Letter to Dr. John Lining of Charleston, SC, 1755:
. . . I find a frank acknowledgment of one's ignorance is not only
the easiest way to get rid of a difficulty, but the likeliest way to
obtain information, and therefore I practice it: I think it an honest
policy. Those who affect to be thought to know every thing, and
undertake to explain every thing, often remain long ignorant of many
things that others could and would instruct them in, if they appeared
less conceited.
The treatment your friend has met with is so common, that no man who
knows what the world is, and ever has been, should expect to escape
it. There are every where a number of people, who, being totally
destitute of any inventive faculty themselves, do not readily
conceive that others may possess it: They think of inventions as of
miracles; there might be such formerly, but they are ceased. With
these, every one who offers a new invention is deemed a pretender: He
had it from some other country, or from some book: A man of their own
acquaintance; one who has no mote sense than themselves, could not
possibly, in their opinion, have been the inventor of any thing. They
are confirmed, too, in these sentiments, by the frequent instances of
pretensions to invention, which vanity is daily producing. That
vanity too, though an incitement to invention, is, at the same time,
the pest of inventors. Jealousy and Envy deny the merit of the
novelty of your invention; but Vanity, when the novelty and merit are
established, claims it for its own. The smaller your invention is,
the mote mortification you receive in having the credit of it
disputed with you by a rival, whom the jealousy and envy of others
are ready to support against you, at least so far as to make the
point doubtful. It is not in itself of importance enough for a
dispute; no one would think your proofs and reasons worth their
attention: And yet if you do not dispute the point, and demonstrate
your right, you not only lose the credit of being in that instance
ingenious, but you suffer the disgrace of not being ingenuous; not
only of being a plagiary, but of being a plagiary for trifles. Had
the invention been greater it would have disgraced you less; for men
have not so contemptible an idea of him that robs for gold on the
highway, as of him that can pick pockets for half-pence and
farthings. Thus through Envy, Jealousy, and the Vanity of competitors
for Fame, the origin of many of the most extraordinary inventions,
though produced within but a few centuries past, is involved in doubt
and uncertainty. We scarce know to whom we are indebted for the
compass, and for spectacles, nor have even paper and printing, that
record every thing else, been able to preserve with certainty the
name and reputation of their inventors. One would not therefore, of
all faculties, or qualities of the mind, wish for a friend, or a
child, that he should have that of invention. For his attempts to
benefit mankind in that way, however well imagined, if they do not
succeed, expose him, though very unjustly, to general ridicule and
contempt; and if they do succeed, to envy, robbery, and abuse.
Note. Franklin wrote this when he was doing his famous experiments
with electricity. Earlier, in 1742, he invented the Franklin stove,
which he did not patent, preferring to make it available to benefit
the public for free. Regarding invention and progress he wrote:
"Human Felicity is produc'd not so much by great Pieces of good
fortune that seldom happen, as by little Advantages that occur every Day."
