They never mention "the good old times." As long as he lived, Franklin looked forward.

His interest in the mechanical arts and in scientific progress seems never to have abated.

He writes in October, 1787, to a friend in France, describing his experience with lightning conductors and referring to the work of David Rittenhouse, the celebrated astronomer of Philadelphia.

On the 31st of May in the following year he is writing to the Reverend John Lathrop of Boston: "I have long been impressed with the same sentiments you so well express, of the growing felicity of mankind, from the improvement in philosophy, morals, politics, and even the conveniences of common living, and the invention of new and useful utensils and instruments; so that I have sometimes wished it had been my destiny to be born two or three centuries hence.

For invention and improvement are prolific, and beget more of their kind.