@Benjamin Franklin was not only one of the Founding Fathers of Colonial @America, but he was one of the premier thinkers and statesmen of that time. It is interesting, therefore, to take a look at some of his thoughts and opinions -- in his own words:
GOOD WORKS AND THEIR REWARD. For my own part, when I am employed in serving others, I do not look upon myself as conferring favors, but as paying debts. In my travels, and since my settlement, I have received much kindness from men, to whom I shall never have any opportunity of making the least direct return. And numberless mercies from @God, who is infinitely above being benefitted by our services. Those kindnesses from men, I can therefore only return on their fellow men; and I can only show my gratitude for these mercies from God, by a readiness to help his other children and my brethren. For I do not think that thanks and compliments, though repeated weekly, can discharge our real obligations to each other, and much less those to our Creator.
You will see in this my notion of good works, that I am far from expecting (as you suppose) that I shall ever merit @Heaven by them. By Heaven we understand a state of happiness, infinite in degree, and eternal in duration: I can do nothing to deserve such rewards: He that for giving a draught of water to a thirsty person, should expect to be paid with a good plantation, would be modest in his demands, compared with those who think they deserve Heaven for the little good they do on @Earth. Even the mixed imperfect pleasures we enjoy in this world are rather from God's goodness than our merit; how much more such happiness of Heaven. For my own part I have not the vanity to think I deserve it, the folly to expect it, nor the ambition to desire it. (To @Joseph @Huey, June 6, 1753)
INVENTORS AND INVENTIONS. There are everywhere a number of people, who, being totally destitute of any inventive faculty themselves, do not readily conceive that others may possess it; they think of inventions as of miracles; there might be such formerly, but they are ceased. With these, every one who offers a new invention is deemed a pretender; he had it from some other country, or from some book; a man of their own acquaintance, one who has no more sense than themselves, could not possibly, in their opinion, have been the inventor of any thing. They are confirmed, too, in these sentiments, by frequent instances of pretensions to intervention, which vanity is daily producing. That vanity, too, though an incitement to invention, is, at the same time, the pest of inventors.
Jealousy and envy deny the merit or the novelty of your invention; but vanity, when the novelty and merit are established, claims it for its own. The smaller your invention is, the more mortification you receive in having the credit of it disputed with you by a rival, whom the jealousy and envy of others are ready to support against you, at least so far as to make the point doubtful. It is not in itself of importance enough for a dispute; no one would think your proofs and reasons worth their attention; and yet, if you do not dispute the point, and demonstrate your right, you not only lose the credit of being in that instance ingenious, but you suffer the disgrace of not being ingenuous; not only of being a plagiary, but of being plagiary for trifles.
Had the invention been greater, it would have disgraced you less; for men have not so contemptible an idea of him that robs for gold on the highway, as of him that can pick pockets for half-pence and farthings. Thus, through envy, jealousy, and the vanity of competitors for fame, the origin of many of the most extraordinary inventions, though produced within but a few centuries past, is involved in doubt and uncertainty.
