Econlib

The Library

Other Sites

 Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow CXXXVII: TO MISS E. HUBBARD 2 - The Works of Benjamin Franklin, Vol. III Letters and Misc. Writings 1753-1763

Return to Title Page for The Works of Benjamin Franklin, Vol. III Letters and Misc. Writings 1753-1763

Search this Title:

Also in the Library:

Subject Area: Political Theory

CXXXVII: TO MISS E. HUBBARD 2 - Benjamin Franklin, The Works of Benjamin Franklin, Vol. III Letters and Misc. Writings 1753-1763 [1904]

Edition used:

The Works of Benjamin Franklin, including the Private as well as the Official and Scientific Correspondence, together with the Unmutilated and Correct Version of the Autobiography, compiled and edited by John Bigelow (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1904). The Federal Edition in 12 volumes. Vol. III (Letters and Misc. Writings 1753-1763).

About Liberty Fund:

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


CXXXVII

TO MISS E. HUBBARD2

Philadelphia, 23 February, 1756.

— I condole with you. We have lost a most dear and valuable relation. But it is the will of God and nature that these mortal bodies be laid aside when the soul is to enter into real life. This is rather an embryo state, a preparation for living. A man is not completely born until he be dead. Why then should we grieve that a new child is born among the immortals, a new member added to their happy society?

We are spirits. That bodies should be lent us, while they can afford us pleasure, assist us in acquiring knowledge, or in doing good to our fellow creatures, is a kind and benevolent act of God. When they become unfit for these purposes, and afford us pain instead of pleasure, instead of an aid become an incumbrance, and answer none of the intentions for which they were given, it is equally kind and benevolent that a way is provided by which we may get rid of them. Death is that way. We ourselves, in some cases, prudently choose a partial death. A mangled painful limb which cannot be restored we willingly cut off. He who plucks out a tooth parts with it freely, since the pain goes with it; and he who quits the whole body, parts at once with all pains and possibilities of pains and diseases which it was liable to or capable of making him suffer.

Our friend and we were invited abroad on a party of pleasure, which is to last for ever. His chair was ready first, and he is gone before us. We could not all conveniently start together; and why should you and I be grieved at this, since we are soon to follow, and know where to find him? Adieu.

B. Franklin.1

[2 ]John Franklin married a second wife, by the name of Hubbard, a widow. Miss E. Hubbard, to whom this letter was addressed, was her daughter by a former marriage.

[1 ]On a similar occasion he wrote to his sister, a few days afterwards, as follows: “It is remarkable that so many breaches by death should be made in our family in so short a space. Out of seventeen children that our father had, thirteen lived to grow up and settle in the world. I remember these thirteen (some of us then very young) all at one table, when an entertainment was made at our house, on occasion of the return of our brother Josiah, who had been absent in the East Indies, and unheard of for nine years. Of these thirteen, there now remain but three. As our number diminishes, let our affection to each other rather increase; for, besides its being our duty, it is our interest, since the more affectionate relations are to each other, the more they are respected by the rest of the world.”

Again, speaking of the death of an acquaintance, he write: “Your neighbour must have been pretty well advanced in years when he died. I remember him a young man when I was a very young boy. In looking back, how short the time seems! I suppose that all the passages of our lives that we have forgotten, being so many links taken out of the chain, give the more distant parts leave, as it were, to come apparently nearer together.”