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An InclinationJoined with an Ability to Serve MICHAEL ZUCKER~IAN T h e myths have always threatened to s ~ ~ - a l l o ~ ~ the man. T h e legends have always hid to absorb the life.But the myths have always been a hit ambiguol ~s, and the legends a little elusive. In the conventional understanding, Franklin personified the opportunity ,knei-ica afforded people who were not ~vell-born to seek their own aggrandizement. He was the poor boy who made good. And in doing so he embodied the best aspects o f America: the chance that the count17 offered all to get ahead, the individualism at the core o f the culture. There is much to be said for this conventional view. Franklin did take for granted the salience o f self-interest ainong men's and ~voinen's motives. He did expect people to act o n calculations o f prirate adrantage . He did move in milieus o f deceit and disappointment, and he did become a connoisseur o f conniving. In his memoirs, he presented his youth and young illanhood as an insistent saga o f sharp practice and chicaner!-, ~vhere wary attentiveness to one's own ends lvas a necessity. But there are difficultieswith this view. Even as Franklin came to a keen appreciation o f American egoisin and articulated the logic o f its eventual ascendancy, he remained convinced that " m e n are naturally henevolent as well as selfish." His Autobio~~c~phj is in many ~va!-s an account o f the rneans by ~vhich he cultivated his own benevolence, ~veaning hiinself from the gratifications o f aggression and the delights o f defeating others . As a bo!-in Boston, he proceeded b!- "abrupt contradiction and positive argumentation." In his maturity in Philadelphia, he saw that "the chief ends o f conversation" were information,pleasure, and persuasion, not the temporal? titillation o f triumph. He developed a "modest diffidence " that served hiin better than contentiousness ever had when he "had occasion to inculcate [his]opinions" and proinote "rneasures." Despite his sporadic assertions o f the centrality o f selfishness, Franklin hardly ever pursued ~~nallo!-ed self-interest. Long before Tocqueville set forth the principle o f "self-interest rightly understood," Franklin perfected its practice. In all he did, he so11ght~ ~ s e f i ~ l n e s s , and he ahca!-sheld "that nothing was u s e f ~ ~ l TI-hich was not honest." An Inclination Joined ~1-it11 an Ability to Sene 15.3 He measured honesty and utility alike b ! - authentic cornmunit!- service , not b ! - self-serving. His profo~~ndest ethical discovery was of the close connection between virtue and happiness. He hiillself averred the "doctrine" that it was "evei-yone's interest to be virtuous who wished to be happy," in this TI-orld as in the next. He had Poor Richard put it even Inore pithily "Tll'hen you're good to others, !-ou are best to !-ourself." Tho11ghFranklin solnetirnes conceived self-seeking and his public projects as inseparable, he more often set benevolence before interest and social service before self-adrancement. In his daily schedule, he began each day by asking, "Mllat good shall I do this day?" and ended each evening by inquiring, "What good have I done today?" In the creed that he composed, he maintained that "the rnost acceptable service of God is doing good to man." And in a more acerbic version of the same sentiment , he had Poor Richard observe that "serving God is doing good to man, but praying is thought an easier service,and therefore illore generally chosen." Benevolence was the divine thing, even if the illore difficult. Franklin was enough a realist to accept indulgently the ~va!-sof ordinary rnen and women. He was enough a humanitarian to hold himself and his friends to a more strenuous standard. From his first civic endeavors to his final contributions to the national cause, he sought a virtuous f~~sion of public and private interests and, when the two could not be joined, presurned the priority of the claims of public life. Earl!- in his political career, ~vhen he floated his Proposnls Relating to t h ~ Eduration of Youth i72 ~e7217.~jl~(172i0, he treated "t?-~ie me?-it" as "the great aim and end of all Learning," and he defined such merit as "an inclination join'd with an abilitj to serve mankind, one's countif., friends and family." He...

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