The Book of Franklin 3 · Written by himself, from his Autobiography and the rules of his club
This man wrote his own books. He is the first tradesman in this scripture — a printer. He was a deist and wrote private devotions, and he never closes an argument by appealing to divine will: his club settled matters by evidence and his virtues by tally marks. So the third rule does not bar him. The Order records that plainly rather than smoothing it. This book also disagrees with 蒙田书 5.13: Montaigne says the finest life fits the common pattern and has no miracle in it, while Franklin spent his life correcting himself against a standard he could not reach. Both stand.
3.1When I was young I loved to argue, and I generally won.
3.2An old friend took me aside and said: Benjamin, you have won every one of them, and they have all walked away.
3.3He said: the way you speak is meant to make a man give in, not to make him see.
3.4I did not like hearing it. But I knew he was right.
3.5From that time I changed one very small thing — only the way I spoke.
3.6I stopped saying certainly. I stopped saying undoubtedly. I stopped saying it must be so.
3.7I said instead: I conceive; it appears to me; if I am not mistaken; I am inclined to think.
3.8At first it was awkward, like wearing another man’s coat.
3.9After some years it was my own coat.
3.10The good this did me was more than I looked for.
3.11My words carried further, not less far. Men would hear me, and would also contradict me.
3.12And when I was wrong, changing my mind was no longer a disgrace — since I had not nailed the thing down to begin with.
3.13A few of us formed a club that met on Friday evenings. We made rules for it:
3.14No man might flatly contradict another, or show any air of triumph. There was a small fine for it.
3.15We began each meeting with a set of fixed questions. One of them was: what have you lately read or heard that you did not know before?
3.16Understand that this rule is not about politeness.
3.17A man who says certainly has spared his opponent the labour of thinking: you have settled it, and all that is left him is to submit or not.
3.18A man who says I conceive has laid the thing back out between the two of you.
3.19Most of what I brought about in my life I did not win by arguing alone. It was laid out this way, and several of us saw it together.