Bibliography

Benjamin Franklin. Experiments and Observations on Electricity. Translated from the English by V. A. Alekseev. Edited, with an introductory article and commentary, by B. S. Sotin. Publishing House of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, Moscow, 1956.

Benjamin Franklin’s Experiments and Observations on Electricity is an outstanding milestone in the history of physics. This book, first published in 1751 in London in English, was subsequently translated into French, German, and Italian, and in the eighteenth century alone went through five editions in England and three editions in France. It had never before been translated into Russian, although it had been studied in detail by many Russian scholars, beginning with Lomonosov and Richmann.

Thus, the very fact of the appearance of the first Russian translation of Franklin’s classic book on the 250th anniversary of the birth of its author must be warmly welcomed as a major celebration of science.

It is entirely fitting that Franklin’s book has been included in the “Classics of Science” series, founded by S. I. Vavilov and issued by the Publishing House of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.

The “Classics of Science” series, which has already issued Russian translations of many major works of world science, is an exceptional phenomenon on a world scale. Each volume in this series, as a rule, contains, together with the scientifically verified complete text of the work itself in Russian and detailed notes, an original article by a major specialist that deeply illuminates the content and scientific significance of the given work, as well as the life and creative work of its author. Thus, as a rule, every volume of the “Classics of Science” series represents a substantial contribution both to science and to the history of science.

To our deep regret, the volume of the “Classics of Science” devoted to Franklin’s Experiments and Observations is a striking exception to the above rule.

First, contrary to the special instruction signed by S. I. Vavilov himself, the translation was made not from the original of the last, fifth, edition of Experiments and Observations on Electricity, London, 1774, issued during Franklin’s lifetime, but from a reprint of that book published in 1941 in the United States by the well-known specialist on Franklin’s works, I. Bernard Cohen. The latter, it is true, carefully verified the text, but at the same time, at his own discretion, excluded from the 1774 edition everything that in fact did not relate directly to electricity. Yet the editor and commentator of the Russian edition, B. S. Sotin, did not even find it necessary to indicate in the notes what precisely Cohen had omitted from Franklin’s original.

Moreover, Cohen, as he himself writes, collated a certain part of the text with the manuscripts and corrected it according to the manuscripts. According to the above-mentioned instruction, the text of the Soviet “Classics of Science” series was necessarily to be translated not from a manuscript, but from the printed original approved by the author himself. Yet the editor and commentator of the edited edition, B. S. Sotin, did not pay attention even to this essential circumstance. One gets the impression that the editor of the Russian edition did not consider it necessary at all to go into this question, but simply followed blindly after the American editor and compiler. Moreover, to what extent this reaches—speaking in Griboedov’s words, “empty, servile, blind imitation”—can be seen at least from the following fact. In publishing Franklin’s original, I. B. Cohen did not consider it possible to translate into English the French and Latin footnotes contained in the original. It is clear that in a Russian translation of the book all foreign-language texts had to be translated into Russian without exception. But B. S. Sotin, editing the Russian translation of Franklin’s book, for the sake of empty imitation of Cohen, left the French and Latin “bald spots” in the Russian text. (Translations of these “bald spots” are given only at the end of the book.) But for the reader

it remains completely mysterious why the text of Franklin himself was sufficient to cite only in the Russian translation, while the footnotes to it, less important, had to be given both in the original and in translation.

Secondly, the editor and commentator of the Russian edition did not pay attention to an extremely important circumstance, essential for anyone who wishes to use this book as a scientific source. The point is that every researcher must know how the text of Franklin’s book changed from the 1st to the 5th edition. After all, it was the first edition, issued in 1751, that made the greatest impression on contemporaries. Then, in 1753, the “Additional Experiments and Observations” appeared in England. Subsequently Franklin altered and supplemented each new edition.

Apparently, Richmann was acquainted only with the edition of 1751, while Lomonosov read, it seems, in addition to Richmann, also the “Additional Experiments and Observations.” We know, moreover, that in 1758 in Petersburg Epinus was working on his major treatise, An Essay on the Theory of Electricity and Magnetism, for which he took precisely Franklin’s views as his basis.

For anyone, therefore, who is working on the history of our national science and who is interested in it, it is very important to know exactly how the individual editions of Franklin’s work differed.

The editor of the American edition, I. B. Cohen, supplied very valuable textual data, although he by no means exhausted this question; but the editor of the Russian edition, B. S. Sotin, attached no importance to this aspect of the matter and gave no information about it at all. In other words, the editor failed to understand that the text he was issuing, bearing the high imprint of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, ought to be a scientifically verified text.

Thirdly, it is perfectly obvious that an academic translation of a foreign classic should, as far as possible, convey accurately the meaning and features of the original. Unfortunately, this cannot be said of the translation by V. A. Alekseev. Let us cite some translation errors that we have noticed. On pp. 8 and 9 comrade Alekseev translates iron shot—“cast-iron ball” (precisely a ball!)—as “cast-iron sphere,” and marble—a “toy ball”—as “pea.”

At the end of Letter II Franklin indicates that since the ship is already sailing, he cannot give a detailed account “on American Electricity,” i.e., of American electrical science. But in the Russian translation of the text (p. 13) “American Electricity” is not only translated literally as “American electricity,” but is also printed with lowercase letters, which makes the phrase simply meaningless. Further on Franklin mentions “European papers on Electricity,” which means “European articles on electricity,” while comrade Alekseev translates it as “European books on electricity.”

The errors listed may not seem very serious; nevertheless they are inadmissible in the translation of a historical monument.

Here, too, the editor B. S. Sotin showed neither the necessary attention nor understanding.

Fourthly, instead of a profound original article on the state of the teaching on electricity at the time of the appearance of Franklin’s Experiments and Observations, on the scientific significance of his work, and on the life and activity of this outstanding scientist and political figure, the reader of the Russian edition finds a slight compilatory note by B. S. Sotin, “The Life and Scientific Activity of B. Franklin.” This little article not only contains no new materials or considerations; in its scientific value it is inferior even to those brief essays that can be found in any popular reference book. The author of this article made no use at all either of major works or of the numerous interesting articles on Franklin published over the past 50 years, especially by American researchers. Apparently the author of the article is not only not a researcher of this question, but is in general not competent in it. It is characteristic that in this article Franklin’s immediate continuators—Epinus and Cavendish—are not mentioned by a single word. Not a word is said about how this theory should be understood from the point of view of modern physics.

To sum up our discussion, we must acknowledge the book under review to be an unscrupulous production. This is especially regrettable if one takes into account that the issue of the series Classics of Science has in recent years for some reason sharply declined in quantitative terms. And yet one must not forget that this series is performing a great and important task, acquainting the Soviet intelligentsia with the classical primary sources of world science.

Ya. G. Dorfman