Benjamin Franklin's Bagatelle on Farting

I’ve been on a Ben Franklin jag these past several weeks. Why? Because, unlike just about any American who ever lived (save, perhaps Thomas Jefferson) he was the quintessential American; sui generis to the max. Unlike Jefferson, who was born into both wealth and family position, Franklin was a totally self-made man. Like Jefferson, Franklin’s list of accomplishments is both broadly breathtaking and totally inspired. For in addition to being one of this country’s most famous and beloved Founders, he was his era’s best-known scientist, the founder of America’s first lending library, the American Philosophical Society and the University of Pennsylvania. Like Jefferson, his writings comprise dozens upon dozens of books, the most famous of which, the multi-volumed Poor Richard’s Almanac and The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin are both still in print. Unlike the relatively somber Jefferson, Franklin was a first-class satirist who wrote his bagatelles under such pen names as Silence Dogood, Harry Meanwell, Alice Addertongue, (“Poor Richard”) Saunders, and Timothy Turnstone.

Jefferson was a thoroughgoing aristocrat; Franklin a wonderfully talented every man from next door.  Both  Franklin and Jefferson enjoyed a good meal accompanied by a vintage bottle of Madeira.  Both maintained close friendships with younger women and corresponded with hundreds of accomplished people; of the two, Franklin was a far better chess player and Jefferson the far more talented musician.  Both were genius-level diplomats, although Jefferson was easily the greater  linguist (and speller) of the two. Perhaps the one thing that has always made Franklin so compelling - at least for me - was his fabulous sense of humor - something Jefferson never truly possessed.

In our present era when seriousness and self-aggrandizement are endemic in political and public life, Franklin’s easy modesty and - at times - silly satiric pose, is welcome tonic, to say the least.  Keeping this in mind, I am delighted to present  one of the strangest, least-known and self-abasing satires in the Franklin literary corpus.  This one, a brief bagatelle (a literary trifle) written in c. 1781 when Franklin was living abroad serving as American Ambassador to France, is variously titled "Fart Proudly," "A Letter to a Royal Academy about farting,” and "To the Royal Academy of Farting." (The word fart, by the way likely comes from the olde English feortan which means “to break wind.” Franklin likely first came across the term while reading The Milleres Tale, the third of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales [c.1390] where he would have found But sooth to seyn, he was somdel squaymous Of farting, and of speche daungerous. meaning, “But it is true to say that he was rather squeamish about farting and fastidious in his speech.”)

For the first decade of its existence, The Académie impériale et royale des Sciences et Belles-Lettres de Bruxelles had yet, according to its own historians, to produce a body of work of enduring value. They then decided to get serious, and so invited various writers to send in essays in order to raise themselves from a “level of frivolity.” One of the science writers they approached was Franklin, who found their proposal - in the area of mathematics - to be both silly and ridiculous. (Never mind that mathematics was the one subject he had never been very good at.) And so, he decided to respond with a satiric piece . . . which we represent here for your enjoyment and laughs during a time of few laughs and much emotional friction. (n.b. What follows is sic, meaning that all spellings are as they appeared in the original.  Remember: Franklin’s orthography was quite a bit different than ours today.)

Enjoy!

GENTLEMEN:

I have perused your late mathematical Prize Question, proposed in lieu of one in Natural Philosophy, for the ensuing year, viz. “Une figure quelconque donnee, on demande d’y inscrire le plus grand nombre de fois possible une autre figure plus-petite quelconque, qui est aussi donnee”.  (translated as “Any given figure, we ask to inscribe as many times as possible another smaller figure, which is also given") I was glad to find by these following Words, “l’Acadeemie a jugee que cette deecouverte, en eetendant les bornes de nos connoissances, ne seroit pas sans UTILITE” ) which we shall translate as: “The Academy has judged that this discovery by extending the limits of our knowledge, would not be without UTILITY,” that you esteem Utility an essential Point in your Enquiries, which has not always been the case with all Academies; and I conclude therefore that you have given this Question instead of a philosophical, or as the Learned express it, a physical one, because you could not at the time think of a physical one that promis’d greater Utility.

Permit me then humbly to propose one of that sort for your consideration, and through you, if you approve it, for the serious Enquiry of learned Physicians, Chemists, &c. of this enlightened Age.

It is universally well known, That in digesting our common Food, there is created or produced in the Bowels of human Creatures, a great Quantity of Wind.

That the permitting this Air to escape and mix with the Atmosphere, is usually offensive to the Company, from the fetid Smell that accompanies it.

That all well-bred People therefore, to avoid giving such Offence, forcibly restrain the Efforts of Nature to discharge that Wind.

That so retain’d contrary to Nature, it not only gives frequently great present Pain, but occasions future Diseases, such as habitual Cholics, Ruptures, Tympanies, &c. often destructive of  the Constitution, & sometimes of Life itself.

Were it not for the odiously offensive Smell accompanying such Escapes, polite People would probably be under no more Restraint in discharging such Wind in Company, than they are in spitting, or in blowing their Noses.

My Prize Question therefore should be, To discover some Drug wholesome & not disagreable, to be mix’d with our common Food, or Sauces, that shall render the natural Discharges of Wind from our Bodies, not only inoffensive, but agreable as Perfumes.

That this is not a chimerical Project, and altogether impossible, may appear from these Considerations. That we already have some Knowledge of Means capable of Varying that Smell. He that dines on stale Flesh, especially with much Addition of Onions, shall be able to afford a Stink that no Company can tolerate; while he that has lived for some Time on Vegetables only, shall have that Breath so pure as to be insensible to the most delicate Noses; and if he can manage so as to avoid the Report, he may any where give Vent to his Griefs, unnoticed. But as there are many to whom an entire Vegetable Diet would be inconvenient, and as a little Quick-Lime thrown into a Jakes will correct the amazing Quantity of fetid Air arising from the vast Mass of putrid Matter contain’d in such Places, and render it rather pleasing to the Smell, who knows but that a little Powder of Lime (or some other thing equivalent) taken in our Food, or perhaps a Glass of Limewater drank at Dinner, may have the same Effect on the Air produc’d in and issuing from our Bowels? This is worth the Experiment. Certain it is also that we have the Power of changing by slight Means the Smell of another Discharge, that of our Water. A few Stems of Asparagus eaten, shall give our Urine a disagreable Odour; and a Pill of Turpentine no bigger than a Pea, shall bestow on it the pleasing Smell of Violets. And why should it be thought more impossible in Nature, to find Means of making a Perfume of our Wind than of our Water?

For the Encouragement of this Enquiry, (from the immortal Honour to be reasonably expected by the Inventor) let it be considered of how small Importance to Mankind, or to how small a Part of Mankind have been useful those Discoveries in Science that have heretofore made Philosophers famous. Are there twenty Men in Europe at this Day, the happier, or even the easier, for any Knowledge they have pick’d out of Aristotle? What Comfort can the Vortices of Descartes give to a Man who has Whirlwinds in his Bowels! The Knowledge of Newton’s mutual Attraction of the Particles of Matter, can it afford Ease to him who is rack’d by their mutual Repulsion, and the cruel Distensions it occasions? The Pleasure arising to a few Philosophers, from seeing, a few Times in their Life, the Threads of Light untwisted, and separated by the Newtonian Prism into seven Colours, can it be compared with the Ease and Comfort every Man living might feel seven times a Day, by discharging freely the Wind from his Bowels? Especially if it be converted into a Perfume: For the Pleasures of one Sense being little inferior to those of another, instead of pleasing the Sight he might delight the Smell of those about him, & make Numbers happy, which to a benevolent Mind must afford infinite Satisfaction. The generous Soul, who now endeavours to find out whether the Friends he entertains like best Claret or Burgundy, Champagne or Madeira, would then enquire also whether they chose Musk or Lilly, Rose or Bergamot, and provide accordingly. And surely such a Liberty of Expressing one’s Scent-iments, and pleasing one another, is of infinitely more Importance to human Happiness than that Liberty of the Press, or of abusing one another, which the English are so ready to fight & die for. — In short, this Invention, if compleated, would be, as Bacon expresses it, bringing Philosophy home to Mens Business and Bosoms. And I cannot but conclude, that in Comparison therewith, for universal and continual UTILITY, the Science of the Philosophers above-mentioned, even with the Addition, Gentlemen, of your “Figure quelconque” and the Figures inscrib’d in it, are, all together, scarcely worth a

FART-HING.

So there you have it.  Imagine any contemporary politician/diplomat/office holder writing a tongue-in-cheek essay on the passing of gas!  It would be a career-ender.  Franklin, like Jefferson, Madison, Monroe and the rest of the founders (with the possible exception of that Harvard-educated prig John Adams) were Renaissance men who despite being capable of reading Greek and Latin, could easily quote the Bible and actually interpret it even if they weren’t terribly religious (most were Deists), and fully understood that “the best way to serve G-d is to be good to man,” were far from perfect. And yet, the contributions they made to creating this nation were incalculable. For the most part, they could laugh at themselves, treat one another with honesty and hold their egos in check.

And oh yes, they all passed a fair amount of wind . . . without being so terribly full of it as to be front-line enemies of a democratic state.

136 days until November 3, 2020. 

Copyright©2020 Kurt F. Stone