Note i-415 — INTRODUCTION (continued 2)

He read Thomas Tryon's The Way to Health, Long Life and Happiness, probably the second edition (London, 1691), a copy of which is in the W. S. Mason Collection. Tryon holds that no "greater Happiness" than Attic sobriety is "attainable upon Earth" (p. 1). Divine Temperance is the "spring head of all Virtues" (p. 33). Inward harmony "is both the Glory and the Happiness, the Joy and Solace of created Beings, the celebrated Musick of the Spheres, the Eccho of Heaven, the Business of Seraphims, and the Imployment of Eternity" (p. 500). From Xenophon he learned that "self-restraint" is "the very corner-stone of virtue." The classic core of the Memorabilia is the love of the moderate contending with the love of the incontinent. Franklin has impressed many as representing an American Socrates. Emerson was certain that Socrates "had a Franklin-like wisdom" (Centenary Ed., IV, 72). Franklin's fondness for Socratic centrality, discipline, and knowledge of self is fragmentarily shown by the aphorisms appropriated in Poor Richard. There are scores of the quality of the following: "He that lives carnally won't live eternally." "Who has deceived thee so oft as thyself?" "Caesar did not merit the triumphal car more than he that conquers himself." "If Passion drives, let Reason hold the Reins." "A man in a Passion rides a mad Horse." "There are three Things extremely hard, Steel, a Diamond and to know one's self." Consult T. H. Russell's The Sayings of Poor Richard, 1733-1758.