Michael Faraday
by J. H. Gladstone · English · Gutenberg #47396 · 403,943 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Michael Faraday
Author: J. H. Gladstone
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MICHAEL FARADAY ***
Transcriber's Notes:
Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_), and text
enclosed by equal signs is in bold (=bold=).
This book contains Macmillan & Co.'s September 1874 book
catalogue, which follows the index for the main book.
Additional Transcriber's Notes are at the end.
MICHAEL FARADAY.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: _Michael Faraday_
_From a Photograph by John Watkins. 34 Parliament Street._]
MICHAEL FARADAY.
BY
J. H. GLADSTONE, PH.D., F.R.S.
_THIRD EDITION, WITH PORTRAIT._
London:
MACMILLAN AND CO.
1874.
[_The Right of Translation and Reproduction is reserved._]
LONDON:
R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS,
BREAD STREET HILL.
PREFACE.
Shortly after the death of Michael Faraday, Professor Auguste de la
Rive, and others of his friends, gave to the world their impressions
of his life, his character, and his work; Professor Tyndall drew
his portrait as a man of science; and after a while Dr. Bence Jones
published his biography in two octavo volumes, with copious extracts
from his journals and correspondence. In a review of this "Life and
Letters" I happened to mention my thought of giving to the public
some day my own reminiscences of the great philosopher; several
friends urged me to do so, not in the pages of a magazine, but in the
form of a little book designed for those of his fellow-countrymen
who venerate his noble character without being able to follow his
scientific researches. I accepted the task. Professor Tyndall and Dr.
Bence Jones, with Messrs. Longman, the publishers, kindly permitted
me to make free use of their materials; but I am indebted to the
Corporation of the Trinity House, and to many friends, for a good deal
of additional information; and in compiling my book I have preferred,
where practicable, to illustrate the character of Faraday by documents
or incidents hitherto unpublished, or contained in those sketches of
the philosopher which are less generally known.
It is due to myself to say that I had pretty well sketched out the
second part of this book before I read M. Dumas' "Eloge Historique."
The close similarity of my analysis of Professor Faraday's character
with that of the illustrious French chemist may perhaps be accepted as
an additional warrant for the correctness of our independent estimates.
PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION.
The very favourable reception which my book has met with, both from the
press and the public, seems to call for my grateful acknowledgment on
the issue of a second edition.
In revising the former, I have added some further particulars about
Faraday, especially in regard to "his method of working;" and an
engraving from a photograph by Watkins, which best recalls to my
recollection the features and the usual expression of the genial
philosopher.
CONTENTS.
SECT. PAGE
I.--THE STORY OF HIS LIFE 1
II.--STUDY OF HIS CHARACTER 60
III.--FRUITS OF HIS EXPERIENCE 94
IV.--HIS METHOD OF WORKING 123
V.--THE VALUE OF HIS DISCOVERIES 146
SUPPLEMENTARY PORTRAITS 167
APPENDIX:--LIST OF HONORARY FELLOWSHIPS, ETC. 173
INDEX 176
MICHAEL FARADAY.
SECTION I.
THE STORY OF HIS LIFE.
At the beginning of this century, in the neighbourhood of Manchester
Square, London, there was an inquisitive boy running about, playing
at marbles, and minding his baby-sister. He lived in Jacob's Well
Mews, close by, and was learning the three R's at a common day-school.
Few passers-by would have noticed him, and none certainly would have
imagined that this boy, as he grew up, was to achieve the truest
success in life, and to die honoured by the great, the wise, and the
good. Yet so it was; and to tell the story of his life, to trace the
sources of this success, and to depict some of the noble results of his
work, are the objects of this biographical sketch.
It was not at Jacob's Well Mews, but in Newington Butts, that the
boy had been born, on September 22, 1791, and his parents, James and
Margaret Faraday, had given this, their third child, the unusual name
of Michael. The father was a journeyman blacksmith, a skilful workman
who, in spite of poverty and feeble health, strove to bring up his
children in habits of industry and the love of God.
Of course young Michael must soon do something for his living. There
happened to be a bookseller's shop in Blandford Street, a few doors
from the entrance to the Mews, kept by a Mr. Riebau, an intelligent
man, who is said to have had a leaning to astrology; and there he
went as errand boy when thirteen years old. Many a weary walk he
had, carrying round newspapers to his master's customers; but he did
his work faithfully; and so, after a twelvemonth, the bookseller was
willing to take him as an apprentice, and that without a premium.
Now, a boy in a bookseller's shop can look at the inside as well as the
outside of the books he handles, and young Faraday took advantage of
his position, and fed on such intellectual food as Watts's "Improvement
of the Mind," Mrs. Marcet's "Conversations on Chemistry," and the
article on "Electricity" in the _Encyclopædia Britannica_, besides such
lighter dishes as Miss Burney's "Evelina;" nor can we doubt that when
he was binding Lyons' "Experiments on Electricity," and Boyle's "Notes
about the Producibleness of Chymicall Principles," he looked beyond the
covers.[1] And his thirst for knowledge did not stop with reading:
he must see whether Mrs. Marcet's statements were correct, and so,
to quote his own words, "I made such simple experiments in chemistry
as could be defrayed in their expense by a few pence per week, and
also constructed an electrical machine, first with a glass phial, and
afterwards with a real cylinder, as well as other electrical apparatus
of a corresponding kind."
He kept too a note-book called "The Philosophical Miscellany,"
intended, he tells us, "to promote both amusement and instruction, and
also to corroborate or invalidate those theories which are continually
starting into the world of science;" and miscellaneous indeed were the
scraps he gathered from the magazines of the time.
One day, early in 1810, walking somewhere in the neighbourhood of Fleet
Street, he saw in a shop-window a bill announcing that lectures on
natural philosophy were delivered by Mr. Tatum, at 53, Dorset Street,
at eight in the evening, price of admission one shilling. He wanted to
hear these lectures. His master's permission was obtained, but where
was the money to come from? The needful shillings were given him by his
elder brother, Robert, who earned them as a blacksmith; and so Michael
Faraday made his first acquaintance with scientific lectures. And not
with lectures only, for Tatum's house was frequented by other earnest
students, and lifelong friendships were formed. Among these students
was Benjamin Abbott, a young Quaker, who had received a good education,
and had then a situation in a City house as confidential clerk. With
him Faraday chatted on philosophy or anything else, and happily for us
he chatted on paper, in letters of that fulness and length which the
penny post and the telegraph have well-nigh driven out of existence;
and happily for us, too, Abbott kept those letters, and Dr. Bence Jones
has published them. They are wonderful letters for a poor bookseller's
apprentice; they bear the stamp of an innate gentleman and philosopher.
Long afterwards, when Benjamin Abbott was an old man, he used to tell
how Faraday made his first experiments in the kitchen of his house,
and delivered his first lecture from the end of that kitchen table.
The electrical machine made by him in those early days came into the
possession of Sir James South, and now forms one of the treasures of
the Royal Institution.
As the eager student drank in the lectures of Tatum, he took notes, and
he afterwards wrote them out carefully in a clear hand, numbering and
describing the different experiments that he saw performed, and making
wonderfully neat drawings of the apparatus, in good perspective. These
notes he bound in four volumes, adding to each a copious index, and
prefixing to the first this dedication to his master:--
"TO MR. G. RIEBAU.
"SIR,
"When first I evinced a predilection for the sciences, but more
particularly for that one denominated electricity, you kindly
interested yourself in the progress I made in the knowledge of facts
relating to the different theories in existence, readily permitting me
to examine those books in your possession that were in any way related
to the subjects then occupying my attention. To you, therefore, is
to be attributed the rise and existence of that small portion of
knowledge relating to the science which I possess, and accordingly to
you are due my acknowledgments.
"Unused to the arts of flattery, I can only express my obligations in
a plain but sincere way. Permit me, therefore, Sir, to return thanks
in this manner for the many favours I have received at your hands and
by your means and believe me,
"Your grateful and obedient Servant,
"M. FARADAY."
Now there happened to be lodging at Mr. Riebau's a notable foreigner of
the name of Masquerier. He was a distinguished artist, who had painted
Napoleon's portrait, and had passed through the stirring events of
the first French Revolution, not without serious personal danger, and
was now finding a refuge and a home in London. He was struck with the
intelligence of the apprentice, whose duty it was to do various offices
for him; and he lent the young man his books, and taught him how to
make the drawings in perspective which have already been alluded to.
But the lectures in Dorset Street were not the only ones that Michael
Faraday attended; and as the Royal Institution is the central scene
of all his subsequent history, we must pay a mental visit to that
building. Turning from the busy stream of Piccadilly into the quiet
of Albemarle Street, we see, in a line with the other houses, a large
Grecian façade with fourteen lofty pilasters. Between these are folding
doors, which are pushed open from time to time by grave-looking
gentlemen, many of them white-headed; but often of an afternoon,
and always on Friday evening during the season, the quiet street
is thronged with carriages and pedestrians, ladies and gentlemen,
who flock through these folding doors. Entering with them, we find
ourselves in a vestibule, with a large stone staircase in front, and
rooms opening on the right and left. The walls of these rooms are lined
with myriads of books, and the tables are covered with scientific and
other periodicals of the day, and there are cabinets of philosophical
apparatus and a small museum. Going up the broad staircase and turning
to the right, we pass through an ante-room to the lecture theatre.
There stands the large table, horseshoe-shaped, with the necessary
appliances for experiments, and behind it a furnace and arrangements
for black-board and diagrams; while round the table as a centre
range semicircular seats, rising tier above tier, and surmounted by
a semicircular gallery, the whole capable of seating 700 persons.
On the basement is a new chemical laboratory, fitted up with modern
appliances, and beyond it the old laboratory, with its furnaces and
sand-bath, its working tables and well-stored shelves, flanked by
cellars that look like dark lumber-rooms. A narrow private staircase
leads up to the suite of apartments in which resides the Director of
the house. Such is the Royal Institution of Great Britain, incorporated
by Royal Charter in the year 1800, "for the diffusing knowledge and
facilitating the general introduction of useful mechanical inventions
and improvements, and for teaching, by courses of philosophical
lectures and experiments, the application of science to the common
purposes of life;"--with the motto, "Illustrans commoda vitæ." Fifty
or sixty years ago the building was essentially what it is now, except
the façade and entrance, and that the laboratory, which was considered
a model of perfection, was even darker than at present, and in the
place of the modern chemical room there was a small theatre. The side
room, too, was fitted up for actual work, though even at mid-day it
had to be artificially lighted; and beyond this there was, and still
is, a place called the Froggery, from a certain old tradition of frogs
having been kept there. The first intention of the founders to exhibit
useful inventions had not been found very practicable, but the place
was already famous with the memories of Rumford and Young; and at that
time the genius of Sir Humphry Davy was entrancing the intellectual
world with brilliant discoveries, and drawing fashionable audiences to
Albemarle Street to listen to his eloquent expositions.
Among the customers of the bookseller in Blandford Street was a Mr.
Dance, who, being a member of the Royal Institution, took young Faraday
to hear the last four public lectures of Davy. The eager student
sat in the gallery, just over the clock, and took copious notes of
the Professor's explanations of radiant matter, chlorine, simple
inflammables, and metals, while he watched the experiments that were
performed. Afterwards he wrote the lectures fairly out in a quarto
volume, that is still preserved--first the theoretical portions, then
the experiments with drawings, and finally an index. "The desire to
be engaged in scientific occupation, even though of the lowest kind,
induced me," he says, "whilst an apprentice, to write, in my ignorance
of the world and simplicity of my mind, to Sir Joseph Banks, then
President of the Royal Society. Naturally enough, 'No answer' was the
reply left with the porter."
On the 7th of October his apprenticeship expired, and on the next day
he became a journeyman bookbinder under a disagreeable master--who,
like his friend the artist, was a French _émigré_. No wonder he sighed
still more for congenial occupation.
Towards the end of that same October Sir Humphry Davy was working on
a new liquid which was violently explosive, now known as chloride of
nitrogen,--and he met with an accident that seriously injured his eye,
and produced an attack of inflammation. Of course, for a while he could
not write, and, possibly through the introduction of M. Masquerier,[2]
the young bookseller was employed as his amanuensis. This, however,
Faraday himself tells us lasted only "some days;" and in writing years
afterwards to Dr. Paris, he says, "My desire to escape from trade,
which I thought vicious and selfish, and to enter into the service
of Science, which I imagined made its pursuers amiable and liberal,
induced me at last to take the bold and simple step of writing to Sir
H. Davy, expressing my wishes, and a hope that, if an opportunity came
in his way, he would favour my views; at the same time I sent the notes
I had taken of his lectures." Davy, it seems, called with the letter
on one of his friends--at that time honorary inspector of the models
and apparatus--and said, "Pepys, what am I to do? Here is a letter
from a young man named Faraday; he has been attending my lectures,
and wants me to give him employment at the Royal Institution--_what
can I do?_" "Do?" replied Pepys; "put him to wash bottles: if he is
good for anything, he will do it directly; if he refuses, he is good
for nothing." "No, no," replied Davy, "we must try him with something
better than that."
So Davy wrote a kind reply, and had an interview with the young
man upon the subject; in which, however, he advised him to stick
to his business, telling him that "Science was a harsh mistress,
and, in a pecuniary point of view, but poorly rewarding those who
devoted themselves to her service." He promised him the work of the
Institution, and his own besides.
But shortly afterwards the laboratory assistant was discharged for
misconduct, and so it happened that one night the inhabitants of quiet
Weymouth Street were startled by the unusual apparition of a grand
carriage with a footman, which drew up before the house where Faraday
lived, when the servant left a note from Sir Humphry Davy. The next
morning there was an interview, which resulted in the young aspirant
for scientific work being engaged to help the famous philosopher. His
engagement dates from March 1, 1813, and he was to get 25_s._ per week,
and a room in the house. The duties had been previously laid down by
the managers:--"To attend and assist the lecturers and professors in
preparing for, and during lectures. Where any instruments or apparatus
may be required, to attend to their careful removal from the model room
and laboratory to the lecture-room, and to clean and replace them after
being used; reporting to the managers such accidents as shall require
repair, a constant diary being kept by him for that purpose. That in
one day in each week he be employed in keeping clean the models in the
repository, and that all the instruments in the glass cases be cleaned
and dusted at least once within a month."
The young assistant did not confine himself to the mere discharge
of these somewhat menial duties. He put in order the mineralogical
collection; and from the first we find him occupying a higher position
than the minute quoted above would indicate.
In the course of a few days he was extracting sugar from beet-root;
but all his laboratory proceedings were not so pleasant or so innocent
as that, for he had to make one of the worst smelling of all chemical
compounds, bisulphide of carbon; and as Davy continued to work on
the explosive chloride of nitrogen, his assistant's career stood
some chance of being suddenly cut short at its commencement. Indeed
it seems that before the middle of April he had run the gauntlet of
four separate explosions. Knowing that the liquid would go off on the
slightest provocation, the experimenters wore masks of glass, but this
did not save them from injury. In one case Faraday was holding a small
tube containing a few grains of it between his finger and thumb, and
brought a piece of warm cement near it, when he was suddenly stunned,
and on returning to consciousness found himself standing with his hand
in the same position, but torn by the shattered tube, and the glass of
his mask even cut by the projected fragments. Nor was it easy to say
when the compound could be relied on, for it seemed very capricious;
for instance, one day it rose quietly in vapour in a tube exhausted by
the air-pump, but the next day, when subjected to the same treatment,
it exploded with a fearful noise, and Sir Humphry was cut about the
chin, and was struck with violence on the forehead. This seems to have
put an end to the experiments.
Nevertheless, in spite of disagreeables and dangers, the embryo
philosopher worked on with a joyful heart, beguiling himself
occasionally with a song, and in the evening playing tunes on his flute.
The change in Michael Faraday's employment naturally made him more
earnest still in the pursuit of knowledge. He was admitted as a member
of the "City Philosophical Society," a fraternity of thirty or forty
men in the middle or lower ranks of life, who met every Wednesday
evening for mutual instruction; and here is a contemporary picture of
him at one of its debates:--
"But hark! A voice arises near the chair!
Its liquid sounds glide smoothly through the air;
The listening muse with rapture bends to view
The place of speaking, and the speaker too.
Neat was the youth in dress, in person plain;
His eye read thus, _Philosopher in grain_;
Of understanding clear, reflection deep;
Expert to apprehend, and strong to keep.
His watchful mind no subject can elude,
Nor specious arts of sophists e'er delude;
His powers, unshackled, range from pole to pole;
His mind from error free, from guilt his soul.
Warmth in his heart, good humour in his face,
A friend to mirth, but foe to vile grimace;
A temper candid, manners unassuming,
Always correct, yet always unpresuming.
Such was the youth, the chief of all the band;
His name well known, Sir Humphry's right hand.
With manly ease towards the chair he bends,
With Watts's Logic at his finger-ends."
Another way in which he strove to educate himself is thus described
in his own words:--"During this spring Magrath and I established the
mutual improvement plan, and met at my rooms up in the attics of the
Royal Institution, or at Wood Street at his warehouse. It consisted,
perhaps, of half-a-dozen persons, chiefly from the City Philosophical
Society, who met of an evening to read together, and to criticise,
correct, and improve each other's pronunciation and construction of
language. The discipline was very sturdy, the remarks very plain and
open, and the results most valuable. This continued for several years."
Seven months after his appointment there began a new passage in
Faraday's life, which gave a fresh impulse to his mental activity, and
largely extended his knowledge of men and things. Sir Humphry Davy,
wishing to travel on the Continent, and having received a special pass
from the Emperor Napoleon, offered to take him as his amanuensis: he
accepted the proposal, and for a year and a half they wandered about
France, Italy, and Switzerland, and then they returned rapidly by the
Tyrol, Germany, and Holland.
From letters written when abroad we can catch some of the impressions
made on his mind by these novel scenes. "I have not forgot," he writes
to Abbott, "and never shall forget, the ideas that were forced on my
mind in the first days. To me, who had lived all my days of remembrance
in London, a city surrounded by a flat green country, a hill was a
mountain, and a stone a rock; for though I had abstract ideas of the
things, and could say rock and mountain, and would talk of them, yet I
had no perfect ideas. Conceive then the astonishment, the pleasure,
and the information which entered my mind in the varied county of
Devonshire, where the foundations of the earth were first exposed to my
view, and where I first saw granite, limestone, &c., in those places
and in those forms where the ever-working and all-wonderful hand of
nature had placed them. Mr. Ben., it is impossible you can conceive
my feelings, and it is as impossible for me to describe them. The
sea then presented a new source of information and interest; and on
approaching the shores of France, with what eagerness, and how often,
were my eyes directed to the South! When arrived there, I thought
myself in an uncivilized country; for never before nor since have I
seen such wretched beings as at Morlaix." His impression of the people
was not improved by the fact of their having arrested the travellers on
landing, and having detained them for five days until they had sent to
Paris for verification of their papers.
Again, to her towards whom his heart was wont to turn from distant
lands with no small longing: "I have said nothing as yet to you,
dear mother, about our past journey, which has been as pleasant and
agreeable (a few things excepted, in reality nothing) as it was
possible to be. Sir H. Davy's high name at Paris gave us free admission
into all parts of the French dominions, and our passports were granted
with the utmost readiness. We first went to Paris, and stopped there
two months; afterwards we passed, in a southerly direction, through
France to Montpellier, on the borders of the Mediterranean. From
thence we went to Nice, stopping a day or two at Aix on our way; and
from Nice we crossed the Alps to Turin, in Piedmont. From Turin we
proceeded to Genoa, which place we left afterwards in an open boat, and
proceeded by sea towards Lerici. This place we reached after a very
disagreeable passage, and not without apprehensions of being overset
by the way. As there was nothing there very enticing, we continued our
route to Florence; and, after a stay of three weeks or a month, left
that fine city, and in four days arrived here at Rome. Being now in
the midst of things curious and interesting, something arises every
day which calls for attention and observations. The relics of ancient
Roman magnificence, the grandeur of the churches, and their richness
also--the difference of habits and customs, each in turn engages
the mind, and keeps it continually employed. Florence, too, was not
destitute of its attractions for me, and in the Academy del Cimento
and the museum attached to it is contained an inexhaustible fund of
entertainment and improvement; indeed, during the whole journey, new
and instructive things have been continually presented to me. Tell B.
I have crossed the Alps and the Apennines; I have been at the Jardin
des Plantes; at the museum arranged by Buffon; at the Louvre, among
the _chefs d'oeuvre_ of sculpture and the masterpieces of painting;
at the Luxembourg Palace, amongst Rubens' works; that I have seen
a GLOWWORM!!! waterspouts, torpedo, the museum at the Academy del
Cimento, as well as St. Peter's, and some of the antiquities here, and
a vast variety of things far too numerous to enumerate."
But he kept a lengthy journal, and as we turn over the pages--for the
best part of it is printed by Bence Jones--we meet vivid sketches
of the provokingly slow custom-house officers, the postilion in
jack-boots, and the thin pigs of Morlaix--pictures of Paris, too,
when every Frenchman was to him an unintelligible enemy; when the
Apollo Belvidere, the Venus de Medici, and the Dying Gladiator were
at the Louvre, and when the First Napoleon visited the Senate in full
state. "He was sitting in one corner of his carriage, covered and
almost hidden from sight by an enormous robe of ermine, and his face
overshadowed by a tremendous plume of feathers that descended from
a velvet hat." We watch Sir Humphry as Ampère and others bring to
him the first specimens of iodine, and he makes experiments with his
travelling apparatus on the dark lustrous crystals and their violet
vapour; we seem, too, to be present with the great English chemist and
his scholar as they burn diamonds at Florence by means of the Grand
Duke's gigantic lens, and prove that the invisible result is carbonic
acid; or as they study the springs of inflammable gas at Pietra Mala,
and the molten minerals of Vesuvius. The whole, too, is interspersed
with bits of fun, and this culminates at the Roman Carnival, where he
evidently thoroughly enjoyed the follies of the Corso, the pelting with
sugar-plums, and the masked balls, to the last of which he went in a
nightgown and nightcap, with a lady who knew all his acquaintances; and
between the two they puzzled their friends mightily.
This year and a half may be considered as the time of Faraday's
education; it was the period of his life that best corresponds with the
collegiate course of other men who have attained high distinction in
the world of thought. But his University was Europe; his professors the
master whom he served, and those illustrious men to whom the renown of
Davy introduced the travellers. It made him personally known, also, to
foreign _savants_, at a time when there was little intercourse between
Great Britain and the Continent; and thus he was associated with the
French Academy of Sciences while still young, his works found a welcome
all over Europe, and some of the best representatives of foreign
science became his most intimate friends.
In May 1815, his engagement at the Royal Institution was renewed, with
a somewhat higher position and increased salary, which was again raised
in the following year to 100_l._ per annum. The handwriting in the
Laboratory Note-book changes in September 1815, from the large running
letters of Brande to the small neat characters of Faraday, his first
entry having reference to an analysis of "Dutch turf ash," and then
soon occur investigations into the nature of substances bearing what
must have been to him the mysterious names of Paligenetic tincture, and
_Baphe eugenes chruson_. It is to be hoped that the constituents of
this golden dye agreed together better than the Greek words of its name.
We can imagine the young philosopher taking a deeper interest in the
researches on flame which his master was then carrying out, and in the
gradual perfection of the safety-lamp that was to bid defiance to the
explosive gases of the mine; this at least is certain, that Davy, in
the preface to his celebrated paper on the subject, expresses himself
"indebted to Mr. Michael Faraday for much able assistance," and that
the youthful investigator carefully preserved the manuscript given him
to copy.
Part of his duty, in fact, was to copy such papers; and as Sir Humphry
had a habit of destroying them, he begged leave to keep the originals,
and in that way collected two large volumes of precious manuscripts.
But there came a change. Hitherto he had been absorbing; now he was
to emit. The knowledge which had been a source of delight to himself
must now overflow as a blessing to others: and this in two ways. His
first lecture was given at the City Philosophical Society on January
17, 1816, and in the same year his first paper was published in
the _Quarterly Journal of Science_. The lecture was on the general
properties of matter; the paper was an analysis of some native caustic
lime from Tuscany. Neither was important in itself, but each resembled
those little streams which travellers are taken to look at because
they are the sources of mighty rivers, for Faraday became the prince
of experimental lecturers, and his long series of published researches
have won for him the highest niche in the temple of science.
When he began to investigate for himself, it could not have been easy
to separate his own work from that which he was expected to do for his
master. Hence no small danger of misunderstandings and jealousies; and
some of these ugly attendants on rising fame did actually throw their
black shadows over the intercourse between the older and the younger
man of genius. In these earlier years, however, all appears to have
been bright; and the following letter, written from Rome in October
1818, will give a good idea of the assistant's miscellaneous duties,
and of the pleasant feelings of Davy towards him. It may be added that
in another letter he is requested to send some dozens of "flies with
pale bodies" to Florence, for Sir Humphry loved fly-fishing as well as
philosophy.
"TO MR. FARADAY.
"I received the note you were so good as to address to me at Venice;
and by a letter from Mr. Hatchett I find that you have found the
parallax of Mr. West's Sirius, and that, as I expected, he is mistaken.
"If when you write to me you will give the 3 per cents. and _long
annuities_, it will be enough.
"I will thank you to put the enclosed letters into the post, except
those for Messrs. Morland and Messrs. Drummond, which perhaps you will
be good enough to deliver.
"Mr. Hatchett's letter contained praises of you which were very
gratifying to me; and pray believe me there is no one more interested
in your success and welfare than your sincere well-wisher and friend,
"H. DAVY.
"ROME."
It must not be supposed, however, that he had any astronomical duties,
for the parallax he had found was not that of the Dog-star, but of a
reputed new metal, Sirium, which was resolved in Faraday's hands into
iron, nickel, and sulphur. But the impostor was not to be put down so
easily, for he turned up again under the _alias_ of Vestium; but again
he was unable to escape the vigilant eye of the young detective, for
one known substance after another was removed from it; and then, says
Faraday, "my Vestium entirely disappeared."
His occupations during this period were multifarious enough. We must
picture him to ourselves as a young-looking man of about thirty
years of age, well made, and neat in his dress, his cheerfulness of
disposition often breaking out in a short crispy laugh, but thoughtful
enough when something important is to be done. He has to prepare the
apparatus for Brande's lectures, and when the hour has arrived he
stands on the right of the Professor, and helps him to produce the
strange transformations of the chemical art. And conjurers, indeed, the
two appear in the eyes of the youth on the left, who waits upon them,
then the "laboratory assistant," now the well-known author, Mr. William
Bollaert, from whom I have learnt many details of this period. When not
engaged with the lectures, Faraday is manufacturing rare chemicals,
or performing commercial analyses, or giving scientific evidence on
trials. One of these was a famous one, arising from the Imperial
Insurance Company resisting the claim of Severn and King, sugar-bakers;
and in it appeared all the chemists of the day, like knights in the
lists, on opposite sides, ready to break a lance with each other.
All his spare time Faraday was occupied with original work. Chlorine
had a fascination for him, though the yellow choking gas would
get out into the room, and he investigated its combinations with
carbon, squeezed it into a liquid, and applied it successfully as a
disinfectant when fatal fever broke out in the Millbank Penitentiary.
Iodine too, another of Davy's elements, was made to join itself to
carbon and hydrogen; and naphthaline was tormented with strong mineral
acids. Long, too, he tried to harden steel and prevent its rusting, by
alloying it with small quantities of platinum and the rarer metals;
the boy blew the bellows till the crucibles melted, but a few ordinary
razors seem to have been the best results. Far more successful was he
in repeating and extending some experiments of Ampère on the mutual
action of magnets and electric currents; and when, after months of
work and many ingenious contrivances, the wire began to move round the
magnet, and the magnet round the wire, he himself danced about the
revolving metals, his face beaming with joy--a joy not unmixed with
thankful pride--as he exclaimed, "There they go! there they go! we have
succeeded at last." After this discovery he thought himself entitled
to a treat, and proposed to his attendant a visit to the theatre.
"Which shall it be?" "Oh, let it be Astley's, to see the horses." So to
Astley's they went; but at the pit entrance there was a crush; a big
fellow pressed roughly upon the lad, and Faraday, who could stand no
injustice, ordered him to behave himself, and showed fight in defence
of his young companion.
The rising philosopher indulged, too, in other recreations. He had a
wonderful velocipede, a progenitor of the modern bicycle, which often
took him of an early morning to Hampstead Hill. There was also his
flute; and a small party for the practice of vocal music once a week at
a friend's house. He sang bass correctly, both as to time and tune.
And though the City Philosophical Society was no more, the ardent group
of students of nature who used to meet there were not wholly dispersed.
They seem to have carried on their system of mutual improvement, and
to have read the current scientific journals at Mr. Nicol's house till
he married, and then alternately at those of Mr. R. H. Solly, Mr.
Ainger, and Mr. Hennel, of Apothecaries' Hall, who came to a tragical
end through an explosion of fulminating silver. Several of them,
including Mr. Cornelius Varley, joined the Society of Arts, which at
that time had committees of various sciences, and was very democratic
in its management; and, finding that by pulling together they had
great influence, they constituted themselves a "caucus," adopting the
American word, and meeting in private. Magrath was looked upon as a
"chair-maker," and Faraday in subsequent years held the office of
Chairman of the Committee of Chemistry, and occasionally he presided at
the large meetings of the Society.
During this time (1823) the Athenæum Club was started, not in the
present Grecian palace in Pall Mall, but in a private house in Waterloo
Place. Its members were the aristocracy of science, literature, and
art, and they made Faraday their honorary secretary; but after a year
he transferred the office to his friend Magrath, who held it for a long
period.
Among the various sects into which Christendom is divided, few are
less known than the Sandemanians. About a century and a half ago, when
there was little light in the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, a pious
minister of the name of John Glas began to preach that the Church
should be governed only by the teaching of Christ and His apostles,
that its connection with the State was an error, and that we ought to
believe and to practise no more and no less than what we find from
the New Testament that the primitive Church believed and practised.
These principles, which sound very familiar in these days, procured
for their asserter much obloquy and a deposition by the Church Courts,
in consequence of which several separate congregations were formed
in different parts of Great Britain, especially by Robert Sandeman,
the son-in-law of Mr. Glas, and from him they received their common
appellation. In early days they taught a simpler view of faith than
was generally held at that time; it was with them a simple assent of
the understanding, but produced by the Spirit of God, and its virtue
depended not on anything mystical in the operation itself, but on the
grandeur and beauty of the things believed. Now, however, there is
little to distinguish them in doctrine from other adherents of the
Puritan theology, though they certainly concede a greater deference to
their elders, and attach more importance to the Lord's Supper than is
usual among the Puritan Churches. Their form of worship, too, resembles
that of the Presbyterians; but they hold that each congregation should
have a plurality of elders, pastors, or bishops, who are unpaid men;
that on every "first day of the week" they are bound to assemble, not
only for prayers and preaching, but also for "breaking of bread,"
and putting together their weekly offerings; that the love-feast and
kiss of charity should continue to be practised; that "blood and
things strangled" are still forbidden as food; and that a disciple
of Christ should not charge interest on loans except in the case of
purely business transactions, or lay up wealth for the unknown future,
but rather consider all he possesses as at the service of his poorer
brethren, and be ready to perform to them such offices of kindness as
in the early Church were expressed by washing one another's feet.
But what gives the remarkable character to the adherents of this sect
is their perfect isolation from all Christian fellowship outside
their own community, and from all external religious influence. They
have never made missionary efforts to win men from the world, and have
long ceased to draw to themselves members from other Churches; so
they have rarely the advantage of fresh blood, or fresh views of the
meaning of Scripture. They commonly intermarry, and are expected to
"bear one another's burthens;" so the Church has acquired somewhat of
the additional character of a large intertwined family and of a mutual
benefit society. This rigid separation from the world, extending now
through three or four generations, has produced a remarkable elevation
of moral tone and refinement of manner; and it is said that no one
unacquainted with the inner circle can conceive of the brotherly
affection that reigns there, or the extent to which hospitality and
material help is given without any ostentation, and received without
any loss of self-respect. The body is rendered still more seclusive by
demanding, not merely unity of spirit among its members, but unanimity
of opinion in every Church transaction. In order to secure this,
any dissentient who persists in his opinion after repeated argument
is rejected; the same is also the consequence of neglect of Church
duties, as well as of any grave moral offence: and in such a community
excommunication is a serious social ban, and though a penitent may be
received back once, he can never return a second time.
It was in the midst of this little community that Faraday received
his earliest religious impressions, and among them he found his
ecclesiastical home till the day of his entrance into the Church above.
Among the elders of the Sandemanian Church in London was Mr. Barnard, a
silversmith, of Paternoster Row. The young philosopher became a visitor
at his house, and though he had previously written,--
"What is't that comes in false deceitful guise,
Making dull fools of those that 'fore were wise?
'Tis Love."
--he altered his opinion in the presence of the citizen's third
daughter, Sarah, and wrote to her what was certainly not the letter of
a fool:--
"You know me as well or better than I do myself. You know my former
prejudices and my present thoughts--you know my weaknesses, my vanity,
my whole mind; you have converted me from one erroneous way, let me
hope you will attempt to correct what others are wrong.... Again and
again I attempt to say what I feel, but I cannot. Let me, however,
claim not to be the selfish being that wishes to bend your affections
for his own sake only. In whatever way I can best minister to your
happiness, either by assiduity or by absence, it shall be done. Do not
injure me by withdrawing your friendship, or punish me for aiming to be
more than a friend by making me less; and if you cannot grant me more,
leave me what I possess,--but hear me."
The lady hesitated, and went to Margate. There he followed her, and
they proceeded together to Dover and Shakspeare's Cliff, and he
returned to London full of happiness and hope. He loved her with all
the ardour of his nature, and in due course, on June 12, 1821, they
were married. The bridegroom desired that there should be no bustle
or noise at the wedding, and that the day should not be specially
distinguished; but he calls it himself "an event which more than any
other contributed to his happiness and healthful state of mind." As
years rolled on the affection between husband and wife became only
deeper and deeper; his bearing towards her proved it, and his letters
frequently testify to it. Doubtless at any time between their marriage
and his final illness he might have written to her as he did from
Birmingham, at the time of the British Association:--"After all, there
is no pleasure like the tranquil pleasures of home, and here--even
here--the moment I leave the table, I wish I were with you IN QUIET.
Oh! what happiness is ours! My runs into the world in this way only
serve to make me esteem that happiness the more."
He took his bride home to Albemarle Street, and there they spent
their wedded life; but until Mr. Barnard's death it was their custom
to go every Saturday to the house of the worthy silversmith, and
spend Sunday with him, returning home usually in the evening of that
day. His own father died while he was at Riebau's, but his mother,
a grand-looking woman, lived long afterwards, supported by her son,
whom she occasionally visited at the Institution, and of whose growing
reputation she was not a little proud.
With a mind calmed and strengthened by this beautiful domestic life,
he continued with greater and greater enthusiasm to ask questions of
Nature, and to interpret her replies to his fellow-men. Just before his
marriage he had been appointed at the Royal Institution superintendent
of the house and laboratory, and in February 1825, after a change
in the management of the Institution, he was placed as director in a
position of greater responsibility and influence. One of his first
acts in this capacity was to invite the members to a scientific
evening in the laboratory; this took place three or four times in
1825, and in the following years these gatherings were held every week
from Feb. 3 to June 9; and though the labour devolved very much upon
Faraday, other philosophers sometimes brought forward discoveries or
useful inventions. Thus commenced those Friday evening meetings which
have done so much to popularize the high achievements of science.
Faraday's note-books are still preserved, containing the minutes of
the committee-meetings every Thursday afternoon, the Duke of Somerset
chairman, and he secretary; also the record of the Friday evenings
themselves, who lectured, and on what subject, and what was exhibited
in the library, till June 1840, when other arrangements were probably
made.
The year 1827 was otherwise fruitful in lectures: in the spring, a
course of twelve on chemical manipulation at the London Institution;
after Easter, his first course at Albemarle Street, six lectures on
chemical philosophy (he had helped Professor Brande in 1824);[3] and at
Christmas, his desire to convey knowledge, and his love to children,
found expression in a course of six lectures to the boys and girls home
for their holidays. These were a great success; indeed, he himself
says they "were just what they ought to have been, both in matter and
manner,--but it would not answer to give an extended course in the same
spirit." He continued these juvenile lectures during nineteen years.
The notes for courses of lectures were written in school copy-books,
and sometimes he appends a general remark about the course, not always
so favourable as the one given above. Thus he writes, "The eight
lectures on the operations of the laboratory, April 1828, were not to
my mind." Of the course of twelve in the spring of 1827, he says he
"found matter enough in the notes for at least seventeen."
Up to 1833 Faraday was bringing the forces of nature in subjection
to man on a salary of only 100_l._ per annum, with house, coals,
and candles, as the funds of the Institution would not at that time
afford more; but among the sedate _habitúes_ of the place was a tall,
jovial gentleman, who lounged to the lectures in his old-fashioned
blue coat and brass buttons, grey smalls, and white stockings, who
was a munificent friend in need. This was John Fuller, a member of
Parliament. He founded a Professorship of Chemistry with an endowment
that brings in nearly 100_l._ a year, and gave the first appointment to
Faraday for life. When the Institution became richer, his income was
increased; and when, on account of the infirmities of age, he could no
longer investigate, lecture, or keep accounts, the managers insisted
on his still retaining in name his official connection with the place,
with his salary and his residence there. Nor indeed could they well
have acted otherwise; for though the Royal Institution afforded in the
first instance a congenial soil for the budding powers of Faraday,
his growth soon became its strength; and eventually the blooming of
his genius, and the fruit it bore, were the ornament and glory of the
Institution.
It will be asked, Was this 100_l._ or 200_l._ per annum the sole
income of Faraday? No; in early days he did commercial analyses, and
other professional work, which paid far better than pure science. In
1830 his gains from this source amounted to 1,000_l._, and in 1831 to
considerably more; they might easily have been increased, but at that
time he made one of his most remarkable discoveries--the evolution of
electricity from magnetism,[4]--and there seemed to lie open before him
the solution of the problem how to make one force exhibit at will the
phenomena of magnetism or of common or voltaic electricity. And then
he had to face another problem--his own mental force might be turned
either to the acquisition of a fortune, or to the following up of those
great discoveries; it would not do both: which should he relinquish?
The choice was deliberately made: Nature revealed to him more and more
of her secrets, but his professional gains sank in 1832 to 155_l._
9_s._, and during no subsequent year did they amount even to that.
Still his work was not entirely confined to his favourite studies. In
a letter to Lord Auckland, long afterwards, he says:--"I have given
up, for the last ten years or more, all professional occupation, and
voluntarily resigned a large income that I might pursue in some degree
my own objects of research. But in doing this I have always, as a good
subject, held myself ready to assist the Government if still in my
power, _not for pay_; for, except in one instance (and then only for
the sake of the person joined with me), I refused to take it. I have
the honour and pleasure of applications, and that very recently, from
the Admiralty, the Ordnance, the Home Office, the Woods and Forests,
and other departments, all of which I have replied to, and will reply
to as long as strength is left me." He had declined the Professorship
of Chemistry at the London University--now University College,--but
in 1829 he accepted a lectureship at the Royal Academy, Woolwich, and
held it for about twenty years. In 1836 he became scientific adviser to
the Trinity House, and his letter to the Deputy Master also shows his
feelings in reference to such employment:--"You have left the title and
the sum in pencil. These I look at mainly as regards the character of
the appointment; you will believe me to be sincere in this, when you
remember my indifference to your proposition as a matter of interest,
though _not as a matter of kindness_. In consequence of the goodwill
and confidence of all around me, I can at any moment convert my time
into money, but I do not require more of the latter than is sufficient
for necessary purposes. The sum, therefore, of 200_l._ is quite enough
in itself, but not if it is to be the indicator of the character of
the appointment; but I think you do not view it so, and that you and
I understand each other in that respect; and your letter confirms me
in that opinion. The position which I presume you would wish me to
hold is analogous to that of a standing counsel." For nearly thirty
years Faraday continued to report on all scientific suggestions and
inventions connected with lighthouses or buoys, not for personal gain
or renown, but for the public good. His position was never above that
of a "standing counsel." In his own words: "I do not know the exact
relation of the Board of Trade and the Trinity House to each other;
I am simply an adviser upon philosophical questions, and am put into
action only when called upon."
In regard to the lectureship at Woolwich, Mr. Abel, his successor,
writes thus:--"Faraday appears to have enjoyed his weekly trips
to Woolwich, which he continued for so many years, as a source of
relaxation. He was in the habit of going to Woolwich in the afternoon
or evening preceding his lecture at the Military Academy, then
preparing at once for his experiments, and afterwards generally taking
a country ramble. The lecture was delivered early the following
morning. No man was so respected, admired, and beloved as a teacher at
the Military Academy in former days as Faraday. Many are the little
incidents which have been communicated to me by his pupils illustrative
of his charms as a lecturer, and of his kindly feelings for the youths
to whom he endeavoured to impart a taste for, if not a knowledge
of, science. But for some not ill-meant, though scarcely judicious,
proposal to dictate modifications in his course of instruction, Faraday
would probably have continued for some years longer to lecture at
Woolwich. In May 1852, soon after I had been appointed his successor,
Faraday wrote to me requesting the return of some tubes of condensed
gases which he left at the Academy. This letter ends thus:--'I hope
you feel yourself happy and comfortable in your arrangements at the
Academy, and have cause to be pleased with the change. I was ever very
kindly received there, and that portion of regret which one must ever
feel in concluding a long engagement would be in some degree lessened
with me by hearing that you had reason to be satisfied with your duties
and their acceptance.--Ever very truly yours, M. FARADAY.'"
For year after year the life of Faraday afforded no adventure and
little variety, only an ever-growing skill in his favourite pursuit,
higher and higher success, and ever-widening fame. But simple as were
his mind and his habits, no one picture can present him as the complete
man; we must try to make sketches from various points of view, and
leave it to the reader's imagination to combine them.
Let us watch him on an ordinary day. After eight hours' sleep, he rises
in time to breakfast at eight o'clock, goes round the Institution to
see that all is in order, and descends into the laboratory, puts on
a large white apron, the stains and holes in which tell of previous
service, and is busy among his pieces of apparatus. The faithful
Anderson, an old soldier, who always did exactly what he was told, and
nothing more,[5] is waiting upon him; and as thought flashes after
thought through his eager--perhaps impatient--brain, he twists his
wires into new shapes, and re-arranges his magnets and batteries. Then
some conclusion is arrived at which lights up his face with a gleam of
satisfaction, but the next minute a doubt comes across that expressive
brow--may the results not be due to something else yet imperfectly
conceived?--and a new experiment must be devised to answer that. In
the meantime perhaps one of his little nieces has been left in his
charge. She sits as quiet as a mouse with her needlework; but now and
then he gives her a nod, or a kind word, and throwing a little piece
of potassium on to a basin of water for her amusement, he shows her
the metal bursting into purple flame, floating about in fiery eddies,
and the crack of the fused globule of potash at the end. Presently
there is handed to him the card of some foreign _savant_, who makes his
pilgrimage to the famous Institution and its presiding genius; he puts
down his last result on a slate, comes upstairs, and, disregarding the
interruption, chats with his visitor with all cordiality and openness.
Then to work again till dinner-time, at half-past two. In the afternoon
he retires to his study with its plain furniture and the india-rubber
tree in the window, and writes a letter full of affection to some
friend, after which he goes off to the council meeting of one of the
learned bodies. Then back again to the laboratory, but as evening
approaches he goes upstairs to his wife and niece, and then there is a
game at bagatelle or acting charades; and afterwards he will read aloud
from Shakspeare or Macaulay till it is time for supper and the simple
family worship which now is not liable to the interruptions that
generally prevent it in the morning. And so the day closes.
Or if it be a fine summer evening, he takes a stroll with his wife and
the little girl to the Zoological Gardens, and looks at all the new
arrivals, but especially the monkeys, laughing at their tricks till the
tears run down his cheeks.
But should it be a Friday evening, Faraday's place is in the library
and theatre of the Institution, to see that all is right and ready, to
say an encouraging word to the lecturer, and to welcome his friends as
they arrive; then taking his seat on the front bench near the right
hand of the speaker, he listens with an animated countenance to his
story,[6] sometimes bending forwards, and scarcely capable of keeping
his fingers off the apparatus--not at all able if anything seems to
be going wrong; when the discourse is over, a warm shake of the hand,
with "Thank you for a pleasant hour," and "Good night" to those around
him, and upstairs with his wife and some particularly congenial friends
to supper. On the dining-table is abundance of good fare and good
wine, and around it flows a pleasant stream of lively and intellectual
conversation.
But suppose it is his own night to lecture. The subject has been
carefully considered, an outline of his discourse has been written on
a sheet of foolscap, with all the experiments marked and numbered, and
during the morning everything has been arranged on the table in such
order that his memory is assisted by it; the audience now pours in, and
soon occupies all the seats, so that late comers must be content with
sitting on the stairs or standing in the gangways, or at the back of
the gallery. Faraday enters, and placing himself in the centre of the
horse-shoe table, perfect master of himself, his apparatus, and his
audience, commences a discourse which few that are present will ever
forget. Here is a picture by Lady Pollock:--"It was an irresistible
eloquence, which compelled attention and insisted upon sympathy. It
waked the young from their visions, and the old from their dreams.
There was a gleaming in his eyes which no painter could copy, and which
no poet could describe. Their radiance seemed to send a strange light
into the very heart of his congregation; and when he spoke, it was felt
that the stir of his voice and the fervour of his words could belong
only to the owner of those kindling eyes. His thought was rapid, and
made itself a way in new phrases--if it found none ready made--as the
mountaineer cuts steps in the most hazardous ascent with his own axe.
His enthusiasm sometimes carried him to the point of ecstasy when he
expatiated on the beauties of Nature, and when he lifted the veil from
her deep mysteries. His body then took motion from his mind; his hair
streamed out from his head; his hands were full of nervous action; his
light, lithe body seemed to quiver with its eager life. His audience
took fire with him, and every face was flushed. Whatever might be the
after-thought or the after-pursuit, each hearer for the time shared his
zeal and his delight."[7]
Is it possible that he can be happier when lecturing to the juveniles?
The front rows are filled with the young people; behind them are ranged
older friends and many of his brother philosophers, and there is old
Sir James South, who is quite deaf, poor man, but has come, as he says,
because he likes to see the happy faces of the children. How perfect
is the attention! Faraday, with a beaming countenance, begins with
something about a candle or a kettle that most boys and girls know,
then rises to what they had never thought of before, but which now is
as clear as possible to their understandings. And with what delight
does he watch the performances of Nature in his experiments! One could
fancy that he had never seen the experiments before, and that he was
about to clap his hands with boyish glee at the unexpected result! Then
with serious face the lecturer makes some incidental remark that goes
far beyond natural philosophy, and is a lesson for life.
Some will remember one of these occasions which forms the subject of
a painting by Mr. Blaikley. Within the circle of the table stands the
lecturer, and waiting behind is the trusty Anderson, while the chair is
occupied by the Prince Consort, and beside him are the young Prince of
Wales and his brother, the present Duke of Edinburgh; while the Rev.
John Barlow and Dr. Bence Jones sit on the left of the Princes; Sir
James South stands against the door, and Murchison, De La Rue, Mrs.
Faraday, and others may be recognized among the eager audience.
Let us now suppose that it is a Sunday on which we are watching this
prince among the aristocracy of intellect, and we will assume it to
be during one of the periods of his eldership, namely between 1840
and 1844, or after 1860. The first period came to a close through
his separation both from his office and from the Church itself. The
reason of this is unknown except to the parties immediately concerned,
but it will be readily understood how easily differences may arise
in such a community as that of the Sandemanians between an original
and conscientious mind and his brethren in the faith. He, however,
continued to worship among his friends, and was after a while restored
to the rights of membership, and eventually to the office of elder. In
the morning he and his family group find their way down to the plain
little meeting-house in Paul's Alley, Red-cross Street, since pulled
down to make room for the Metropolitan Railway. The day's proceedings
commence with a prayer meeting, during which the worshippers gradually
drop in and go to their accustomed seats, Faraday taking his place
on the platform devoted to the elders: then the more public service
begins; one of a metrical but not rhyming version of the Psalms is
sung to a quaint old tune; the Lord's Prayer and another psalm follow;
he rises and reads in a slow, reverent manner the words of one of the
Evangelists, with a most profound and intelligent appreciation of
their meaning; or he offers an extempore prayer, expressing perfect
trust and submission to God's will, with deep humility and confession
of sin. It may be his turn to preach. On two sides of a card he has
previously sketched out his sermon with the illustrative texts, but the
congregation does not see the card, only a little Bible in his hand,
the pages of which he turns quickly over, as, fresh from an earnest
heart, there flows a discourse full of devout thought, clothed largely
in the language of Scripture. After a loud simultaneous "Amen" has
closed the service, the Church members withdraw to their common meal,
the feast of charity; and in the afternoon there is another service,
ending by invariable custom with the Lord's Supper. The family group do
not reach home till half-past 5; then there is a quiet evening, part of
which is spent by Faraday at his desk, and they retire to rest at an
early hour.
Again on Wednesday evening he is among the little flock. The service
is somewhat freer, for not the officers of the Church only, but the
ordinary members are encouraged to express whatever thoughts occur to
them, so as to edify one another. At these times, Faraday, especially
when he was not an elder, very often had some word of exhortation,
and the warmth of his temperament would make itself felt, for he was
known in the small community as an experimental rather than a doctrinal
preacher.
The notes of his more formal discourses which I have had the
opportunity of seeing, indicate, as might be expected from the tenets
of his Church, a large acquaintance with the words of Scripture, but no
knowledge of modern exegesis. They appear to have impressed different
hearers in different ways. One who heard him frequently and was
strongly attached to him, says that his sermons were too parenthetical
and rapid in their delivery, with little variety or attractiveness;
but another scientific friend, who heard him occasionally, writes:
"They struck me as resembling a mosaic work of texts. At first you
could hardly understand their juxtaposition and relationship, but as
the well-chosen pieces were filled in, by degrees their congruity and
fitness became developed, and at last an amazing sense of the power
and beauty of the whole filled one's thoughts at the close of the
discourse."
His first sermon as an elder was on Christ's character and example
as shown in Matthew xi. 28-30: "Learn of me; for I am meek and lowly
in heart." Among the latest of his sermons was one that he preached
at Dundee about four years before his death. He began by telling his
audience that his memory was failing, and he feared he could not quote
Scripture with perfect accuracy; and then, as said one of the elders
who had been present, "his face shone like the face of an angel," as he
poured forth the words of loving exhortation.
When a mind is stretched in the same direction week-day and Sunday,
the tension is apt to become too great. With Faraday the first symptom
was loss of memory. Then his devoted wife had to hurry him off to the
country for rest of brain. Once he had to give up work almost entirely
for a twelvemonth. During this time he travelled in Switzerland, and
extracts from his diary are given by Bence Jones. His niece, Mrs.
Deacon, gives us her recollections of a month spent at Walmer:--"How
I rejoiced to be allowed to go there with him! We went on the outside
of the coach, in his favourite seat behind the driver. When we reached
Shooter's Hill, he was full of fun about Falstaff and the men in
buckram, and not a sight nor a sound of interest escaped his quick
eye and ear. At Walmer we had a cottage in a field, and my uncle was
delighted because a window looked directly into a blackbird's nest
built in a cherry-tree. He would go many times in a day to watch
the parent birds feeding their young. I remember, too, how much he
was interested in the young lambs, after they were sheared at our
door, vainly trying to find their own mothers. The ewes, not knowing
their shorn lambs, did not make the customary signal. In those days
I was eager to see the sun rise, and my uncle desired me always to
call him when I was awake. So, as soon as the glow brightened over
Pegwell Bay, I stole downstairs and tapped at his door, and he would
rise, and a great treat it was to watch the glorious sight with him.
How delightful, too, to be his companion at sunset! Once I remember
well how we watched the fading light from a hill clothed with wild
flowers, and how, as twilight stole on, the sounds of bells from Upper
Deal broke upon our ears, and how he watched till all was grey. At
such times he would be well pleased if we could repeat a few lines
descriptive of his feelings." And then she tells us about their
examining the flowers in the fields by the aid of "Galpin's Botany,"
and how with a candle he showed her a spectre on the white mist
outside the window; of reading lessons that ended in laughter, and of
sea-anemones and hermit crabs, with the merriment caused by their odd
movements as they dragged about the unwieldy shells they tenanted. "But
of all things I used to like to hear him read 'Childe Harold;' and
never shall I forget the way in which he read the description of the
storm on Lake Leman. He took great pleasure in Byron, and Coleridge's
'Hymn to Mont Blanc' delighted him. When anything touched his feelings
as he read--and it happened not unfrequently--he would show it not only
in his voice, but by tears in his eyes also."
A few days at Brighton refreshed him for his work. He was in the habit
of running down there before his juvenile lectures at Christmas, and at
Easter he frequently sought the same sea-breezes.
But it was not always that Faraday could run away from London when the
mental tension became excessive. A shorter relaxation was procured by
his taking up a novel such as "Ivanhoe," or "Jane Eyre," or "Monte
Christo." He liked the stirring ones best, "a story with a thread to
it." Or he would go with his wife to see Kean act, or hear Jenny Lind
sing, or perhaps to witness the performance of some "Wizard of the
North."
Now and then he would pay a visit to some scene of early days. One of
his near relatives tells me: "It is said that Mr. Faraday once went to
the shop where his father had formerly been employed as a blacksmith,
and asked to be allowed to look over the place. When he got to a part
of the premises at which there was an opening into the lower workshop,
he stopped and said: 'I very nearly lost my life there once. I was
playing in the upper room at pitching halfpence into a pint pot close
by this hole, and having succeeded at a certain distance, I stepped
back to try my fortune further off, forgetting the aperture, and down I
fell; and if it had not been that my father was working over an anvil
fixed just below, I should have fallen on it, broken my back, and
probably killed myself. As it was, my father's back just saved mine.'"
Business, as well as pleasure, sometimes took him away from home. He
often joined the British Association, returning usually on Saturday,
that he might be among his own people on the Lord's Day. During the
meeting he would generally accept the hospitality of some friend; and
it was one of these occasions that gave rise to the following _jeu
d'esprit_:--
"'That P will change to F in the British tongue is true
(Quoth Professor Phillips), though the instances are few;'
An entry in my journal then I ventured thus to parody,
'I this day dined with Fillips, where I hobbed and nobbed with
Pharaday.'
"T. T.
"OXFORD, _June 27, 1860_."
At the Liverpool meeting, in 1837, he was president of the Chemical
Section, and on two other occasions he was selected to deliver the
evening lecture, but though repeatedly pressed to undertake the
presidency of the whole body, he could not be prevailed upon to accept
the office.
My first personal intercourse with him, of any extent, was at the
Ipswich meeting in 1851. I watched him with all the interest of an
admiring disciple, and there is deeply engraven on my memory the
vivacity of his conversation, the eagerness with which he entered into
some mathematico-chemical speculations of Dumas, and the playfulness
with which, when we were dining together, he cut boomerangs out of
card, and shot them across the table at his friends.
Professional engagements also took him not unfrequently into the
country. Some of these will be described in the later sections, that
treat of his mode of working and its valuable results.
To comprehend a man's life it is necessary to know not merely what he
does, but also what he purposely leaves undone. There is a limit to
the work that can be got out of a human body or a human brain, and he
is a wise man who wastes no energy on pursuits for which he is not
fitted; and he is still wiser who, from among the things that he can do
well, chooses and resolutely follows the best.
Faraday took no part in any of the political or social movements of
his time. To politics indeed he seems to have been really indifferent.
It was during the intensely interesting period of 1814-15 that he was
on the Continent with Davy, but he alludes to the taking of Paris by
the allied troops simply because of its bearing on the movements of
the travellers, and on March 7, 1815, he made his remarkable entry in
his journal: "I heard for news that Bonaparte was again at liberty.
Being no politician, I did not trouble myself much about it, though
I suppose it will have a strong influence on the affairs of Europe."
In later days he seems to have awaked to sufficient interest to
read the debates, and to show a Conservative tendency; he became a
special constable in 1848, and was disposed generally to support "the
powers that be,"--though that involved some perplexity at a change of
Government.
It is more singular that a man of his benevolent spirit should never
have taken a prominent part in any philanthropic movement. In some
cases his religious views may have presented an obstacle, but this
reason can hardly apply to many of those social movements in which the
influence of his name, and his occasional presence and advice, would
have been highly valuable. During the latter half of his life, he, as
a rule, avoided serving on committees even for scientific objects,
and was reluctant to hold office in the learned societies with which
he was connected. I believe, however, that this arose not so much
from want of interest, as from a conviction that he was ill-suited by
natural temperament for joining in discussions on subjects that roused
the passions of men, or for calmly weighing the different courses of
action, and deciding which was the most judicious. It is remarkable
how little even of his scientific work was done in conjunction with
others. Neither did he spend time in rural occupations, or in literary
or artistic pursuits. Beasts and birds and flowers he looked at,
but it was for recreation, not for study. Music he was fond of, and
occasionally he visited the Opera, but he did not allow sweet sounds
to charm him away from his work. He stuck closely to his fireside,
his laboratory, his lecture table, and his church. He lived where he
worked, so that he had only to go downstairs to put to the test of
experiment any fresh thought that flitted across his brain. He almost
invariably declined dinner-parties, except at Lady Davy's, and at
Mr. and Mrs. Masquerier's at Brighton, towards whom he felt under an
obligation on account of former kindnesses. If he went to a _soirée_,
he usually stayed but a short time; and even when away from home he
generally refused private hospitality. Thus he was able to give almost
undivided attention to the chief pursuit of his life.
His residence in so accessible a part of London did, however, expose
him to the constant invasion of callers, and his own good nature often
rendered fruitless the efforts that were considerately made to restrict
these within reasonable limits. Of course he suffered from the curious
and the inconsiderate of the human species; and then there were those
pertinacious bores, the dabblers in science. "One morning a young man
called on him, and with an air of great importance confided to him the
result of some original researches (so he deemed them) in electrical
philosophy. 'And pray,' asked the Professor, taking down a volume of
Rees' Cyclopædia, 'did you consult this or any elementary work to learn
whether your discovery had been anticipated?' The young man replied in
the negative. 'Then why do you come to waste my time about well-known
facts, that were published forty years ago?' 'Sir,' said the visitor,
'I thought I had better bring the matter to head-quarters immediately.'
'All very well for you, but not so well for head-quarters,' replied the
Professor, sharply, and set him down to read the article."
"A grave, elderly gentleman once waited upon him to submit to his
notice 'a new law of physics.' The visitor requested that a jug of
water and a tumbler might be brought, and then producing a cork, 'You
will be pleased to observe,' said he, 'how persistently this cork
clings to the side of the glass when the vessel is half filled.' 'Just
so,' replied the Professor. 'But now,' resumed this great discoverer,
'mark what happens when I fill the tumbler to the brim. There! you
see the cork flies to the centre--positively repelled by the sides!'
'Precisely so,' replied the amused electrician, with the air of a man
who felt perfectly at home with the phenomenon, and indeed regarded
it quite as an old friend. The visitor was evidently disconcerted.
'Pray how long have you known this?' he ventured to ask Faraday.
'Oh, ever since I was a boy,' was the rejoinder. Crestfallen--his
discovery demolished in a moment--the poor gentleman was retiring
with many apologies, when the Professor, sincerely concerned at his
disappointment, comforted him by suggesting that possibly he might some
day alight upon something really new."[8]
But there were other visitors who were right welcome to a portion of
his time. One day it might be a young man, whom a few kind words and
a little attention on the part of the great philosopher would send
forward on the journey of life with new energy and hopes. Another day
it might be some intellectual chieftain, who could meet the prince of
experimenters on equal terms. But these are hardly to be regarded as
interruptions;--rather as a part of his chosen work.
Here is one instance in the words of Mr. Robert Mallet. "... I was,
in the years that followed, never in London without paying him a
visit, and on one of those times I ventured to ask him (if not too
much engaged) to let me see where he and Davy had worked together.
With the most simple graciousness he brought me through the whole of
the Royal Institution, Albemarle Street. Brande's furnaces, Davy's
battery, the place in the laboratory where he told me he had first
observed the liquefaction of chlorine, are all vividly before me--but
nothing so clear or vivid as our conversation over a specimen of green
(crown) glass, partially devitrified in floating opaque white spheres
of radiating crystals: he touched luminously on the obscure relation
of the vitreous and crystalloid states, and on the probable nature
of the nuclei of the white spheres. My next visit to Faraday that I
recollect was not long after my paper 'On the Dynamics of Earthquakes'
had appeared in the Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy. He almost
at once referred to it in terms of praise that seemed to me so far
beyond my due, that even now I recall the very humble way I felt, as
the thought of Faraday's own transcendent merits rushed across my mind.
I ventured to ask him, had the paper engaged his attention sufficiently
that I might ask him--did he consider my explanation of the before
supposed _vorticose_ shock sufficient? To my amazement he at once
recited _nearly word for word_ the paragraph in which I took some pains
to put my views into a demonstrative shape, and ended with, 'It is as
plain and certain as a proposition of Euclid!' And yet the subject was
one pretty wide away from his own objects of study."
Often, too, if some interesting fact was exhibited to him, he would
send to his brother _savants_ some such note as this:--
"ROYAL INSTITUTION, _4th May, 1852_.
"MY DEAR WHEATSTONE,
"Dr. Dubois-Raymond will be making his experiments _here_ next
Thursday, the 6th, from and after 11 o'clock. I wish to let you know,
that you may if you like join the select few.
"Ever truly yours,
"M. FARADAY."
It was indeed his wont to share with others the delight of a new
discovery. Thus Sir Henry Holland tells me that he used frequently to
run to his house in Brook Street with some piece of scientific news.
One of these visits was after reading Bunsen and Kirchhoff's paper on
Spectrum Analysis; and he did not stop short with merely telling the
tale of the special rays of light shot forth by each metallic vapour,
as the following letter will show. It is addressed to the present
Baroness Burdett Coutts.
"ROYAL INSTITUTION, _Friday, 17th May_.
"DEAR MISS COUTTS,
"To-morrow, at 4 o'clock, immediately after Max Müller's lecture,
I shall show Sir Henry Holland an apparatus which has arrived from
Munich to manifest the phenomena of light which have recently been
made known to us by Bunsen and Kirchhoff. Mr. Barlow will be here, and
he suggests that you would like to know of the occasion. If you are
inclined to see how philosophers work and live, and so are inclined
to climb our narrow stairs (for I must show the experiments in my
room), we shall be most happy to see you. The experiments will not be
beautiful except to the intelligent.
"Ever your faithful Servant,
"M. FARADAY."
Sometimes, too, the exhibition of a scientific fact would take him away
from home. Thus, when her Majesty and the Prince Consort once paid
a private visit to the Polytechnic, Mr. Pepper arranged a surprise
for the Royal party, by getting Faraday in a quiet room to explain
the Ruhmkorff's coil--the latest development of his own inductive
currents. This he did with his usual vivacity and enthusiasm, and the
interview is said to have gratified the philosopher as well as the
Queen.
He could not, however, escape the inroads made upon his time by
correspondence. People would write and ask him questions. Once a
solitary prisoner wrote to tell him, "It is indeed in studying the
great discoveries which science is indebted to you for, that I render
my captivity less sad, and make time flow with rapidity,"--and then he
proceeds to ask, "_What is the most simple_ combination to give to a
voltaic battery, in order to produce a spark capable of setting fire to
powder under water, or under ground? Up to the present I have only seen
employed to that purpose piles of thirty to forty pairs constructed
on Dr. Wollaston's principles. They are very large and inconvenient
for field service. Could not the same effect be produced by two spiral
pairs only? and if so, what can be their smallest dimension?" And who
was the prisoner who thus speculated on the applications of science to
war? It was no other than Prince Louis Napoleon, then immured in the
fortress of Ham, and now the ex-Emperor of the French. At another time
he wrote asking for his advice in the manufacture of an alloy which
should be about as soft as lead, but not so fusible,--a question which
also had evident bearing upon the art of war; and offering at the same
time to pay the cost of any experiments that might be necessary.
Often, too, the correspondents of Faraday thought that they were
doing him a kindness. He says somewhere: "The number of suggestions,
hints for discovery, and propositions of various kinds, offered to
me very freely and with perfect goodwill and simplicity on the part
of the proposers, for my exclusive investigation and final honour,
is remarkably great, and it is no less remarkable that but for one
exception--that of Mr. Jenkin--they have all been worthless.... I have,
I think, universally found that the man whose mind was by nature or
self-education fitted to make good and worthy suggestions, was also the
man both able and willing to work them out."
Both the askers of questions and the givers of advice expected
answers--and the answers came. Most of Faraday's letters, indeed,
are of a purely business character: sometimes they are very laconic,
as the note in which he announced to Dr. Paris one of his principal
discoveries:--
"DEAR SIR,
"The _oil_ you noticed yesterday turns out to be liquid chlorine.
"Yours faithfully,
"M. FARADAY."
But in other letters, as may be expected, there is found the enthusiasm
of his ardent nature, or the glow of his genial spirit. An instance or
two may suffice.
"ROYAL INSTITUTION, _24th March, 1843_.
"DEAR SIR,
"I have received and at once looked at your paper. Many thanks for
so good a contribution to the beloved science. What glorious steps
electricity has taken in the days within our remembrance, and what
hopes are held out for the future! The great difficulty is to remove
the mists which dim the dawn of a subject, and I cannot but consider
your paper as doing very much that way for a most important part of
natural knowledge.
"I am, my dear Sir,
"Most truly yours,
"M. FARADAY.
"J. P. JOULE, ESQ."
"ROYAL INSTITUTION, _15th Oct., 1853_.
"MY DEAR MISS MOORE,
"The summer is going away, and I never (but for one day) had any
hopes of profiting by your kind offer of the roof of your house in
Clarges Street. What a feeble summer it has been as regards sunlight!
I have made a good many preliminary experiments at home, but they do
not encourage me in the direction towards which I was looking. All
is misty and dull, both the physical and the mental prospect. But I
have ever found that the experimental philosopher has great need of
patience, that he may not be downcast by interposing obstacles, and
perseverance, that he may either overcome them, or open out a new path
to the bourn he desires to reach. So perhaps next summer I may think
of your housetop again. Many thanks for your kind letter and all your
kindnesses uswards. My wife had your note yesterday, and I enjoyed the
violets, which for a time I appropriated.
"With kindest remembrances and thoughts to all with you and her at
Hastings,
"I am, my dear Friend,
"Very faithfully yours,
"M. FARADAY."
The following is written to Mr. Frank Barnard, then an Art student in
Paris:--
"ROYAL INSTITUTION, _9th Nov., 1852_.
"MY DEAR NEPHEW,
"Though I am not a letter-writer and shall not profess to send you
any news, yet I intend to waste your time with one sheet of paper:
first to thank you for your letter to me, and then to thank you for
what I hear of your letters to others. You were very kind to take the
trouble of executing my commissions, when I know your heart was bent
upon the entrance to your studies. Your account of M. Arago was most
interesting to me, though I should have been glad if in the matter
of health you could have made it better. He has a wonderful mind and
spirit. And so you are hard at work, and somewhat embarrassed by your
position: but no man can do just as he likes, and in many things he
has to give way, and may do so honourably, provided he preserve his
self-respect. Never, my dear Frank, lose that, whatever may be the
alternative. Let no one tempt you to it; for nothing can be expedient
that is not right; and though some of your companions may tease you
at first, they will respect you for your consistency in the end; and
if they pretend not to do so, it is of no consequence. However, I
trust the hardest part of your probation is over, for the earliest is
usually the hardest; and that you know how to take all things quietly.
Happily for you, there is nothing in your pursuit which need embarrass
you in Paris. I think you never cared for home politics, so that
those of another country are not likely to occupy your attention,
and a stranger can be but a very poor judge of a new people and their
requisites.
"I think all your family are pretty well, but I know you will hear all
the news from your appointed correspondent Jane, and, as I said, I am
unable to chronicle anything. Still, I am always very glad to hear
how you are going on, and have a sight of all that I may see of the
correspondence.
"Ever, my dear Frank,
"Your affectionate Uncle,
"M. FARADAY."
His scientific researches were very numerous. The Royal Society
Catalogue gives under the name of Faraday a list of 158 papers,
published in various scientific magazines or learned Transactions. Many
of these communications are doubtless short, but a short philosophical
paper often represents a large amount of brain work; a score of them
are the substance of his Friday evening discourses; while others are
lengthy treatises, the records of long and careful investigations; and
the list includes the thirty series of his "Experimental Researches
in Electricity." These extended over a period of twenty-seven years,
and were afterwards reprinted from the "Philosophical Transactions,"
and form three goodly volumes, with 3,430 numbered paragraphs--one of
the most marvellous monuments of intellectual work, one of the rarest
treasure-houses of newly-discovered knowledge, with which the world
has ever been enriched. Faraday never published but one book in the
common acceptation of the term--it was on "Chemical Manipulation,"--but
there appeared another large volume of reprinted papers: and three of
his courses of lectures were also published as separate small books,
though not by himself. It is very tempting to linger among these 158
papers; but this is not intended as a scientific biography, and those
readers who wish to make themselves better acquainted with his work
will find an admirable summary of it in Professor Tyndall's "Faraday as
a Discoverer." In Sections IV. and V., however, I have endeavoured to
give an idea of his manner of working, and of the practical benefits
that have flowed to mankind from some of his discoveries.
As these papers appeared his fame grew wider and wider. When a
comparatively young man he was naturally desirous of appending the
mystic letters "F.R.S." to his name, and he was balloted into the Royal
Society in January 1824, not without strong opposition from his master,
Sir Humphry Davy, then president. He paid the fees, and never sought
another distinction of the kind. But they were showered down upon him.
The Philosophical Society of Cambridge had already acknowledged his
merits, and the learned Academies of Paris and Florence had enrolled
him amongst their corresponding members. Heidelberg and St. Petersburg,
Philadelphia and Boston, Copenhagen, Berlin, and Palermo, quickly
followed: and as the fame of his researches spread, very many other
learned societies in Europe and America, as well as at home, brought
to him the tribute of their honorary membership.[9] He thrice received
the degree of Doctor, Oxford making him a D.C.L., Prague a Ph.D., and
Cambridge an LL.D., besides which he was instituted a Chevalier of the
Prussian Order of Merit, a Commander of the Legion of Honour, and a
Knight Commander of the Order of St. Maurice and St. Lazarus. Among
the medals which he received were each of those at the disposal of
the Royal Society--indeed the Copley medal was given him twice--and
the Grande Médaille d'Honneur at the time of the French Exhibition.
Altogether it appears he was decorated with ninety-five titles and
marks of merit,[10] including the blue ribbon of science, for in 1844
he was chosen one of the eight foreign associates of the French Academy.
Though he had never passed through a university career, he was made a
member of the Senate of the University of London, which he regarded
as one of his chief honours; and he showed his appreciation of the
importance of the office by a diligent attendance to its duties.
As the recognized prince of investigators, it is no wonder that on the
resignation of Lord Wrottesley, an attempt was made to induce him to
become President of the Royal Society. A deputation waited upon him and
urged the unanimous wish of the Council and of scientific men. Faraday
begged for time to consider. Tyndall gives us an insight into the
reasons that led him to decline. He tells us: "On the following morning
I went up to his room, and said, on entering, that I had come to him
with some anxiety of mind. He demanded its cause, and I responded,
'Lest you should have decided against the wishes of the deputation that
waited on you yesterday.' 'You would not urge me to undertake this
responsibility,' he said. 'I not only urge you,' was my reply, 'but I
consider it your bounden duty to accept it.' He spoke of the labour
that it would involve; urged that it was not in his nature to take
things easy; and that if he became president, he would surely have to
stir many new questions, and agitate for some changes. I said that in
such cases he would find himself supported by the youth and strength
of the Royal Society. This, however, did not seem to satisfy him. Mrs.
Faraday came into the room, and he appealed to her. Her decision was
adverse, and I deprecated her decision. 'Tyndall,' he said at length,
'I must remain plain Michael Faraday to the last; and let me now tell
you, that if I accepted the honour which the Royal Society desires you
to confer upon me, I would not answer for the integrity of my intellect
for a single year.'"
In 1835 Sir Robert Peel desired to confer pensions as honourable
distinctions on Faraday and some other eminent men. Lord Melbourne,
who succeeded him as Prime Minister, in making the offer at a private
interview, gave utterance to some hasty expressions that appeared to
the man of science to reflect on the honour of his profession, and led
to his declining the money. The King, William IV., was struck with
the unusual nature of the proceeding, and kept repeating the story of
Faraday's refusal; and about a month afterwards the Premier, dining
with Dr. (now Sir Henry) Holland, begged him to convey a letter to
the Professor and to press on him the acceptance of the pension. The
letter was couched in such honourable and conciliatory terms, that
Faraday's personal objection could no longer apply, and he expressed
his willingness to receive this mark of national approval. A version
of the matter that found its way into the public prints caused fresh
annoyance, and nearly produced a final refusal, but through the kind
offices of friends who had interested themselves throughout in the
matter, a friendly feeling was again arrived at, and the pension of
£300 a year was granted and accepted.
In 1858 the Queen offered him a house at Hampton Court. It was a
pretty little place, situated in the well-known Green in front of the
Palace; and in that quiet retreat Faraday spent a large portion of his
remaining years.
In October 1861 he wrote a letter to the managers of the Royal
Institution, resigning part of his duties, in which he reviewed his
connection with them. "I entered the Royal Institution in March 1813,
nearly forty-nine years ago, and, with the exception of a comparatively
short period during which I was abroad on the Continent with Sir H.
Davy, have been with you ever since. During that time I have been most
happy in your kindness, and in the fostering care which the Royal
Institution has bestowed upon me. Thank God, first, for all His gifts.
I have next to thank you and your predecessors for the unswerving
encouragement and support which you have given me during that period.
My life has been a happy one, and all I desired. During its progress I
have tried to make a fitting return for it to the Royal Institution,
and through it to science. But the progress of years (now amounting in
number to three-score and ten) having brought forth first the period
of development, and then that of maturity, have ultimately produced
for me that of gentle decay. This has taken place in such a manner as
to make the evening of life a blessing; for whilst increasing physical
weakness occurs, a full share of health free from pain is granted with
it; and whilst memory and certain other faculties of the mind diminish,
my good spirits and cheerfulness do not diminish with them."
When he could no longer discharge effectually his duties at the Trinity
House, the Corporation quietly made their arrangements for transferring
them, and, with the concurrence of the Board of Trade, determined that
his salary of 200_l._ per annum should continue as long as he lived.
Sir Frederick Arrow called upon him at Albemarle Street, and explained
how the matter stood, but he found it hard to persuade the Professor
that there was no injustice in his continuing to receive the money;
then, taking hold of Sir Frederick by one hand and Dr. Tyndall by the
other, Faraday, with swimming eyes, passed over his office to his
successor.
Gradually but surely the end approached. The loss of memory was
followed by other symptoms of declining power. The fastenings of his
earthly tabernacle were removed one by one, and he looked forward to
"the house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." This was no
new anticipation. Calling on the friend who had long directed with him
the affairs of the Institution, but who was then half paralysed, he
had said, "Barlow, you and I are waiting; that is what we have to do
now; and we must try to do it patiently." He had written to his niece,
Mrs. Deacon: "I cannot think that death has to the Christian anything
in it that should make it rare, or other than a constant, thought;
out of the view of death comes the view of the life beyond the grave,
as out of the view of sin (the true and the real view which the Holy
Spirit alone can give to a man) comes the glorious hope.... My worldly
faculties are slipping away day by day. Happy is it for all of us that
the true good lies not in them. As they ebb, may they leave us as
little children trusting in the Father of Mercies, and accepting His
unspeakable gift." And when the dark shadow was creeping over him, he
wrote to the Comte de Paris: "I bow before Him who is Lord of all, and
hope to be kept waiting patiently for His time and mode of releasing
me according to His Divine Word, and the great and precious promises
whereby His people are made partakers of the Divine nature." His niece,
Miss Jane Barnard, who tended him with most devoted care, thus wrote
from Hampton Court on the 27th June:--"The kind feelings shown on every
side towards my dear uncle, and the ready offers of help, are most
soothing. I am thankful to say that we are going on very quietly; he
keeps his bed and sleeps much, and we think that the paralysis gains
on him, but between whiles he speaks most pleasant words, showing his
comfort and trust in the finished work of our Lord. The other day he
repeated some verses of the 46th Psalm, and yesterday a great part of
the 23rd. We can only trust that it may be given us to say truly, 'Thy
will be done;' indeed, the belief that all things work together for
good to them that believe, is an anchor of hope, sure and steadfast,
to the soul. We are surrounded by most kind and affectionate friends,
and it is indeed touching to see what warm feelings my dear uncle has
raised on all sides."
When his faculties were fading fast, he would sit long at the western
window, watching the glories of the sunset; and one day when his wife
drew his attention to a beautiful rainbow that then spanned the sky,
he looked beyond the falling shower and the many-coloured arch, and
observed, "He hath set his testimony in the heavens." On August 25,
1867, quietly, almost imperceptibly, came the release. There was a
philosopher less on earth, and a saint more in heaven.
The funeral, at his own request, was of the simplest character. His
remains were conveyed to Highgate Cemetery by his relations, and
deposited in the grave, according to the practice of his Church, in
perfect silence. Few of his scientific friends were in London that
bright summer-time, but Professor Graham and one or two others came
out from the shrubbery, and joining the group of family mourners, took
their last look at the coffin.
But when this sun had set below our earthly horizon, there seemed to
spring up in the minds of men a great desire to catch some of the rays
of the fading brightness and reflect them to posterity. A "Faraday
Memorial" was soon talked of, and the work is now in the sculptor's
hands; the Chemical Society has founded a "Faraday Lectureship;" one of
the new streets in Paris has been called "Rue Faraday;" biographical
sketches have appeared in many of the British and Continental journals;
successive books have told the story of his life and work; and in
a thousand hearts there is embalmed the memory of this Christian
gentleman and philosopher.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] These books, with others bound by Faraday, are preserved in a
special cabinet at the Royal Institution, together with more valuable
documents,--the laboratory notes of Davy and those of Faraday, his
notes of Tatum's and Davy's lectures, copies of his published papers
with annotations and indices, notes for lectures and Friday evening
discourses, account books, and various memoranda, together with letters
from Wollaston, Young, Herschel, Whewell, Mitscherlich, and many others
of his fellow-workers in science. These were the gift of his widow, in
accordance with his own desire.
[2] This idea was suggested by some remarks of Faraday to the Baroness
Burdett Coutts.
[3] Sir Roderick Murchison used to tell how he was attending Brande's
lectures, when one day, the Professor being absent, his assistant took
his place, and lectured with so much ease that he won the complete
approval of the audience. This, he said, was Faraday's first lecture at
the Royal Institution.
[4] The laboratory note-book shows that at this very time he was making
a long series of commercial analyses of saltpetre for Mr. Brande.
[5] The following anecdote has been sent me on the authority of Mr.
Benjamin Abbott:--"Sergeant Anderson was engaged to attend to the
furnaces in Mr. Faraday's researches on optical glass in 1828, and was
chosen simply because of the habits of strict obedience his military
training had given him. His duty was to keep the furnaces always at
the same heat, and the water in the ashpit always at the same level.
In the evening he was released, but one night Faraday forgot to tell
Anderson he could go home, and early next morning he found his faithful
servant still stoking the glowing furnace, as he had been doing all
night long." A more probable and better authenticated version of this
story is that after nightfall Anderson went upstairs to Faraday, who
was already in bed, to inquire if he was to remain still on duty.
[6] One evening, when the Rev. A. J. D'Orsey was lecturing "On the
Study of the English Language," he mentioned as a common vulgarism that
of using "don't" in the third person singular, as "He don't pay his
debts." Faraday exclaimed aloud, "That's very wrong."
[7] The _St. Paul's Magazine_, June 1870.
[8] _British Quarterly Review_, April 1868.
[9] See Appendix.
[10] No wonder the celebrated electrician P. Riess, of Berlin, once
addressed a long letter to him as "Professor Michael Faraday, Member of
all Academies of Science, London."
SECTION II.
STUDY OF HIS CHARACTER.
In the previous section we have traced the leading events of a life
which was quietly and uniformly successful. We have watched the passage
of the errand-boy into the philosopher, and we have seen how at first
he begged for the meanest place in a scientific workshop, and at
last declined the highest honour which British Science was capable
of granting. His success did not lie in the amassing of money--he
deliberately turned aside from the path of proffered wealth; nor did it
lie in the attainment of social position and titles--he did not care
for the weight of these. But if success consists in a life full of
agreeable occupation, with the knowledge that its labours are adding to
the happiness and wealth of the world, leading on to an old age full of
honour, and the prospect of a blissful immortality,--then the highest
success crowned the life of Faraday.
How did he obtain it? Not by inheritance, and not by the force of
circumstances. The wealth or the reputation of fathers is often an
invaluable starting-point for sons: a liberal education and the
contact of superior minds in early youth is often a mighty help to
the young aspirant: the favour of powerful friends will often place on
a vantage-ground the struggler in the battle of life. But Faraday had
none of these. Accidental circumstances sometimes push a man forward,
or give him a special advantage over his fellows; but Faraday had to
make his circumstances, and to seize the small favours that fortune
sometimes threw in his way. The secret of his success lay in the
qualities of his mind.
It is only fair, however, to remark that he started with no
disadvantages. There was no stain in the family history: he had no dead
weight to carry, of a disgraced name, or of bad health, or deficient
faculties, or hereditary tendencies to vice. It must be acknowledged,
too, that he was endowed with a naturally clear understanding and an
unusual power of looking below the surface of things.
The first element of success that we meet with in his biography is the
faithfulness with which he did his work. This led the bookseller to
take his poor errand-boy as an apprentice; and this enabled his father
to write, when he was 18: "Michael is bookbinder and stationer, and is
very active at learning his business. He has been most part of four
years of his time out of seven. He has a very good master and mistress,
and likes his place well. He had a hard time for some while at first
going; but, as the old saying goes, he has rather got the head above
water, as there is two other boys under him." This faithful industry
marked also his relations with Davy and Brande, and the whole of his
subsequent life; and at last, when he found that he could no longer
discharge his duties, it made him repeatedly press his resignation on
the managers of the Royal Institution, and beg to be relieved of his
eldership in the Church.
His love of study, and hunger after knowledge, led him to the
particular career which he pursued, and that power of imagination,
which reveals itself in his early letters, grew and grew, till it gave
him such a familiarity with the unseen forces of nature as has never
been vouchsafed to any other mortal.
As a source of success there stands out also his enthusiasm. A new
fact seemed to charge him with an energy that gleamed from his eyes
and quivered through his limbs, and, as by induction, charged for the
time those in his presence with the same vigour of interest. Plücker,
of Bonn, was showing him one day in the laboratory at Albemarle Street
his experiments on the action of a magnet on the electric discharge
in vacuum tubes. Faraday danced round them; and as he saw the moving
arches of light, he cried, "Oh! to live in it!" Mr. James Heywood once
met him in the thick of a tremendous storm at Eastbourne, rubbing his
hands with delight because he had been fortunate enough to see the
lightning strike the church tower, and displace a pinnacle.
This enthusiasm led him to throw all his heart into his work. Nor was
the energy spasmodic, or wasted on unworthy objects; for, in the words
of Bence Jones, his was "a lifelong lasting strife to seek and say that
which he thought was true, and to do that which he thought was kind."
Indeed, his perseverance in a noble strife was another of the grand
elements in his success. His tenacity of purpose showed itself equally
in little and in great things. Arranging some apparatus one day with a
philosophical instrument maker, he let fall on the floor a small piece
of glass: he made several ineffectual attempts to pick it up. "Never
mind," said his companion, "it is not worth the trouble." "Well, but,
Murray, I don't like to be beaten by something that I have once tried
to do."
The same principle is apparent in that long series of electrical
researches, where for a quarter of a century he marched steadily along
that path of discovery into which he had been lured by the genius of
Davy. And so, whatever course was set before him, he ran with patience
towards the goal, not diverted by the thousand objects of interest
which he passed by, nor stopping to pick up the golden apples that were
flung before his feet.
This tremendous faculty of work was relieved by a wonderful
playfulness. This rarely appears in his writings, but was very frequent
in his social intercourse. It was a simple-hearted joyousness, the
effervescence of a spirit at peace with God and man. It not seldom,
however, assumed the form of good-natured banter or a practical
joke. Indications of this playfulness have already been given, and
I have tried to put upon paper some instances that occur to my own
recollection, but the fun depended so much upon his manner, that it
loses its aroma when separated from himself.
However, I will try one story. I was spending a night at an hotel at
Ramsgate when on lighthouse business. Early in the morning there came
a knock at the bed-room door, but, as I happened to be performing my
ablutions, I cried, "Who's there?" "Guess." I went over the names of
my brother commissioners, but heard only "No, no," till, not thinking
of any other friend likely to hunt me up in that place, I left off
guessing; and on opening the door I saw Faraday enjoying with a laugh
my inability to recognize his voice through a deal board.
A student of the late Professor Daniell tells me that he remembers
Faraday often coming into the lecture-room at King's College just when
the Professor had finished and was explaining matters more fully to any
of his pupils who chose to come down to the table. One day the subject
discoursed on and illustrated had been sulphuretted hydrogen, and a
little of the gas had escaped into the room, as it perversely will do.
When Faraday entered he put on a look of astonishment, as though he had
never smelt such a thing before, and in a comical manner said, "Ah!
a savoury lecture, Daniell!" On another occasion there was a little
ammonia left in a jar over mercury. He pressed Daniell to tell him
what it was, and when the Professor had put his head down to see more
clearly, he whiffed some of the pungent gas into his face.
Occasionally this humour was turned to good account, as when, one
Friday evening before the lecture, he told the audience that he had
been requested by the managers to mention two cases of infringement of
rule. The first related to the red cord which marks off the members'
seats. "The second case I take to be a hypothetical one, namely, that
of a gentleman wearing his hat in the drawing-room." This produced a
laugh, which the Professor joined in, bowed, and retired.
This faithful discharge of duty, this almost intuitive insight into
natural phenomena, and this persevering enthusiasm in the pursuit of
truth, might alone have secured a great position in the scientific
world, but they alone could never have won for him that large
inheritance of respect and love. His contemporaries might have gazed
upon him with an interest and admiration akin to that with which he
watched a thunderstorm; but who feels his affections drawn out towards
a mere intellectual Jupiter? We must look deeper into his character to
understand this. There is a law well recognized in the science of light
and heat, that a body can absorb only the same sort of rays which it is
capable of emitting. Just so is it in the moral world. The respect and
love of his generation were given to Faraday because his own nature was
full of love and respect for others.
Each of these qualities--his respect for and love to others, or, more
generally, his reverence and kindliness--deserves careful examination.
Throughout his life, Michael Faraday appeared as though standing in a
reverential attitude towards Nature, Man, and God.
Towards Nature, for he regarded the universe as a vast congeries of
facts which would not bend to human theories. Speaking of his own early
life, he says: "I was a very lively imaginative person, and could
believe in the 'Arabian Nights' as easily as in the 'Encyclopædia;' but
facts were important to me, and saved me. I could trust a fact, and
always cross-examined an assertion." He was indeed a true disciple of
that philosophy which says, "Man, who is the servant and interpreter
of Nature, can act and understand no farther than he has, either in
operation or in contemplation, observed of the method and order of
Nature."[11] And verily Nature admitted her servant into her secret
chambers, and showed him marvels to interpret to his fellow-men more
wonderful and beautiful than the phantasmagoria of Eastern romance.
His reverence towards Man showed itself in the respect he uniformly
paid to others and to himself. Thoroughly genuine and simple-hearted
himself, he was wont to credit his fellow-men with high motives and
good reasons. This was rather uncomfortable when one was conscious of
no such merit, and I at least have felt ashamed in his presence of the
poor commonplace grounds of my words and actions. To be in his company
was in fact a moral tonic. As he had learned the difficult art of
honouring all men, he was not likely to run after those whom the world
counted great. "We must get Garibaldi to come some Friday evening,"
said a member of the Institution during the visit of the Italian hero
to London. "Well, if Garibaldi thinks he can learn anything from us,
we shall be happy to see him," was Faraday's reply. This nobility
of regard not only preserved him from envying the success of other
explorers in the same field, but led him heartily to rejoice with them
in their discoveries.
Dumas gives us a picture of Foucault showing Faraday some of his
admirable experiments, and of the two men looking at one another with
eyes moistened, but full of bright expression, as they stood hand in
hand, silently thankful--the one for the pleasure he had experienced,
the other for the honour that had been done him. He also tells how, on
another occasion, he breakfasted at Albemarle Street, and during the
meal Mr. Faraday made some eulogistic remarks upon Davy, which were
coldly received by his guest. After breakfast, he was taken downstairs
to the ante-room of the lecture theatre, when Faraday, walking up to
the portrait of his old master, exclaimed, "Wasn't he a great man!"
then turning round to the window next the entrance door, he added, "It
was there that he spoke to me for the first time." The Frenchman bowed.
They descended the stairs again to the laboratory. Faraday pulled out
an old note-book, and turning over its pages showed where Davy had
entered the means by which the first globule of potassium was produced,
and had drawn a line round the description, with the words, "Capital
experiment." The French chemist owned himself vanquished, and tells
the tale in honour of him who remembered the greatness and forgot the
littlenesses of his teacher.
And the respect he showed to others he required to be shown to himself.
It is difficult to imagine anyone taking liberties with him, and it
was only in early life that there were small-minded creatures who
would treat him not according to what he was, but according to the
position from which he had risen. His servants and workpeople were
always attentive to the smallest expression of his wish. Still, he
did not "go through his life with his elbows out." He once wrote to
Matteucci: "I see that that moves you which would move me most, viz.
the imputation of a want of good faith; and I cordially sympathize with
anyone who is so charged unjustly. Such cases have seemed to me almost
the only ones for which it is worth while entering into controversy. I
have felt myself not unfrequently misunderstood, often misrepresented,
sometimes passed by, as in the cases of specific inductive capacity,
magneto-electric currents, definite electrolytic action, &c. &c.: but
it is only in the cases where moral turpitude has been implied, that I
have felt called upon to enter on the subject in reply." Yet, where he
felt that his honour was impugned, none could be more sensitive or more
resolute.
This desire to clear himself, combined with his delicate regard for
the feelings of others, struck me forcibly in the following incident.
At Mr. Barlow's, one Friday evening after the discourse, two or three
other chemists and myself were commenting unfavourably on a public act
of Faraday, when suddenly he appeared beside us. I did not hesitate
to tell him my opinion. He gave me a short answer, and joined others
of the company. A few days afterwards he found me in the laboratory
preparing for a lecture, and, without referring directly to what I had
said, he gave me a full history of the transaction in such a way as to
show that he could not have acted otherwise, and at the same time to
render any apology on my part unnecessary.
Intimately connected with his respect for Man as well as reverence
for truth, was the flash of his indignation against any injustice,
and his hot anger against any whom he discovered to be pretenders.
When, for instance, he had convinced himself that the reputed facts of
table-turning and spiritualism were false, his severe denunciation of
the whole thing followed as a matter of course.
Thus, too, a story is told of his once taking the side of the injured
in a street quarrel by the pump in Savile Row. One evening also at
my house, a young man who has since acquired a scientific renown was
showing specimens of some new compounds he had made. A well-known
chemist contemptuously objected that, after all, they were mere
products of the laboratory: but Faraday came to the help of the young
experimenter, and contended that they were chemical substances worthy
of attention, just as much as though they occurred in nature.
His reverence for God was shown not merely by that homage which
every religious man must pay to his Creator and Redeemer, but by the
enfolding of the words of Scripture and similar expressions in such a
robe of sacredness, that he rarely allowed them to pass his lips or
flow from his pen, unless he was convinced of the full sympathy of the
person with whom he was holding intercourse.
This characteristic reverence was united to an equally characteristic
kindliness. This word does not exactly express the quality intended;
but unselfishness is negative, goodness is too general, love is
commonly used with special applications; kindness, friendship,
geniality, and benevolence are only single aspects of the quality. Let
the reader add these terms all together, and the resultant will be
about what is meant.[12]
Faraday's love to children was one way in which this kindliness was
shown. Having no children of his own, he surrounded himself usually
with his nieces: we have already had a glimpse of him heartily entering
into their play, and we are told how a word or two from Uncle would
clear away all the trouble from a difficult lesson, that a long sum in
arithmetic became a delight when he undertook to explain it, and that
when the little girl was naughty and rebellious, he could gently win
her round, telling her how he used to feel himself when he was young,
and advising her to submit to the reproof she was fighting against. Nor
were his own relatives the only sharers of his kindness. One friend
cherishes among his earliest recollections, that of Faraday making for
him a fly-cage and a paper purse, which had a real bright half-crown in
it. When the present Mr. Baden Powell was a little fellow of thirteen,
he used to give short lectures on chemistry in his father's house, and
the philosopher of Albemarle Street liked to join the family audience,
and would listen and applaud the experiments heartily. When one day
my wife and I called on him with our children, he set them playing
at hide-and-seek in the lecture theatre, and afterwards amused them
upstairs with tuning-forks and resounding glasses. At a _soirée_ at Mr.
Justice Grove's, he wanted to see the younger children of the family;
so the eldest daughter brought down the little ones in their nightgowns
to the foot of the stairs, and Faraday expressed his gratification
with "Ah! that's the best thing you have done to-night." And when his
faculties had nearly faded, it is remembered how the stroking of his
hand by Mr. Vincent's little daughter quickened him again to bright and
loving interest.
It would be easy to multiply illustrations of this kindliness in
various relations of life.
Here is one of his own telling, where certainly the effect produced was
not owing to any knowledge of how princely an intellect underlay the
loving spirit. It is from a journal of his tour in Wales:--
"_Tuesday, July 20th._--After dinner I set off on a ramble to
Melincourt, a waterfall on the north side of the valley, and about six
miles from our inn. Here I got a little damsel for my guide who could
not speak a word of English. We, however, talked together all the way
to the fall, though neither knew what the other said. I was delighted
with her burst of pleasure as, on turning a corner, she first showed me
the waterfall. Whilst I was admiring the scene, my little Welsh damsel
was busy running about, even under the stream, gathering strawberries.
On returning from the fall I gave her a shilling that I might enjoy
her pleasure: she curtsied, and I perceived her delight. She again ran
before me back to the village, but wished to step aside every now and
then to pull strawberries. Every bramble she carefully moved out of the
way, and ventured her bare feet to try stony paths, that she might find
the safest for mine. I observed her as she ran before me, when she met
a village companion, open her hand to show her prize, but without any
stoppage, word, or other motion. When we returned to the village I bade
her good-night, and she bade me farewell, both by her actions and, I
have no doubt, her language too."
In a letter which Mr. Abel, the Director of the Chemical Department of
the War Establishment, has sent me, occur the following remarks:--
"Early in 1849 I was appointed, partly through the kind recommendation
of Faraday, to instruct the senior cadets and a class of artillery
officers in the Arsenal, in practical chemistry. On the occasion of
my first attendance at Woolwich, when, having just reached manhood, I
was about to deliver my first lecture as a recognized teacher, I was
naturally nervous, and was therefore dismayed when on entering the
class-room I perceived Faraday, who, having come to Woolwich, as usual,
to prepare for his next morning's lecture at the Military Academy, had
been prompted by his kindly feelings to lend me the support of his
presence upon my first appearance among his old pupils. In a moment
Faraday put me completely at my ease; he greeted me heartily, saying,
'Well, Abel, I have come to see whether I can assist you;' and suiting
action to word, he bustled about, persisting in helping me in the
arrangement of my lecture-tables,--and at the close of my demonstration
he followed me from pupil to pupil, aiding each in his first attempt
at manipulation, and evidently enjoying most heartily the self-imposed
duty of assistant to his young _protégé_."
Another scientific friend, Mr. W. F. Barrett, writes:--"My first
interview with Mr. Faraday ten years ago left an impression upon me
I can never forget. Young student as I then was, thinking chiefly of
present work and little of future prospects, and till then unknown to
Mr. Faraday, judge of my feelings when, taking my hand in both of his,
he said, 'I congratulate you upon choosing to be a _philosopher_: it
is an arduous life, but a noble and a glorious one. Work hard, and
work carefully, and you will have success.' The sweet yet serious way
he said this made the earnestness of work become a very vivid reality,
and led me to doubt whether I had not dared to undertake too lofty a
pursuit. After this Mr. Faraday never forgot to remember me in a number
of thoughtful and delicate ways. He would ask me upstairs to his room
to describe or show him the results of any little investigation I might
have made: taking the greatest interest in it all, his pleasure would
seem to equal and thus heighten mine, and then he would add words of
kind suggestion and encouragement. In the same kindly spirit he has
invited me to his house at Hampton Court, or would ask me to join him
at supper after the Friday evening's lecture. His kindness is further
shown by his giving me a volume of his researches on Chemistry and
Physics, writing therein, 'From his friend Michael Faraday.' Those who
live alone in London, unknown and uncared-for by any around them, can
best appreciate these marks of attention which Mr. Faraday invariably
showed, and not only to myself, but equally to my fellow-assistant in
the chemical laboratory."
The following instance among many that might be quoted will illustrate
his readiness to take trouble on behalf of others. When Dr. Noad was
writing his "Manual of Electricity," a doubt crossed his mind as to
whether Sir Snow Harris's unit jar gave a true measure of the quantity
of electricity thrown into a Leyden jar: he asked Faraday, and his
doubt was confirmed. Shortly afterwards he received a letter beginning
thus:--
"MY DEAR SIR,
"Whilst looking over my papers on induction, I was reminded of our
talk about Harris's unit jar, and recollected that I had given you a
result just the _reverse_ of my old conclusions, and, as I believe,
of the truth. I think the jar _is a true measure_, so long as the
circumstances of position, &c., are not altered; for its discharge and
the quantity of electricity thus passed on depends on the constant
relation of the balls connected with the inner and outer surface
coating to each other, and is independent of their joint relation to
the machine, battery, &c.... Perhaps I have not made my view clear,
but next time we meet, remind me of the matter.
"Ever truly yours,
"M. FARADAY."
And just a week afterwards Dr. Noad received a second letter,
surmounted by a neat drawing, and describing at great length
experiments that the Professor had since made in order to place the
matter beyond doubt.
And it was not merely for friends and brother _savants_ that he would
take trouble. Old volumes of the _Mechanics' Magazine_ bear testimony
to the way in which he was asked questions by people in all parts of
the kingdom, and that he was accustomed to give painstaking answers to
such letters.
"Do to others as you would wish them to do to you," was a precept
often on his lips. But I have heard that he was sometimes charged with
transgressing it himself, inasmuch as he took an amount of trouble for
other people which he would have been greatly distressed if they had
taken for him.
His charities were very numerous,--not to beggars; for them he had
the Mendicity Society's tickets,--but to those whose need he knew.
The porter of the Royal Institution has shown me, among his treasured
memorials, a large number of forms for post-office orders, for sums
varying from 5_s._ to 5_l._, which Faraday was in the habit of sending
in that way to different recipients of his thoughtful bounty. Two or
three instances have come to my knowledge of his having given more
considerable sums of money--say 20_l._--to persons who he thought would
be benefited by them. In some instances the gift was called a loan,
but he lent "not expecting again," and entered into the spirit of the
injunction, "When thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy
right hand doeth."
This principle was in fact stated in one of his letters to a friend:
"As a case of distress I shall be very happy to help you as far as my
means allow me in such cases; but then I never let my name go to such
acts, and very rarely even the initials of my name." His contributions
to the general funds of his Church were kept equally secret.
From all these circumstances, therefore, it is impossible to gauge
the amount of his charitable gifts; but when it is remembered that
for many years his income from different sources must have been
1,000_l._ or 1,200_l._, that he and Mrs. Faraday lived in a simple
manner--comfortably, it is true, but not luxuriously--and that his
whole income was disposed of in some way, there can be little doubt
that his gifts amounted to several hundred pounds per annum.
But it was not in monetary gifts alone that his kindness to the
distressed was shown. Time was spent as freely as money; and an
engrossing scientific research would not be allowed to stand in the
way of his succouring the sorrowful. Many persons have told me of
his self-denying deeds on behalf of those who were ill, and of his
encouraging words. He had indeed a heart ever ready to sympathize. Thus
meeting once in the neighbourhood of Hampton Court an old friend who
had retired there invalided and was being drawn about in a Bath chair,
he is said to have burst into tears.
When eight years ago my wife and my only son were taken away together,
and I lay ill of the same fatal disease, he called at my house, and
in spite of remonstrances found his way into the infected chamber. He
would have taken me by the hand if I had allowed him; and then he sat
a while by my bedside, consoling me with his sympathy and cheering me
with the Christian hope.
It is no wonder that this kindliness took the hearts of men captive;
and this quality was, like mercy, "twice blessed; it blesseth him
that gives, and him that takes." The feeling awakened in the minds of
others by this kindliness was indeed a source of the purest pleasure
to himself; trifling proofs of interest or love could easily move his
thankfulness; and he richly enjoyed the appreciation of his scientific
labours. This would often break forth in words. Thus in the middle of a
letter to A. De la Rive, principally on scientific matters, he writes:--
"Do you remember one hot day, I cannot tell how many years ago, when I
was hot and thirsty in Geneva, and you took me to your house in the
town and gave me a glass of water and raspberry vinegar? That glass of
drink is refreshing to me still."
Again: "Tyndall, the sweetest reward of my work is the sympathy and
good-will which it has caused to flow in upon me from all quarters of
the world."
But to estimate rightly this amiability of character, it must
be distinctly remembered that it was not that superabundance of
good-nature which renders some men incapable of holding their own, or
rebuking what they know to be wrong. In proof of this his letters to
the spiritualists might be quoted; but the following have not hitherto
seen the light. They are addressed to two different parties whose
inventions came officially before him.
"You write 'private' on the outside of your official communication, and
'confidential' within. I will take care to respect these instructions
as far as falls within my duty; but I can have nothing private or
confidential _as regards the Trinity House_, which is my chief.
Whatever opinion I send to them I must accompany with the papers you
send me. If therefore you wish anything held back from them, send me
another official answer, and I will return you the one I have, marked
'confidential.' Our correspondence is indeed likely to become a little
irregular, because your papers have not come to me through the Trinity
House. You will feel that I cannot communicate any opinion I may form
to you: I am bound to the Trinity House, to whom I must communicate in
confidence. I have no objection to your knowing my conclusions; but the
_Trinity House_ is the fit judge of the use it may make of them, or
the degree of confidence they may think they deserve, or the parties to
whom they may choose to communicate them."
By a foot-note it appears that the _private and confidential_
communication was returned to the writer, by desire, four days
afterwards.
"SIR,
"I have received your note and read your pamphlet. There is nothing in
either which makes it at all desirable to me to see your apparatus,
for I have not time to spare to look at a matter two or three
times over. In referring to ----, I suppose you refer also to his
application to the Trinity House. In that case I shall hear from him
_through the Trinity House_. He has, however, certain inquiries (which
I have no doubt have gone to him long ago through the Trinity House)
to answer before I shall think it necessary to take any further steps
in the matter. With these, however, I suppose you have nothing to do.
"Are you aware that many years ago our Institution was lighted up
for months, if not for years together, by oil-gas (or, as you call
it, olefiant gas), compressed into cylinders to the extent of thirty
atmospheres, and brought to us from a distance? I have no idea that
the patent referred to at the bottom of page 9 could stand for an hour
in a court of law. I think, too, you are wrong in misapplying the
word _olefiant_. It already belongs to a particular gas, and cannot,
without confusion, be used as you use it.
"I am Sir,
"Your obedient Servant,
"M. FARADAY."
"SIR,
"Thanks for your letter. At the close of it you ask me _privately_ and
confidingly for the encouragement my opinion might give you if _this
power_ gas-light is fit for lighthouses. I am unable to assent to your
request, as my position at the Trinity House requires that I should be
able to take up any subject, applications, or documents they may bring
before me in a perfectly unbiassed condition of mind.
"I am, Sir,
"Yours very truly,
"M. FARADAY."
The kindliness which shed its genial radiance on every worthy object
around, glowed most warmly on the domestic hearth. Little expressions
in his writings often reveal it, as when we read in his Swiss journal
about Interlaken: "Clout-nail making goes on here rather considerably,
and is a very neat and pretty operation to observe. I love a smith's
shop, and anything relating to smithery. My father was a smith."
When he was sitting to Noble for his bust, it happened one day that
the sculptor, in giving the finishing touches to the marble, made
a clattering with his chisels: noticing that his sitter appeared
_distrait_, he said that he feared the jingling of the tools had
annoyed him, and that he was weary. "No, my dear Mr. Noble," said
Faraday, putting his hand on his shoulder, "but the noise reminded me
of my father's anvil, and took me back to my boyhood."
This deep affection peeps out constantly in his letters to different
members of his family, "bound up together," as he wrote to his
sister-in-law, "in the one hope, and in faith and love which is in
Jesus Christ." But it was towards his wife that his love glowed most
intensely. Yet how can we properly speak of this sacred relationship,
especially as the mourning widow is still amongst us? It may suffice
to catch the glimpse that is reflected in the following extract from a
letter he wrote to Mrs. Andrew Crosse on the death of her husband:--
"_July 12, 1855._
"... Believe that I sympathize with you most deeply, for I enjoy in my
life-partner those things which you speak of as making you feel your
loss so heavily.
"It is the kindly domestic affections, the worthiness, the mutual aid
in sorrow, the mutual joy in happiness that has existed, which makes
the rupture of such a tie as yours so heavy to bear; and yet you would
not wish it otherwise, for the remembrance of those things brings
solace with the grief. I speak, thinking what my own trouble would
be if I lost my partner; and I try to comfort you in the only way in
which I think I could be comforted.
"M. FARADAY."
There was, as Tyndall has observed, a mixture of chivalry with this
affection. In his book of diplomas he made the following remarkable
entry:--
"_25th January, 1847_.
"Amongst these records and events, I here insert the date of one
which, as a source of honour and happiness, far exceeds all the rest.
We were _married_ on June 12, 1821.
"M. FARADAY."
On the character of Faraday, these two qualities of reverence and
kindliness have appeared to me singularly influential. Among the ways
in which they manifested themselves was that beautiful combination of
firmness and gentleness which has been frequently remarked: intimately
associated with them also were his simplicity and truthfulness. These
points must have made themselves evident already, but they deserve
further illustration.
In his early days, "one Sabbath morning his swift and sober steps were
carrying him along the Holborn pavement towards his meeting-house, when
some small missile struck him smartly on the hat. He would have thought
it an accident and passed on, when a second and a third rap caused him
to turn and look just in time to perceive a face hastily withdrawn from
a window in the upper story of a closed linendraper's establishment.
Roused by the affront, he marched up to the door and rapped. The
servant opening it said there was no one at home, but Faraday declared
he knew better, and desired to be shown upstairs. Opposition still
being made, he pushed on, made his way up through the house, opened
the door of an upper room, discovering a party of young drapers'
assistants, who at once professed they knew nothing of the motive of
this sudden visit. But the hunter had now run his game to earth: he
taxed them sharply with their annoyance of wayfarers on the Sabbath,
and said that unless an apology were made at once, they should hear
from their employer of something much to their disadvantage. An apology
was made forthwith."[13]
Long, long after this event, Dr. and Mrs. Faraday, with Dr. Tyndall,
were returning one evening from Mr. Gassiot's, on Clapham Common: a
dense fog came on, and they did not know where they were. The two
gentlemen got out of their vehicle, and walked to a house and knocked.
A man appeared, first at a window and afterwards at the door, very
angry indeed at the disturbance, and demanded to know their business.
Faraday, in his calm, irresistible manner, explained the situation and
their object in knocking. The man instantly changed his tone, looked
foolish, and muttered something about being in a fright lest his house
of business was on fire.
As to simplicity of character: when, in the course of writing this
book, I have spoken to his acquaintances about Faraday, the most
frequent comment has been in such words as, "Oh! he was a beautiful
character, and so simple-minded." I have tried to ascertain the cause
of this simple-mindedness, and I believe it was the consciousness that
he was meaning to do right himself, and the belief that others whom
he addressed meant to do right too, and so he could just let them see
everything that was passing through his mind. And while he knew no
reason for concealment, there was no trace of self-conceit about him,
nor any pretence at being what he was not. To illustrate this quality
is not so easy; the indications of it, like his humour, were generally
too delicate to be transferred to paper; but perhaps the following
letter will do as well as anything else, for there are few philosophers
who could have written so naturally about the pleasures of a pantomime
and then about his highest hopes:--
"ROYAL INSTITUTION, LONDON, W.
"_1st January, 1857._
"MY DEAR MISS COUTTS,
"You are very kind to think of our pleasure and send us entrance to
your box for to-morrow night. We thank you very sincerely, and I mean
to enjoy it, for I still have a sympathy with children and all their
thoughts and pleasure. Permit me to wish you very sincerely a happy
year; and also to Mrs. Brown. With some of us our greatest happiness
will be content mingled with patience; but there is much happiness in
that and the expected end.
"Ever your obliged Servant,
"M. FARADAY."[14]
As to truthfulness: he was not only truthful in the common acceptation
of the word, but he did not allow, either in himself or others,
hasty conclusions, random assertions, or slippery logic. "At such
times he had a way of repeating the suspicious statement very slowly
and distinctly, with an air of wondering scrutiny as if it had
astonished him. His irony was then irresistible, and always produced a
modification of the objectionable phrase."
One Friday evening there was exhibited an improved Davy lamp, with an
eulogistic description. Faraday added the words, "The opinion of the
inventor."
"An acquaintance rather given to inflict tedious narratives on his
friends was descanting to Faraday on the iniquity of some coachman
who had set him down the previous night in the middle of a dark and
miry road,--'in fact,' said the irksome drawler, 'in a perfect morass;
and there I was, as you may imagine, half the night, plunging and
struggling to get out of this dreadful morass.' 'More ass you!' rapped
out the philosopher at the top of his scale of laughter." This was
a rare instance, for it was only when much provoked that he would
perpetrate a pun, or depart from the kind courtesy of his habitual talk.
That he was quite ready to give up a statement or view when it was
proved by others to be incorrect, is shown by the Preface to the
volumes in which are reprinted his "Experimental Researches." "In
giving advice," says his niece Miss Reid, "he always went back to first
principles, to the true right and wrong of questions, never allowing
deviations from the simple straightforward path of duty to be justified
by custom or precedent; and he judged himself strictly by the same rule
which he laid down for others."
These beauties of character were not marred by serious defects or
opposing faults. "He could not be too closely approached. There were
no shabby places or ugly comers in his mind." Yet he was very far from
being one of those passionless men who resemble a cold statue rather
than throbbing flesh and blood. He was no "model of all the virtues,"
dreadfully uninteresting, and discouraging to those who feel such calm
perfection out of their reach. His inner life was a battle, with its
wounds as well as its victory. Proud by nature, and quick-tempered,
he must have found the curb often necessary; but notwithstanding the
rapidity of his actions and thoughts, he knew how to keep a tight rein
on that fiery spirit.
I have listened attentively to every remark in disparagement of
Faraday's character, but the only serious ones have appeared to me
to arise from a misunderstanding of the man, a misunderstanding the
more easy because his standard of right and wrong, and of his own
duty, often differed from the notions current around him. Still, it
may be true that his extreme sensitiveness led him sometimes to do
scant justice to those who, he imagined, were treading too closely
in his own footsteps; as, for instance, when Nobili brought out some
beautiful experiments on magnetism, just after the short notice of his
own discoveries in 1831 which Faraday had sent to M. Hachette, and
which was communicated to the Académie des Sciences. It is true also
that, with his great caution and his repugnance to moral evil, he was
more disposed to turn away in disgust from an erring companion than to
endeavour to reclaim him. It has also been imputed to him as a fault
that he founded no school, and took no young man by the hand as Davy
had taken him. That this was rather his misfortune than his fault,
would appear from words he once wrote to Miss Moore: "I have often
endeavoured to discover a genius, but have not been very successful,
though many cases seemed promising at first." The world would doubtless
have been the gainer if he had stamped his own image on the minds
of a group of disciples: but a man cannot do everything; and had
Faraday been more of a teacher, he would perhaps have been less of an
investigator.
Of course Faraday was subject, like other men, to errors of judgment,
and it was impossible, even if desirable, always to avoid giving
offence. Thus he was constantly pestered for his autograph; and instead
of throwing the applications into his waste-paper basket, he had a
formal circular lithographed excusing himself from complying. This
offended more than one recipient; and he was roughly made aware of it
by once having the circular returned from St. Louis with a scurrilous
comment, and the postage from America not prepaid. He never again used
the printed form, Miss Barnard undertaking to answer all such requests.
It has been previously remarked that Faraday took little part in social
movements, and went little into society, but it must not be supposed
that he was by any means unsocial. It seems probable that his freedom
in this matter was somewhat hampered by the principles in which he had
been brought up: it is certain that he was restrained by the desire
to give all the time and energy he could to scientific research. Yet
pleasant stories are told of his occasional appearances at social
gatherings. Thus he liked to attend the Royal Academy dinners, and
in earlier days he enjoyed the artistic and musical _conversaziones_
at Hullmandel's, where Stanfield Turner and Landseer met Garcia and
Malibran; and sometimes he joined this pleasant company at supper and
charades, at others in their excursions up the river in an eight-oared
cutter. Captain Close has described to me how, when the French
Lighthouse authorities put up the screw-pile light on the sands near
Calais, they invited the Trinity House officers and Faraday to inspect
it. A dinner was arranged for them after the inspection, and M. Reynaud
proposed the health of the _étranger célèbre_. A young engineer took
exception to Faraday being called a stranger--since he had been at St.
Cyr he had known the great Englishman well by his works. The Professor
replied to the compliment in the language of his hosts, with a few
of his happy and kindly remarks. A gentleman high in the diplomatic
service, who was present, remarked that Faraday had said many things
which were not French, but not a word which ought not to be so.
More unrestricted was Faraday's sympathy with Nature. He felt the
poetry of the changing seasons, but there were two aspects of Nature
that especially seemed to claim communion with his spirit: he delighted
in a thunderstorm, and he experienced a pleasurable sadness as the
orange sunset faded into the evening twilight. There are other
minds to which both these sensations are familiar, but they seem to
have been felt with great intensity by him. No doubt his electrical
knowledge added much to his interest in the grand discharges from the
thunder-clouds, but it will hardly account for his standing long at a
window watching the vivid flashes, a stranger to fear, with his mind
full of lofty thoughts, or perhaps of high communings. Sometimes, too,
if the storm was at a little distance, he would summon a cab, and, in
spite of the pelting rain, drive to the scene of awful beauty.
On a clear starry night Captain Close quoted to him the words of
Lorenzo in the "Merchant of Venice:"--
... "Look, how the floor of heaven
Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold;
There's not the smallest orb, which thou behold'st,
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins;
Such harmony is in immortal souls;
But, whilst this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close us in, we cannot hear it."
Faraday, who happened not to be familiar with the passage, made his
friend repeat it over and over again as he drank in the whole meaning
of the poetry, for there is a true sense in which no other mortal had
ever opened his ears so fully to the harmony of the universe.
* * * * *
From the plains of mental mediocrity there occasionally rise the
mountains of genius, and from the dead level of selfish respectability
there stand out now and then the peaks of moral greatness. Neither
kind of excellence is so common as we could wish it, and it is a rare
coincidence when, as in Socrates, the two meet in the same individual.
In Faraday we have a modern instance. There are persons now living who
watched this man of strong will and intense feelings raising himself
from the lower ranks of society, yet without losing his balance; rather
growing in simplicity, disinterestedness, and humility, as princes
became his correspondents and all the learned bodies of the world vied
with each other to do him homage; still finding his greatest happiness
at home, though reigning in the affections of all his fellows,--loving
every honest man, however divergent in opinion, and loved most by those
who knew him best.
This is the phenomenon. By what theory is it to be accounted for?
The secret did not lie in the nature of his pursuits. This cannot
be better shown than in the following incident furnished me by Mrs.
Crosse:--"One morning, a few months after we were married, my husband
took me to the Royal Institution to call on Mr. and Mrs. Faraday. I had
not seen the laboratory there, and the philosopher very kindly took us
over the Institution, explaining for my information many objects of
interest. His great vivacity and cheeriness of manner surprised me in
a man who devoted his life to such abstruse studies, but I have since
learnt to know that the highest philosophical nature is often, indeed
generally, united with an almost childlike simplicity.
"After viewing the ample appliances for experimental research, and
feeling impressed by the scientific atmosphere of the place, I turned
and said, 'Mr. Faraday, you must be very happy in your position and
with your pursuits, which elevate you entirely out of the meaner
aspects and lower aims of common life.'
"He shook his head, and with that wonderful mobility of countenance
which was characteristic, his expression of joyousness changed to one
of profound sadness, he replied: 'When I quitted business, and took
to science as a career, I thought I had left behind me all the petty
meannesses and small jealousies which hinder man in his moral progress;
but I found myself raised into another sphere, only to find poor human
nature just the same everywhere--subject to the same weaknesses and the
same self-seeking, however exalted the intellect.'
"These were his words as well as I can recollect; and, looking at that
good and great man, I thought I had never seen a countenance which so
impressed me with the characteristic of perfect unworldliness. We know
how his life proved that this rare qualification was indeed his."
"Childlike simplicity:" "unworldliness." Where was the tree rooted
that bore such beautiful blossoms? Faraday had learnt in the school of
Christ to become "a little child," and he loved not the world because
the love of the Father was in him.
We have a charming glimpse of this in an extract which Professor
Tyndall has given from an old paper in which he wrote his impressions
after one of his earliest dinners with the philosopher:--"At two
o'clock he came down for me. He, his niece, and myself formed the
party. 'I never give dinners,' he said; 'I don't know how to give
dinners; and I never dine out. But I should not like my friends to
attribute this to a wrong cause. I act thus for the sake of securing
time for work, and not through religious motives as some imagine.' He
said grace. I am almost ashamed to call his prayer a 'saying' of grace.
In the language of Scripture, it might be described as the petition
of a son into whose heart God had sent the Spirit of His Son, and who
with absolute trust asked a blessing from his father. We dined on roast
beef, Yorkshire pudding, and potatoes, drank sherry, talked of research
and its requirements, and of his habit of keeping himself free from the
distractions of society. He was bright and joyful--boylike, in fact,
though he is now sixty-two. His work excites admiration, but contact
with him warms and elevates the heart. Here, surely, is a strong man.
I love strength, but let me not forget the example of its union with
modesty, tenderness, and sweetness, in the character of Faraday."
But his religion deserves a closer attention. When an errand-boy, we
find him hurrying the delivery of his newspapers on a Sunday morning
so as to get home in time to make himself neat to go with his parents
to chapel: his letters when abroad indicate the same disposition;
yet he did not make any formal profession of his faith till a month
after his marriage, when nearly thirty years of age. Of his spiritual
history up to that period little is known, but there seem to be good
grounds for believing that he did not accept the religion of his
fathers without a conscientious inquiry into its truth. It would be
difficult to conceive of his acting otherwise. But after he joined the
Sandemanian Church, his questionings were probably confined to matters
of practical duty; and to those who knew him best nothing could appear
stronger than his conviction of the reality of the things he believed.
In order to understand the life and character of Faraday, it is
necessary to bear in mind not merely that he was a Christian, but that
he was a Sandemanian. From his earliest years that religious system
stamped its impress deeply on his mind, it surrounded the blacksmith's
son with an atmosphere of unusual purity and refinement, it developed
the unselfishness of his nature, and in his after career it fenced his
life from the worldliness around, as well as from much that is esteemed
as good by other Christian bodies. To this small self-contained sect he
clung with warm attachment; he was precluded from Christian communion
or work outside their circle, but his sympathies at least burst all
narrow bounds. Thus the Abbé Moigno tells us that at Faraday's request
he one day introduced him to Cardinal Wiseman. The interview was very
cordial, and his Eminence did not hesitate frankly and good-naturedly
to ask Faraday if, in his deepest conviction, he believed all the
Church of Christ, holy, catholic, and apostolical, was shut up in
the little sect in which he bore rule. "Oh no!" was the reply; "but
I do believe from the bottom of my soul that Christ is with us."
There were other points, too, in his character which reflected the
colouring of the religious school to which he belonged. Thus, while
humility is inseparable from a Christian life, there is a special
phase of that virtue bred of those doctrines which teach that all our
righteousness must be the unmerited gift of another: these doctrines
are strongly insisted upon in the Sandemanian Church, and this humility
was acquired in an intense degree by its minister. Again, while all
Christians deplore the terrible amount of folly and sin in the world,
most recognize also a large amount of good, and believe in progressive
improvement; but small communities are apt to take gloomy views, and
so did Faraday, notwithstanding his personal happiness, and his firm
conviction that "there is One above who worketh in all things, and who
governs even in the midst of that misrule to which the tendencies and
powers of men are so easily perverted."
In writing to Professor Schönbein and a few other kindred spirits he
would turn naturally enough from scientific to religious thoughts,
and back again to natural philosophy, but he generally kept these two
departments of his mental activity strangely distinct; yet of course it
was well known that the Professor at Albemarle Street was one of that
long line of scientific men, beginning with the _savants_ of the East,
who have brought to the Redeemer the gold, frankincense, and myrrh of
their adoration.
But the peculiar features of Faraday's spiritual life are matters
of minor importance: the genuineness of his religious character is
acknowledged by all. We have admired his faithfulness, his amiability
of disposition, and his love of justice and truth; how far these
qualities were natural gifts, like his clearness of intellect, we
cannot precisely tell; but that he exercised constant self-control
without becoming hard, ascended the pathway of fame without ever losing
his balance, and shed around himself a peculiar halo of love and
joyousness, must be attributed in no small degree to a heart at peace
with God, and to the consciousness of a higher life.
FOOTNOTES:
[11] Bacon's "Novum Organum," i. 1.
[12] Bence Jones has used the Greek agapê; and it was just
this ideal of Christian love which Faraday set before himself.
[13] For this anecdote, and some others in inverted commas, I am
indebted to Mr. Frank Barnard.
[14] In another letter that Lady Burdett Coutts has kindly sent
me, Faraday says: "We had your box once before, I remember, for a
pantomime, which is always interesting to me because of the immense
concentration of means which it requires." In a third he makes admiring
comments on Fechter.
SECTION III.
FRUITS OF HIS EXPERIENCE.
Those who loved Faraday would treasure every word that he wrote, and to
them the life and letters which Bence Jones has given to the world will
be inestimable; but from the multitude who knew him only at a distance,
we can expect no enthusiasm of admiration. Yet all will readily believe
that through the writings of such a genius there must be scattered
nuggets of intellectual gold, even when he is not treating directly of
scientific subjects. Some of these relate to questions of permanent
interest, and such nuggets it is my aim to separate and lay before the
reader.
When quite a young man he drew the following ideal portrait:--"The
philosopher should be a man willing to listen to every suggestion,
but determined to judge for himself. He should not be biassed by
appearances, have no favourite hypothesis, be of no school, and in
doctrine have no master. He should not be a respecter of persons, but
of things. Truth should be his primary object. If to these qualities
be added industry, he may indeed hope to walk within the veil of the
temple of Nature." This ideal he must steadily have kept before
him, and not unfrequently in after days he gave utterance to similar
thoughts. Here are two instances, the first from a lecture thirty
years afterwards, the second from a private letter:--"We may be _sure_
of facts, but our interpretation of facts we should doubt. He is
the wisest philosopher who holds his theory with some doubt; who is
able to proportion his judgment and confidence to the value of the
evidence set before him, taking a fact for a fact, and a supposition
for a supposition; as much as possible keeping his mind free from all
source of prejudice, or, where he cannot do this (as in the case of a
theory), remembering that such a source is there." The letter is to Mr.
Frederick Field, and relates to a paper on the existence of silver in
the water of the ocean.
"ROYAL INSTITUTION, _21st October, 1856_.
"MY DEAR SIR,
"Your paper looks so well, that though I am of course unable to become
security for the facts, I have still thought it my duty to send it
to the Royal Society. Whether it will appear there or not I cannot
say,--no one can say even for his own papers; but for my part, I
think that as facts are the foundation of science, however they may
be interpreted, so they are most valuable, and often more so than the
interpretations founded upon them. I hope your further researches will
confirm those you have obtained: but I would not be too hasty with
them,--rather wait a while, and make them quite secure.
"I am, Sir, your obliged Servant,
"M. FARADAY."
How pleasant it would have been to peep into his mind and watch the
process by which he was transformed into the very image of his ideal
philosopher! He has partially told us the secret in two remarkable
lectures, one of which was delivered before the City Philosophical
Society when he was only twenty-seven years of age, while the other
formed part of a series on Education at Albemarle Street. Copious
extracts from the first are given by Dr. Bence Jones; the second was
published at the time. In the early lecture, which is "On the Forms of
Matter," he points out the advantages and dangers of systematizing, and
winds up his remarks with--
"Nothing is more difficult and requires more care than philosophical
deduction, nor is there anything more adverse to its accuracy than
fixidity of opinion. The man who is certain he is right is almost
sure to be wrong, and he has the additional misfortune of inevitably
remaining so. All our theories are fixed upon uncertain data, and all
of them want alteration and support. Ever since the world began opinion
has changed with the progress of things; and it is something more than
absurd to suppose that we have a sure claim to perfection, or that we
are in possession of the highest stretch of intellect which has or can
result from human thought. Why our successors should not displace us
in our opinions, as well as in our persons, it is difficult to say; it
ever has been so, and from analogy would be supposed to continue so;
and yet, with all this practical evidence of the fallibility of our
opinions, all, and none more than philosophers, are ready to assert the
real truth of their opinions."
In his discourse entitled "Observations on Mental Education,"
like a skilful physician he first determines what is the great
intellectual disease from which the community suffers--"deficiency
of judgment,"--and then he lays down rules by which each man may
attempt his own cure. For this self-education, "it is necessary that
a man examine himself, and that not carelessly.... A first result of
this habit of mind will be an internal conviction of _ignorance in
many things respecting which his neighbours are taught_, and that his
opinions and conclusions on such matters ought to be advanced with
reservation. A mind so disciplined will be _open to correction upon
good grounds in all things_, even in those it is best acquainted with;
and should familiarize itself with the idea of such being the case....
It is right that we should stand by and act on our principles, but
not right to hold them in obstinate blindness, or retain them when
proved to be erroneous." And then he gives cases from his own mental
history:--"I remember the time when I believed a spark was produced
between voltaic metals as they approached to contact (and the reasons
why it might be possible yet remain); but others doubted the fact and
denied the proofs, and on re-examination I found reason to admit their
corrections were well founded. Years ago I believed that electrolites
could conduct electricity by a conduction proper; that has also been
denied by many through long time: though I believed myself right, yet
circumstances have induced me to pay that respect to criticism as
to re-investigate the subject, and I have the pleasure of thinking
that nature confirms my original conclusions. So, though evidence may
appear to preponderate extremely in favour of a certain decision, it
is wise and proper to hear a counter-statement. You can have no idea
how often, and how much, under such an impression, I have desired that
the marvellous descriptions which have reached me might prove, in some
points, correct; and how frequently I have submitted myself to hot
fires, to friction with magnets, to the passes of hands, &c., lest I
should be shutting out discovery;--encouraging the strong desire that
something might be true, and that I might aid in the development of
a new force of nature." He turns then to another evil, and its cure:
"The _tendency to deceive ourselves_ regarding all we wish for, and
the necessity of _resistance to these desires_; ... the force of the
temptation which urges us to seek for such evidence and appearances as
are in favour of our desires, and to disregard those which oppose them,
is wonderfully great. In this respect we are all, more or less, active
promoters of error." He winds up his remarks upon this subject with the
italicized sentence: "I will simply express my strong belief that that
point of self-education which consists in teaching the mind to resist
its desires and inclinations until they are proved to be right, is the
most important of all, not only in things of natural philosophy, but
in every department of daily life." He turns then to the necessity of
a "habit of forming clear and precise ideas," and of expressing them
in "clear and definite language:"--"When the different data required
are in our possession, and we have succeeded in forming a clear idea
of each, the mind should be instructed to _balance them_ one against
another, and not suffered carelessly to hasten to a conclusion." "As a
result of this wholesome mental condition, we should be able to form a
_proportionate judgment_;" that is, one proportionate to the evidence,
ranging through all degrees of probability--while he adds: "Frequently
the exercise of the judgment ought to end in _absolute reservation_."
"The education which I advocate," says Faraday, "will require
_patience_ and _labour of thought_ in every exercise tending to
improve the judgment. It matters not on what subject a person's mind
is occupied; he should engage in it with the conviction that it will
require mental labour." "Because the education is internal, it is not
the less needful; nor is it more the duty of a man that he should cause
his child to be taught, than that he should teach himself. Indolence
may tempt him to neglect the self-examination and experience which
form his school, and weariness may induce the evasion of the necessary
practices; but surely a thought of the prize should suffice to
stimulate him to the requisite exertion; and to those who reflect upon
the many hours and days devoted by a lover of sweet sounds to gain a
moderate facility upon a mere mechanical instrument, it ought to bring
a correcting blush of shame if they feel convicted of neglecting the
beautiful living instrument wherein play all the powers of the mind."
At the commencement of this discourse the lecturer felt called upon
to limit the range of his remarks:--"High as man is placed above the
creatures around him, there is a higher and far more exalted position
within his view; and the ways are infinite in which he occupies his
thoughts about the fears, or hopes, or expectations of a future life.
I believe that the truth of that future cannot be brought to his
knowledge by any exertion of his mental powers, however exalted they
may be; that it is made known to him by other teaching than his own,
and is received through simple belief of the testimony given. Let no
one suppose for a moment that the self-education I am about to commend
in respect of the things of this life extends to any considerations
of the hope set before us, as if man by reasoning could find out God.
It would be improper here to enter upon this subject further than to
claim an absolute distinction between religious and ordinary belief.
I shall be reproached with the weakness of refusing to apply those
mental operations which I think good in respect of high things to the
very highest. I am content to bear the reproach. Yet, even in earthly
matters, I believe that 'the invisible things of Him from the creation
of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that
are made, even His eternal power and Godhead;' and I have never seen
anything incompatible between those things of man which can be known
by the spirit of man which is within him, and those higher things
concerning his future which he cannot know by that spirit." There is of
course a certain truth in this passage; spiritual discernment is a real
thing possessed by some, and not by others; yet is there this absolute
distinction between religious and ordinary belief? Surely there is
the same opportunity and the same necessity for careful judgment, and
for resistance to prejudice or preference, when we are weighing the
credentials of anything that may come before us purporting to be a
revelation from above; surely too, if we have satisfied ourselves that
we possess such a revelation, we must seek for the same clearness of
ideas, and must exercise the same patience and labour of thought, if
we would understand it aright. That mental discipline which fits us
to interpret the works of God cannot but be akin to the intellectual
training required for interpreting His word.
Since Faraday thought and wrote, the question of public education has
taken a far deeper hold on the feelings and the hopes of the nation,
and it is not merely the extent of the instruction, but its nature
also, that is discussed. It is held to be no longer right that the
minds of our youth should be fed almost exclusively on the dry husks
of classic or mediæval knowledge, while the rich banquet of modern
discovery remains untasted. Yet it is hard for natural science to
gain an honoured place in our venerable scholastic institutions.
Faraday, however, had long formed his conclusions on this subject. In
one of his Friday evening discourses he says: "The development of the
applications of physical science in modern times has become so large
and so essential to the well-being of man, that it may justly be used
as illustrating the true character of pure science as a department of
knowledge, and the claims it may have for consideration by Governments,
Universities, and all bodies to whom is confided the fostering care
and direction of learning. As a branch of learning, men are beginning
to recognize the right of science to its own particular place; for,
though flowing in channels utterly different in their course and
end from those of literature, it conduces not less, as a means of
instruction, to the discipline of the mind, whilst it ministers, more
or less, to the wants, comforts, and proper pleasure, both mental and
bodily, of every individual of every class in life. Until of late
years, the education for, and recognition of it by the bodies which
may be considered as governing the general course of all education,
have been chiefly directed to it only as it could serve professional
services, viz. those which are remunerated by society; but now the
fitness of university degrees in science is under consideration, and
many are taking a high view of it, as distinguished from literature,
and think that it may well be studied for its own sake, _i.e._ as a
proper exercise of the human intelligence, able to bring into action
and development all the powers of the mind. As a branch of learning,
it has (without reference to its applications) become as extensive and
varied as literature; and it has this privilege, that it must ever go
on increasing."
On the subject of scientific education Faraday was examined by the
Public Schools Commission, November 18th, 1862, and his sentiments
of course appear in their report. He said to them: "That the natural
knowledge which has been given to the world in such abundance during
the last fifty years should remain untouched, and that no sufficient
attempt should be made to convey it to the young mind growing up
and obtaining its first views of those things, is to me a matter so
strange that I find it difficult to understand. Though I think I see
the opposition breaking away, it is yet a very hard one to overcome.
That it ought to be overcome I have not the least doubt in the world."
Lord Clarendon asked him: "You think it is now knocking at the door,
and there is a prospect of the door being opened?" "Yes," answered
Faraday, "and it will make its way, or we shall stay behind other
nations in our mode of education." He had been led to the conviction
that the exclusive attention to literary studies created a tendency to
regard other things as nonsense, or belonging only to the artisan, and
so the mind is positively injured for the reception of real knowledge.
He says: "It is the highly educated man that we find coming to us
again and again, and asking the most simple question in chemistry or
mechanics; and when we speak of such things as the conservation of
force, the permanency of matter, and the unchangeability of the laws of
nature, they are far from comprehending them, though they have relation
to us in every action of our lives. Many of these instructed persons
are as far from having the power of judging of these things as if their
minds had never been trained."
He gives his own opinion as to the precise course to be pursued with
great diffidence; but it is evident that he would begin the education
in natural science at a pretty early age, and in all cases carry it
up to a certain point. One-fifth of a boy's time might be devoted to
this purpose at present, though in less than half a century he thinks
science will deserve and obtain a far larger share. Supposing a boy of
eleven years of age and of ordinary intelligence at one of our public
schools: "I would teach him," he says, "all those things that come
before classics in the programme of the London University,--mechanics,
hydrostatics, hydraulics, pneumatics, acoustics, and optics. They
are very simple and easily understood when they are looked at with
attention by both man and boy. With a candle, a lamp, and a lens or
two, an intelligent instructor might teach optics in a very short
time; and so with chemistry. I should desire all these." Much would
depend on the competency and earnestness of the teacher. "Good lectures
might do a great deal. They would at all events remove the absolute
ignorance which sometimes now appears, but would give a very poor
knowledge of natural things."
Perhaps these opinions of one whose lips are now silent will yet have
their weight in the discussion of this question both in our highest
seats of learning and in those educational parliaments which have been
lately called into existence in almost every town and district of our
country.
From the somewhat disparaging remarks about lectures quoted above, it
must not be supposed that this prince of lecturers depreciated his
office. "Lectures," he said, "depend entirely for their value upon the
manner in which they are given. It is not the matter, it is not the
subject, so much as the man; but if he is not competent, and does not
feel that there is a need of competency, to convey his ideas gently and
quietly and simply to the young mind, he simply throws up obstacles,
and will be found using words which they will not comprehend." These
were the words of his later days, but fortunately he felt "the need
of competency" before his own habits were formed, and in four letters
to Abbott we find wonderfully sagacious observations on the matter,
which it would be well for any young lecturer to study. He describes
the proper arrangement of a lecture-room, dwelling on the necessity
of good ventilation; and then, having considered the fittest subjects
for popular lectures, he turns to the character of the audience, and
shows how that must be studied; for some expect to be entertained by
the manner of the lecturer as well as his subject, while others care
for something which will instruct. He dwells on the superiority of the
eye over the ear as a channel of knowledge, and lays down some rules
for this kind of instruction, which he of all men subsequently carried
out to perfection. "Apparatus is an essential part of every lecture in
which it can be introduced.... Diagrams and tables, too, are necessary,
or at least add in an eminent degree to the illustration and perfection
of a lecture. When an experimental lecture is to be delivered, and
apparatus is to be exhibited, some kind of order should be observed in
the arrangement of them on the lecture table. Every particular part
illustrative of the lecture should be in view; no one thing should hide
another from the audience, nor should anything stand in the way of or
obstruct the lecturer. They should be so placed, too, as to produce a
kind of uniformity in appearance. No one part should appear naked and
another crowded, unless some particular reason exists and makes it
necessary to be so. At the same time the whole should be so arranged as
to keep one operation from interfering with another." A good delivery
comes in for its share of praise; "for though to all true philosophers
science and nature will have charms innumerable in every dress, yet I
am sorry to say that the generality of mankind cannot accompany us one
short hour unless the path is strewed with flowers." Then, "a lecturer
should appear easy and collected, undaunted and unconcerned, his
thoughts about him, and his mind clear and free for the contemplation
and description of his subject. His action should not be hasty and
violent, but slow, easy, and natural, consisting principally in
changes of the posture of the body, in order to avoid the air of
stiffness or sameness that would otherwise be unavoidable. His whole
behaviour should evince respect for his audience, and he should in
no case forget that he is in their presence." He allows a lecturer
to prepare his discourse in writing, but not to read it before the
audience, and points out how necessary it is "to raise their interest
at the commencement of the lecture, and by a series of imperceptible
gradations, unnoticed by the company, keep it alive as long as the
subject demands it." This of course forbids breaks in the argument,
or digressions foreign to the main purpose, and limits the length of
the lecture to a period during which the listeners can pay unwearied
attention. He castigates those speakers who descend so low as "to angle
for claps," or who throw out hints for commendation, and shows that
apologies should be made as seldom as possible. Experiments should
be to the point, clear, and easily understood: "they should rather
approach to simplicity, and explain the established principles of the
subject, than be elaborate and apply to minute phenomena only.... 'Tis
well, too, when the lecturer has the ready wit and the presence of mind
to turn any casual circumstance to an illustration of his subject."
But experiments should be explained by a satisfactory theory; or if
the scientific world is divided in opinion, both sides of the question
ought to be stated with the strongest arguments for each, that justice
may be done and honour satisfied.
Often in later days was his experience in lecturing made use of for
the benefit of others. "If," he once remarked to a young lecturer, "I
said to my audience, 'This stone will fall to the ground if I open my
hand,' I should open my hand and let it fall. Take nothing for granted
as known; inform the eye at the same time as you address the ear." I
remember him once giving me hints on the laying of the lecture table at
the Institution, and telling me that where possible he was accustomed
to arrange the apparatus in such a way as to suggest the order of the
experiments. An incident told me by Dr. Carpenter will illustrate some
of the foregoing points. The first time he heard Faraday lecture at
the Royal Institution, the Professor was explaining the researches
of Melloni on radiant heat. During the discourse he touched on the
refraction and polarization of heat; and to explain refraction he
showed the simple experiment of fixing some coloured wafers at the
bottom of a basin, and then pouring in water so as to make them
apparently rise. Dr. Carpenter, who had come up from Bristol with grand
ideas of the lectures at Albemarle Street, wondered greatly at the
introduction of so commonplace an experiment. Of course there were many
other illustrations, and beautiful ones too. He went down, however,
after the lecture, to the table, and among the crowd chatting there was
an old gentleman who remarked, "I think the best experiment to-night
was that of the wafers in the basin."
When a young lecturer, Faraday took lessons in elocution from Mr.
Smart, and was at great pains to cure himself of any defect of
pronunciation or manner; for this purpose he would get a friendly
critic to form part of his audience. On the fly-leaves of many of the
notes of his lectures are written the reminders--"Stand up"--"Don't
talk quick." Indeed, in early days it was so much a matter of anxiety
to him that everything in his lectures should be as perfect as
possible, that he not only was accustomed to go over everything again
and again in his mind, but the difficulty of satisfying himself used
to trouble his dreams. I was told this, if I am not mistaken, by
himself; and it goes far to explain how his discourses possessed such a
fascination.
Some of his feelings in regard to lecturing may be learnt from
the following particulars, for which I am indebted to Mr. Charles
Tomlinson. They relate to a course of lectures he delivered in 1849 on
Statical Electricity. The first lecture began thus:--"Time moves on,
and brings changes to ourselves as well as to science. I feel that I
must soon resign into the hands of my successors the position which
I now occupy at this table. Indeed, I have long felt how much rather
I would sit among you and be instructed than stand here and attempt
to instruct. I have always felt my position in this Institution as a
very strange one. Coming after such a man as Davy, and associated with
such a man as Brande, and having had to make a position for myself, I
have always felt myself here in a strange position. You will wonder
why I make these remarks. It is not from any affectation of modesty
that I do so, but I feel that loss of memory may soon incapacitate me
altogether for my duties. Without, however, troubling you more about
myself, let us proceed to the subject before us, and fall back upon
the beginnings of the wonderful science of electricity. I shall have
to trouble you with very little of theory. The facts are so wonderful
that I shall not attempt to explain them." At the second lecture,
"Faraday advanced to the table at three o'clock, and began to apologize
for an obstruction of voice, which indeed was painfully evident. He
said that, 'in an engagement where the contracting parties were one
and many, the one ought not on any slight ground to break his part of
the engagement with the many, and therefore, if the audience would
excuse his imperfect utterance, he would endeavour--' Murmurs arose:
'Put off the lecture.' Faraday begged to be allowed to go on. A medical
man then rose and said he had given it as his opinion that it would be
dangerous to Dr. Faraday to proceed. Faraday again urged his wish to
proceed--said it was giving so much trouble to the ladies, who had sent
away their carriages, and perhaps put off other engagements. On this
the whole audience rose as by a single impulse, and a number of persons
surrounded Faraday, who now yielded to the general desire to spare him
the pain and inconvenience of lecturing." A fortnight elapsed before
he could again make his appearance, but he continued his course later
than usual, in order not to deprive his audience of any of the eight
lectures he had undertaken to give them. Prince Albert came to one of
these extra lectures.
Faraday's opinion as to the honours due to scientific men from society
or from Government, may be gathered from the following extract from
a letter written me by his private friend Mr. Blaikley:--"On one
occasion, when making some remark in reference to a movement on behalf
of science, I inadvertently spoke of the proper honour due to science.
He at once remarked, 'I am not one who considers that science can be
honoured.' I at once saw the point. His views of the grandeur of truth,
when once apprehended, raised it far beyond any honour that man could
give it; but man might honour himself by respecting and acknowledging
it."
Professor George Wilson, of Edinburgh, has thus described his first
visit to the philosopher: "Faraday was very kind, showed me his whole
laboratory with labours going on, and talked frankly and kindly; but to
the usual question of something to do, gave the usual round O answer,
and treated me to a just, but not very cheering animadversion on the
Government of this country, which, unlike that of every other civilized
country, will give no help to scientific inquiry, and will afford no
aid or means of study for young chemists."
"Take care of your money," was his advice to Mr. Joule, then another
young aspirant to scientific honours, but who has since rendered the
highest service to science, without leaning on any hopes of Government
help or public support.
But the impressions given in conversation may not be always correct.
Happily there exist his written opinions on this subject. In a letter
addressed to Professor Andrews of Belfast, and dated 2nd February,
1843, there occurs this passage:--"As to the particular point of your
letter about which you honour me by asking my advice, I have no advice
to give; but I have a strong feeling in the matter, and will tell you
what I should do. I have always felt that there is something degrading
in offering rewards for intellectual exertion, and that societies or
academies, or even Kings and Emperors, should mingle in the matter
does not remove the degradation, for the feeling which is hurt is a
point above their condition, and belongs to the respect which a man
owes to himself. With this feeling, I have never since I was a boy
aimed at any such prize; or even if, as in your case, they came near
me, have allowed them to move me from my course; and I have always
contended that such rewards will never move the men who are most worthy
of reward. Still, I think rewards and honours _good_ if properly
distributed, but they should be given for what a man has done, and
not offered for what he is to do, or else talent must be considered
as a thing marketable and to be bought and sold, and then down falls
that high tone of mind which is the best excitement to a man of power,
and will make him do more than any commonplace reward. When a man is
rewarded for his deserts, he honours those who grant the reward, and
they give it not as a moving impulse to him, but to all those who by
the reward are led to look to that man for an example."
Eleven years afterwards Faraday expressed similar views, but more
fully, in a letter to the late Lord Wrottesley as chairman of the
Parliamentary Committee of the British Association:--
"ROYAL INSTITUTION, _March 10th, 1854_.
"MY LORD,
"I feel unfit to give a deliberate opinion on the course it might be
advisable for the Government to pursue if it were anxious to improve
the position of science and its cultivators in our country. My course
of life, and the circumstances which make it a happy one for me, are
not those of persons who conform to the usages and habits of society.
Through the kindness of all, from my Sovereign downwards, I have that
which supplies all my need; and in respect of honours, I have, as a
scientific man, received from foreign countries and Sovereigns, those
which, belonging to very limited and select classes, surpass in my
opinion anything that it is in the power of my own to bestow.
"I cannot say that I have not valued such distinctions; on the
contrary, I esteem them very highly, but I do not think I have ever
worked for or sought after them. Even were such to be now created
here, the time is past when these would possess any attraction for
me; and you will see therefore how unfit I am, upon the strength of
any personal motive or feeling, to judge of what might be influential
upon the minds of others. Nevertheless, I will make one or two remarks
which have often occurred to my mind.
"Without thinking of the effect it might have upon distinguished men
of science, or upon the minds of those who, stimulated to exertion,
might become distinguished, I do think that a Government should
_for its own sake_ honour the men who do honour and service to the
country. I refer now to honours only, not to beneficial rewards; of
such honours I think there are none. Knighthoods and baronetcies are
sometimes conferred with such intentions, but I think them utterly
unfit for that purpose. Instead of conferring distinction, they
confound the man who is one of twenty, or perhaps fifty, with hundreds
of others. They depress rather than exalt him, for they tend to lower
the especial distinction of mind to the commonplaces of society. An
intelligent country ought to recognize the scientific men among its
people as a class. If honours are conferred upon eminence in any
class, as that of the law or the army, they should be in this also.
The aristocracy of the class should have other distinctions than those
of lowly and high-born, rich and poor, yet they should be such as to
be worthy of those whom the Sovereign and the country should delight
to honour, and, being rendered very desirable and even enviable in
the eyes of the aristocracy by birth, should be unattainable except
to that of science. Thus much I think the Government and the country
ought to do, for their own sake and the good of science, more than for
the sake of the men who might be thought worthy of such distinction.
The latter have attained to their fit place, whether the community at
large recognize it or not.
"But besides that, and as a matter of reward and encouragement to
those who have not yet risen to great distinction, I think the
Government should, in the very many cases which come before it having
a relation to scientific knowledge, employ men who pursue science,
provided they are also men of business. This is perhaps now done to
some extent, but to nothing like the degree which is practicable with
advantage to all parties. The right means cannot have occurred to a
Government which has not yet learned to approach and distinguish the
class as a whole. * * *
"I have the honour to be, my Lord,
"Your very faithful Servant,
"M. FARADAY."
Sometimes people's views on these matters change when the despised
distinction is actually offered, but it was not so with him; for once,
when indirectly sounded as to whether a knighthood would be acceptable,
he declined the honour, preferring to "remain plain Michael Faraday to
the last."
In this day, when so many allow their names to be used for offices of
which they never intended to discharge the duties, the following letter
may convey an appropriate lesson:--
"ROYAL INSTITUTION, _Oct. 17th, 1849_.
"MY DEAR PERCY,
"I cannot be on the committee; I avoid everything of that kind, that I
may keep my stupid mind a little clear. As to being on a committee and
not working, that is worse still. * * *
"Ever yours and Mrs. Percy's,
"M. FARADAY."
It is well known that he waged implacable war with the Spiritualists.
Eighteen years ago tables took to spinning mysteriously under the
fingers of ladies and gentlemen who sat or stood around the animated
furniture; much was said about a new force, much too about strange
revelations from another sphere, but Faraday made a simple apparatus
which convinced him and most others that the tables moved through
the unconscious pressure of the hands that touched them. The account
of this will be found in the _Athenæum_ of July 2, 1853. Three weeks
afterwards he wrote to his friend Schönbein: "I have not been at work
except in turning the tables upon the table-turners, nor should I
have done that, but that so many inquiries poured in upon me, that
I thought it better to stop the inpouring flood by letting all know
at once what my views and thoughts were. What a weak, credulous,
incredulous, unbelieving, superstitious, bold, frightened,--what a
ridiculous world ours is, as far as concerns the mind of man! How
full of inconsistencies, contradictions, and absurdities it is!" But
the believers in these occult phenomena, some of them holding high
positions about the Court, would not let him alone; and there are
many indications of the annoyance and irritation they caused him.
He declined to meet the professors of the mysterious art, and the
following letter will serve to show the way in which he regarded them:--
"ROYAL INSTITUTION, _Nov. 1, 1864_.
"SIR,
"I beg to thank you for your papers, but have wasted more thought and
time on so-called spiritual manifestation than it has deserved. Unless
the spirits are utterly contemptible, _they_ will find means to draw
my attention.
"How is it that your name is not signed to the testimony that you
give? Are you doubtful even whilst you publish? I've no evidence that
any natural or unnatural power is concerned in the phenomena that
requires investigation or deserves it. If I could consult the spirits,
or move them to make themselves honestly manifest, I would do it. But
I cannot, and am weary of them.
"I am, Sir, your obedient Servant,
"M. FARADAY."
There was once a strange statement put forth to the effect that Faraday
said electricity was life.[15] He himself denied it indignantly; but
as most falsehoods are perversions of some truth, this one probably
originated in his experiments on the Gymnotus. He felt an intense
interest in those marine animals that give shocks, and sought "to
identify the living power which they possess, with that which man can
call into action from inert matter, and by him named electricity."[16]
The most powerful of these is the Gymnotus, or electrical eel, and a
live specimen of this creature, forty inches long, was secured by the
Adelaide Gallery--a predecessor of the Polytechnic--in the summer of
1838. Four days after its arrival the poor creature lost an eye; for
two months it could not be coaxed to eat either meat or fish, worms or
frogs; but at last one day it killed and devoured four small fishes,
and afterwards swallowed about a fish per diem. It was accustomed to
swim round and round the tank, till a live fish was dropped in, when in
some cases bending round its victim, it would discharge a shock that
made the fish float on its back stunned and ready to be sucked into the
jaws of its assailant.
Faraday examined this eel and the water around it, both with his hands
and with special collectors of electricity, and satisfied himself not
merely of the shock, which was easy enough, but of its power to deflect
a galvanometer, to make a magnet, to effect chemical decomposition, and
to give a spark. His account of the experiments terminates with some
speculations on the connection of this animal electricity with nervous
power; but there the matter rested. His own views were thus expressed
to his friend Dumas:--"As living creatures produce heat, and a heat
certainly identical with that of our hearths, why should they not
produce electricity also, and an electricity in like manner identical
with that of our machines? But if the heat produced during life, and
necessary to life, is not life after all, why should electricity itself
be life? Like heat, like chemical action, electricity is an implement
of life, and nothing more."
Whether the belief that electricity is life would be inconsistent
with the Christian faith or not, it is clear that when an infidel
preacher asserts that Faraday held such an opinion, his assertion will
influence few who are not already disposed to Materialism. Far more
damaging is it to the cause of religion when her ministers repeat the
assumption of the infidel that those who study the truths of nature
are particularly prone to disbelieve. Yet such statements have been
made, even with reference to Faraday. I have it on the best authority
that one of the leading clergymen of the day, preaching on a special
occasion from Peter's words, "The elements shall melt with fervent
heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned
up," spoke in antagonism to scientific men, alluding to Faraday by
name, and to his computation of the tremendous electrical forces that
would be produced by sundering the elements of one drop of water. "They
shall be confuted by their own element--fire," added the preacher,
careless of the conclusion which his audience might legitimately draw
from such a two-edged argument. The accuser of the men of science was
much astonished when told after his sermon, by a brother clergyman,
that Faraday and other eminent physicists of the day were believers in
a divine revelation.
It may be doubted whether Faraday ever tried to form a definite idea
of the relation in which the physical forces stand to the Supreme
Intelligence, as Newton did, or his own friend Sir John Herschel;
nor did he consider it part of his duty as a lecturer to look beyond
the natural laws he was describing. His practice in this respect has
been well described by the Rev. Professor Pritchard:[17]--"This great
and good man never obtruded the strength of his faith upon those whom
he publicly addressed; upon principle he was habitually reticent on
such topics, because he believed they were ill suited for the ordinary
assemblages of men. Yet on more than one occasion when he had been
discoursing on some of the magnificent pre-arrangements of Divine
Providence so lavishly scattered in nature, I have seen him struggle to
repress the emotion which was visibly striving for utterance; and then,
at the last, with one single far-reaching word, he would just hint at
his meaning rather than express it. On such occasions he only who had
ears to hear, could hear."
In his more familiar lectures to the cadets at Woolwich, however, he
more than hinted at such elevated thoughts. In conversation, too,
Faraday has been known to express his wonder that anyone should fail
to recognize the constant traces of design; and in his writings there
sometimes occur such passages as the following:--"When I consider the
multitude of associated forces which are diffused through nature--when
I think of that calm and tranquil balancing of their energies which
enables elements most powerful in themselves, most destructive to the
world's creatures and economy, to dwell associated together and be made
subservient to the wants of creation, I rise from the contemplation
more than ever impressed with the wisdom, the beneficence, and
grandeur beyond our language to express, of the Great Disposer of all!"
Faraday's journals abound with descriptions of "nature and human
nature." He had evidently a keen eye for the beauties of scenery, and
occasionally the objects around him suggested higher thoughts. Here are
two instances taken from his notes of a Swiss tour in 1841:--
"_Monday, 19th._--Very fine day; walk with dear Sarah on the lake side
to Oberhofen, through the beautiful vineyards; very busy were the
women and men in trimming the vines, stripping off leaves and tendrils
from the fruit-bearing branches. The churchyard was beautiful, and the
simplicity of the little remembrance-posts set upon the graves very
pleasant. One who had been too poor to put up an engraved brass plate,
or even a painted board, had written with ink on paper the birth and
death of the being whose remains were below, and this had been fastened
to a board, and mounted on the top of a stick at the head of the
grave, the paper being protected by a little edge and roof. Such was
the simple remembrance, but Nature had added her pathos, for under the
shelter by the writing a caterpillar had fastened itself, and passed
into its deathlike state of chrysalis, and, having ultimately assumed
its final state, it had winged its way from the spot, and ha
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