Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-fwgfc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-13T19:23:35.863Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Influence of Benjamin Franklin in the River Plate Area Before 1810

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Guillermo Furlong
Guillermo Furlong*
Affiliation:
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

During the course of the eighteenth century two savants of Anglo-Saxon parentage reached something close to renown in the River Plate area, which then comprised what is actually Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia, and Uruguay. These men were Isaac Newton and Benjamin Franklin.

The British mathematician and philosopher was held in high esteem between the years 1730 and 1780. His popularity was due, in part at least, to the Jesuit professor of mathematics in Córdoba, who had formerly been Newton’s favorite student: the physician Thomas Falkner.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 12 , Issue 3 , January 1956 , pp. 259 - 263
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1956

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Termeyer, Ramón, Opuscoli scientifici d’entomologia (Milan, 1807), IV, 235 Google Scholar, tells us that his great friend Falkner was the “prediletto discepolo del gran Newton.” Cf. Furlong, Guillermo, Tomás Falkner, su personalidad y su obra (Buenos Aires, 1926) p. 16.Google Scholar

2 The Principia mathematica philosophiae naturalis were published by Newton in 1678 and nevertheless they were practically unknown in France in 1745. So states Voltaire in the dedication (to Madame de Chatelet) of his Eléments de Philosophie de Newton (Paris, 1738)Google Scholar.

3 For more information on these and other professors of philosophy see our volume on Nacimiento y desarrollo de la Filosofía en el Río de la Plata, 1536–1810 (Buenos Aires, 1952), pp. 487–522.Google Scholar

4 Theses ex universa philosophia. In civitate bonaerensi. MDCCXCII, p. 29.Google Scholar

5 Universae Physices Theses. In civitate de Buenos Aires. 1784, p. 10.Google Scholar

6 Conclusiones ex universa philosophia. Buenos Aires, 1802. We have been able to use the only extant copy in the private library of Mr. Santamarina, Antonio, Buenos Aires Google Scholar.

7 Filosofía Universitaria Venezolana, 1788–1821 (Caracas, 1934), pp. 140–143.Google Scholar

8 In the Archives of the University of Caracas: “Grados en Artes, Expediente de José Timoteo Llamozas.”

9 Instituto de Estudios Americanistas, Córdoba: Apuntes de Física pertenecientes a don Ambrosio Funes. Caracciolo Parra writes: “Testigo de la admiración que se tuvo entonces a Franklyn es un ejemplar, todavía existente en Caracas, de los Works of the late Doctor Benjamin Franklin consisting of his life written by himself together with essays, humorous, moral and literary, chiefly in the manner of the Spectator (London, 1793)Google Scholar.” This admiration existed as well in Argentina. Not long ago a friend presented me with a copy of this same book, but of the Charlestown, 1798 edition. The ex-libris guarantees the fact that it had belonged to Argentineans at the beginning of the nineteenth century.

10 Artesanos argentinos durante la dominación hispánica (Buenos Aires, 1946), pp. 423–424.Google Scholar

11 Archivo General de la Nación, Buenos Aires. Original text in Artesanos argentinos, p. 423.Google Scholar

12 Archivo General de la Nación, Buenos Aires. Original text given in ibid., p. 424.

13 Semanario de Agricultura, Industria y Comercio, Number 90.

14 Ibid., Number 116.

15 Ibid., Number 125.

16 Ibid., Number 179.

17 Carta de Fray Vicente Miró a Fray Cipriano Negrete. Archivo del Convento de Córdoba.