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 liness, tranquillity, chastity, and humility—the last added on the advice of a Quaker. He wrought upon the structure with the method of a monk and he recorded his progress with the regularity of a book-keeper. The presiding spirit in the edifice, which made it something more than a private oratory, was a rational and active benevolence towards his fellow mortals in every quarter of the earth. The wide-reaching friendliness in Franklin may be distinguished in two ways from the roseate humanitarian enthusiasm of the Savoyard Vicar. It was not begotten by a theory of "natural goodness" nor fostered by millennial expectations but was born of sober experience with the utility of good will in establishing satisfactory and fruitful relations among men. It found expression not in rhetorical periods but in numberless practical means and measures for ameliorating the human lot. By no mystical intuition but by the common light of reason the "prudential philosopher" discovered and acted upon the truth, that the greatest happiness that can come to a man in this world is to devote the full strength of body and mind to the service of his fellow men. Judged either by his principles or by his performance, Franklin's moral breadth and moral elevation have been absurdly underestimated.

It is perhaps in the field of politics that Franklin exhibits the most marked development of his power and his vision. A realistic inductive thinker, well versed in the rudiments of his subject long before