeared in American History magazine (© 2009 by Steven Johnson).
- This is a story that begins—like
- so many tales of innovation
- and controversy in 18th-
- century culture—with a
- coffeehouse. The
- Enlightenment-era coffeehouse
- was the Internet of its day: a
- hub of conversation, news,
- shoptalk and public debate.
- Whole industries were
- invented in these new social
- environments, fueled by the
- buzz of caffeine and the
- intellectual energy of
- different professions
- gathering together to share
- ideas. Lloyd’s of London, the
- first insurance business, was
- created in Lloyd’s
- Coffeehouse. And while
- merchants and ship owners
- made insurance deals at
- Lloyd’s on Lombard Street,
- profound ideas about science,
- faith and politics took flight
- among the gentlemen who
- frequented a busy
- establishment just north of
- St. Paul’s Cathedral: the
- London Coffeehouse.
- The most famous denizen of
- the London Coffeehouse
- was, ironically, an American:
- Benjamin Franklin. Franklin
- had a regular clan in the
- coffeehouse, a band of fellow
- iconoclasts that he would
- later dub “The Club Of
- Honest Whigs.” The club
- “consists of clergymen,
- physicians and some other
- professions,” wrote
- biographer James Boswell.
- “Conversation goes on pretty
- formally, sometimes sensibly
- and sometimes furiously.”
- Franklin relished his time
- with the Honest Whigs. He
- would write mournful letters
- from America in the last
- years of his life, reminiscing
- about the many days and
- nights he spent with the
- “honest souls” at the London
- Coffeehouse. But of all those
- over-caffeinated sessions in
- the shadow of St. Paul’s, one
- stands out as particularly
- significant. In late December
- 1765, he met a young
- minister and author named
- Joseph Priestley. It was the
- beginning of a friendship
- between intellectual soul
- mates who would
- revolutionize our
- understanding of the natural
- world. Franklin was already
- recognized as one of the
- great scientists of the
- century. At thirty-two,
- Priestley was at the
- beginning of his career, but
- he was soon to embark on a
- series of experiments that
- would ultimately give him
- claim to the title of the man
- who “discovered oxygen.”
- While Franklin is renowned
- for advancing mankind’s
- knowledge of the basic laws
- of electricity, his role in
- encouraging Priestley’s
- experiments and in helping
- make sense of what he
- discovered has been almost
- entirely ignored by both
- scientists and historians.
- Priestley initially set out to
- answer a chemistry question:
- What is air? But it was
- Franklin who helped
- Priestley understand that he
- was grappling with an even
- more profound mystery:
- why we have air to breathe
- in the first place.
- Priestley’s experiments
- revealed that the air we
- breathe is not some
- unalienable physical
- phenomenon, like gravity
- or magnetism, but is rather
- something that has been
- specifically manufactured
- by plants. In turn, Franklin
- recognized that the
- manufacture of breathable
- air is itself part of a vast,
- interconnected system that
- links animals, plants and
- invisible gases. And the
- choices we make as humans
- can have a dangerous impact
- on that flow, if the core
- participants in the system
- aren’t properly appreciated
- and protected.
- In discovering how Mother
- Nature had invented our
- atmosphere, Franklin and
- Priestley were inventing
- something just as profound:
- the ecosystems view of the
- world. Priestley engineered an
- audience with Franklin and
- his fellow Honest Whigs
- because he had concocted
- an idea for a book on the
- history of electricity. As a
- small-town minister and
- teacher with a hobbyist’s
- passion for the new discoveries
- of “natural philosophy,”
- Priestley knew that no other
- field had generated so much
- innovation in such a short
- amount of time. But no one
- had written a popular account
- of these world-changing
- discoveries. So he set off to
- London, hoping to meet the
- “electricians” and to persuade
- them to let him tell the story
- of their genius.
- Franklin, naturally, was
- immediately supportive of the
- idea, and promised the young
- Priestley open access to his
- library. But he and his friends
- took one additional step that
- proved crucial: They
- encouraged Priestley to
- conduct his own experiments
- while writing his history.
- Hearing his idols urging him
- to write about his own
- investigations opened up a
- whole new field of possibility
- for the young man. Priestley
- had arrived in London as a
- dabbler in natural
- philosophy, tinkering in the
- provinces with his electrical
- machine and his air pump.
- By the time he left, he was
- a scientist.