For our author assumed not only that man is perfectible but also that the perfecting can be completed fairly quickly.

He felt, in fact, that all his past blessings of health, prosperity, reputation and popularity were due to these efforts.įranklin's plan to attain perfection astonishes the modern reader for many reasons, among them the assumptions on which such a plan was based. And though he never attained perfection, he still felt better and happier from having attempted it. But he carefully simulated the appearance of humility, if not the reality of it. He later learned that 'there is, perhaps, no one of our natural passions so hard to subdue' as pride he even wondered, had he conquered pride, whether he wouldn't have been proud of his humility.

Though he found that he was 'fuller of Faults than had imagined,' Franklin also found that he 'had the Satisfaction of seeing them diminish.' He was never good at order or humility the latter, in fact, had been added somewhat later than the others because a friend convinced him that he was justly suspected of being proud. He also made a schedule for his day, allotting seven hours for sleep, eight for work, and nine for planning, reviewing, reflecting, eating, relaxing, and reading. And in order to see his progress, he made a record book and gave himself a black mark each time he failed to exhibit a virtue on which he was working. HUMILITY: Imitate Jesus and Socrates.įranklin allotted himself one week to acquire each new virtue. CHASTITY: Rarely use Venery but for Health or Offspring Never to Dulness, Weakness, or the Injury of your own or another's Peace or Reputation.ġ3. TRANQUILITY: Be not disturbed at Trifles, or at Accidents common or unavoidable.ġ2. CLEANLINESS: Tolerate no Uncleanliness in Body, Clothes, or Habitation.ġ1. Forbear resenting Injuries so much as you think they deserve.ġ0. JUSTICE: Wrong none, by doing Injuries or omitting the Benefits that are your Duty.ĩ. Think innocently and justly and, if you speak, speak accordingly.Ĩ. FRUGALITY: Make no Expense but to do good to others or yourself: i.e. RESOLUTION: Resolve to perform what you ought. Let each Part of your Business have its Time.Ĥ. ORDER: Let all your Things have their Places. SILENCE: Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself. He decided that 13 virtues were either necessary or desirable, arranged them so that the first acquired could help in assimilating the second, and so on:ġ.

'As I knew, or thought I knew, what was right and wrong, I did not see why I might not always do the one and avoid the other.' He soon found the task 'of more Difficulty than I had imagined,' but decided that one's bad deeds resulted from bad habits, and that with concentration one could substitute good habits for the bad ones. 'It was about this time I conceiv'd the bold and arduous Project of arriving at moral Perfection,' Franklin writes.

The autobiography of benjamin franklin