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Title: Michael Faraday, His Life and Work

Author: Silvanus P. Thompson

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THE CENTURY SCIENCE SERIES
Edited by SIR HENRY E. ROSCOE, D.C.L., LL.D., F.R.S.

MICHAEL FARADAY
HIS LIFE AND WORK

The Century Science Series.
Edited by Sir HENRY ROSCOE, D.C.L., F.R.S.
3s. 6d. each.

Pasteur.
By Percy Frankland, Ph.D.(Würzburg), B.Sc. (Lond.),
F.R.S., and Mrs. Percy Frankland.
Humphry Davy, Poet and Philosopher.
By T. E. Thorpe, LL.D., F.R.S.
Charles Darwin and the Theory of Natural Selection.
By Edward B. Poulton, M.A., F.R.S.
John Dalton and the Rise of Modern Chemistry.
By Sir Henry E. Roscoe, F.R.S.
Major Rennell, F.R.S., and the Rise of English Geography.
By Sir Clements R. Markham, C.B., F.R.S.
Justus von Liebig: his Life and Work (1803–1873).
By W. A. Shenstone, F.I.C., Lecturer on Chemistry in
Clifton College.
The Herschels and Modern Astronomy.
By Agnes M. Clerke.
Charles Lyell and Modern Geology.
By Professor T. G. Bonney, F.R.S.

J. Clerk Maxwell and Modern Physics.
By R. T. Glazebrook, F.R.S.

Michael Faraday: his Life and Work.
By Prof. Silvanus P. Thompson, F.R.S. 5s.

CASSELL & COMPANY, Limited, London; Paris, New York &
Melbourne.

Ever Yours Truly
M Faraday

THE CENTURY SCIENCE SERIES

MICHAEL FARADAY

HIS LIFE AND WORK

BY

SILVANUS P. THOMPSON, D.Sc., F.R.S.
Principal of and Professor of Physics in the City and Guilds
of London Technical College, Finsbury

CASSELL and COMPANY, Limited
LONDON, PARIS, NEW YORK & MELBOURNE
1898
[ALL RIGHTS RESERVED]

ON A PORTRAIT OF FARADAY.

Was ever man so simple and so sage,
So crowned and yet so careless of a prize!
Great Faraday, who made the world so wise,
And loved the labour better than the wage.

And this you say is how he looked in age,
With that strong brow and these great humble eyes
That seem to look with reverent surprise
On all outside himself. Turn o’er the page,

Recording Angel, it is white as snow.
Ah God, a fitting messenger was he
To show Thy mysteries to us below.
Child as he came has he returned to Thee.
Would he could come but once again to show
The wonder-deep of his simplicity.
Cosmo Monkhouse.

PREFACE
Shortly after the death of Faraday in 1867, three biographies of him—each
admirable in its own line—were published. The “Life and Letters of
Faraday,” by Dr. Bence Jones, secretary of the Royal Institution, which was
issued in 1868 in two volumes, has long been out of print. “Faraday as a
Discoverer,” written in 1868 by Professor Tyndall, which, though slighter as
a record, brings out many points of character into striking relief, is also now
exhausted. Dr. Gladstone’s “Michael Faraday,” published in 1872, so rich in
reminiscences, and so appreciative of the moral and religious side of his
character, is also out of print. Other and briefer biographies exist; the
“Éloge Historique” of M. Dumas; the article “Faraday” in the
“Encyclopædia Britannica” by Professor Clerk Maxwell; and the chapter on
Faraday in Dr. W. Garnett’s “Heroes of Science.” But there seems room for
another account of the life and labours of the man whose influence upon the
century in which he lived was so great. For forty years he was a living and
inspiring voice in the Royal Institution, beyond all question the greatest
scientific expositor of his time. Throughout almost the whole of that time
his original researches in physics, and chiefly in electricity, were extending
the boundaries of knowledge and laying the foundations not only for the
great developments of electrical engineering of the last twenty years but for
those still greater developments in the theories of electricity, magnetism,
and light which are every year being extended and made fruitful. Were there
no other reason than these developments in practice and theory, they would
amply justify the effort to review now, after so many years, the position of
Faraday amongst the eminent men of the century now drawing to its close.
Those who were intimately acquainted with him are a fast dwindling
band. In the recollection of such as have survived him, his image lives and
moves, surrounded with gracious memories, a vivid personality instinct
with rare and unselfish kindliness. But the survivors are few, and their ranks
grow thinner with each succeeding year. And so it comes about that the task

of writing of his life and work has been entrusted to one who never ceases
to regret that he never met Faraday.
Thanks to the permission of the managers of the Royal Institution, a
number of short extracts from Faraday’s notebooks, hitherto unpublished,
are now printed for the first time. Much more remains which it is to be
hoped, for the benefit of science, may be published ere long. The author
desires further to acknowledge the kindness of Messrs. Longmans & Co. in
allowing the reproduction of the illustrations on pages 3 and 258, which are
taken from Bence Jones’s “Life and Letters of Faraday,” published in 1868.
Mr. Elkin Mathews has kindly permitted the insertion of the sonnet by Mr.
Cosmo Monkhouse which follows the title-page. The author is also
indebted to Dr. J. Hall Gladstone, F.R.S., for many valuable notes and
suggestions, and to Miss M. K. Reynolds for photographs used in preparing
Fig. 14. Most of all he is indebted to Miss Jane Barnard for access to
Faraday’s private papers, and for permission to print certain extracts from
them.
S. P. T.

CONTENTS
PAGE
Chap. I.—Early Life, Training, and Travel 1

Chap. II.—Life at the Royal Institution 35

Chap. III.—Scientific Researches—First Period 75

Chap. IV.—Scientific Researches—Second Period 102

Chap. V.—Scientific Researches—Third Period 172

Chap. VI.—Middle and Later Life 222

Chap. VII.—Views on the Pursuit of Science and
on Education 261

Chap. VIII.—Religious Views 286

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Portrait Frontispiece
FIGS. PAGE
1. Riebau’s Shop 3
2. Electromagnetic Rotations (facsimile
sketch) 88
3. Apparatus for Rotation (facsimile
sketch) 88
4. Faraday’s Ring (facsimile sketch) 108
5. Induction Experiment (facsimile
sketch) 111
6. The “New Electrical Machine”
(facsimile sketch) 121
7. The Teetotum Apparatus 123
8. The Revolving Copper Cylinder
(facsimile sketch) 124
9. Earth Inductor 125
10. A Spark from a Magnet (facsimile
sketch) 129
11. How to Cut the Magnetic Lines 133
12. Illustration of the New Terms
(facsimile sketch) 145
13. Bundle of Wires (facsimile sketch) 151
14. Apparatus for Investigating Dielectric
Capacity 159

15. Block of Heavy-glass (facsimile
sketch) 176
16. Action of Magnet on Light (facsimile
sketch) 177
17. Arrangements of Magnets (facsimile
sketch) 178
18. The Ring Electromagnet (facsimile
sketch) 179
19. The Equatorial Position 188
20. Illustration of Lateral Vibrations 195
21. A Lecture Model 239
22. Cottage at Hampton Court 258

MICHAEL FARADAY.

CHAPTER I.

EARLY LIFE, TRAINING, AND TRAVEL.
On the 22nd of September, 1791, was born, at Newington Butts, then an
outlying Surrey village, but since long surrounded and swallowed up within
the area of Greater London, the boy Michael Faraday. He was the third
child of his parents, James and Margaret Faraday, who had but recently
migrated to London from the little Yorkshire village of Clapham. Clapham
lies under the shadow of Ingleborough, on the western border of the county,
midway between Settle and Kirkby Lonsdale. The father, James Faraday,
was a working blacksmith; the mother, daughter of a farmer of Mallerstang,
the romantic valley which runs past Pendragon Castle to Kirkby Stephen.
James Faraday was one of the ten children of a Robert Faraday, who in
1756 had married Elizabeth Dean, the owner of a small homestead known
as Clapham Wood Hall, since pulled down. All Robert Faraday’s sons
appear to have been brought up to trades, one being a shoemaker, another a
grocer, another a farmer, another a flax-worker, and another a shopkeeper.
Descendants of some of these still live in the district.
After Michael’s birth, his parents moved to the north side of the
Thames, living for a short time in Gilbert Street, but removing in 1796 to
rooms over a coach-house in Jacob’s Well Mews, Charles Street,
Manchester Square, where they lived till 1809. In that year, young Michael
being now nearly eighteen years old, they moved to 18, Weymouth Street,
Portland Place. Here in the succeeding year James Faraday, who had long
been an invalid, died; his widow, who for some years remained on at
Weymouth Street, maintaining herself by taking in lodgers until her sons
could support themselves and her, survived till 1838. Though a capable
woman and a good mother, she was quite uneducated. In her declining years
she was wholly supported by her son, of whom she was very proud, and to
whom she was devoted.

Michael received very little schooling. One of his nephews tells the
following tale of his boyhood. He was at a dame’s school; and, either from
some defect in his speech or because he was too young to articulate his r’s
properly, he pronounced his elder brother’s name “Wobert.” The harsh
schoolmistress, bent on curing the defect by personal chastisement, sent the
aforesaid “Wobert” out with a halfpenny to get a cane, that young Michael
might be duly flogged. But this refinement of cruelty reacted on itself; for
Robert, boiling with indignation, pitched the halfpenny over a wall, and
went home to tell his mother, who promptly came down to the scene of
action and removed both boys from the school. From the age of five to
thirteen Michael lived at Jacob’s Well Mews, spending his out-of-school
hours at home or in the streets playing at marbles and other games with the
children of the neighbourhood.

RIEBAU’S SHOP.

BOOKBINDER’S ERRAND-BOY.

In 1804 he went on trial for twelve months as errand-boy to a
bookseller and stationer at No. 2, Blandford Street—Mr. George Riebau.
This house, which is still kept as a stationer’s shop (by Mr. William Pike), is
now marked with an enamelled tablet recording its connection with the life
1
of Faraday. When he first went to Mr. Riebau, it was his duty to carry
round the newspapers in the morning. He has been graphically described as
a bright-eyed errand-boy who “slid along the London pavements, with a
load of brown curls upon his head and a packet of newspapers under his
arm.” Some of the journals were lent out, and had to be called for again. He
was very particular on Sunday mornings to take them round early, that he
might complete his work in time to go with his parents to their place of

worship. They belonged—as his grandfather before him—to the sect known
as Sandemanians, a small body which separated from the Presbyterian
Church of Scotland towards the middle of the eighteenth century. Their
views, which were very primitive, were held with intense earnestness and
sincerity of purpose. Their founder had taught that Christianity never was or
could be the formal or established religion of any nation without subverting
its essential principles; that religion was the affair of the individual soul;
and that “the Bible” alone, with nothing added to it or taken away from it
by man, was the sole and sufficient guide for the soul. They rejected all
priests or paid ministers, but recognised an institution of unpaid eldership.
Their worship was exceedingly simple. Though their numbers were few,
they were exceedingly devout, simple, and exclusive in their faith.
Doubtless the rigorous moral influences pervading the family and friends of
James Faraday had a great part in moulding the character of young Michael.
To his dying day he remained a member of this obscure sect. As he was no
merely nominal adherent, but an exceedingly devoted member, and at two
different periods of his life an elder and a preacher, no review of his life-
work would be complete without a fuller reference to the religious side of
his character.
APPRENTICED AS BOOKBINDER.

After the year of trial, Michael Faraday was formally apprenticed to
learn the arts of bookbinder, stationer, “and bookseller,” to Mr. Riebau. The
2
indenture is dated October 7, 1805. It is stated that, “in consideration of his
faithful service, no premium is given.” During his seven years of
apprenticeship there came unexpected opportunities for self-improvement.
Faraday’s lifelong friend and co-religionist, Cornelius Varley, says:
—“When my attention was first drawn to Faraday, I was told that he had
been apprenticed to a bookbinder. I said he was the best bookworm for
eating his way to the inside; for hundreds had worked at books only as so
much printed paper. Faraday saw a mine of knowledge, and resolved to
explore it.” To one of his friends he said that a book by Watts, “On the
Mind,” first made him think, and that the article on “Electricity” in a
cyclopædia which came into his hands to be bound first turned his attention
to science. He himself wrote:—“Whilst an apprentice I loved to read the
scientific books which were under my hand; and, amongst them, delighted
in Marcet’s ‘Conversations in Chemistry’ and the electrical treatises in the

‘Encyclopædia Britannica.’ 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
3
kind.” This early machine is now preserved at the Royal Institution, to
which it was presented by Sir James South. Amongst the books which he
had to bind were Lyons’ “Experiments on Electricity” and Boyle’s “Notes
about the Producibleness of Chymicall Principles,” which books, together
with Miss Burney’s “Evelina,” all bound with his own hands, are still
preserved in the Royal Institution.
NEW ACQUAINTANCES.

Walking near Fleet Street, he saw displayed a bill announcing that
evening lectures on natural philosophy were delivered by Mr. Tatum at 53,
Dorset Street, Salisbury Square, E.C., price of admission one shilling. With
his master’s permission, and money furnished by his elder brother Robert,
who was a blacksmith and (later) a gasfitter, Michael began to taste
scientific teaching. Between February, 1810, and September, 1811, he
attended some twelve or thirteen lectures. He made full and beautiful notes
of all he heard: his notebooks, bound by himself, being still preserved. At
these lectures he fell in with several thoroughly congenial comrades, one of
them, by name Benjamin Abbott, being a well-educated young Quaker, who
was confidential clerk in a mercantile house in the City. Of the others—
amongst whom were Magrath, Newton, Nicol, Huxtable, and Richard
Phillips (afterwards F.R.S. and President of the Chemical Society)—several
remained lifelong friends. Happily for posterity, the letters—long and chatty
—which the lad wrote in the fulness of his heart to Abbott have been
preserved; they are published in Bence Jones’s “Life and Letters.” They are
remarkable not only for their vivacity and freshness but for their elevated
tone and excellent composition—true specimens of the lost art of letter-
writing. The most wonderful thing about them is that they should have been
written by a bookbinder’s apprentice of no education beyond the common
school of the district. In his very first letter he complains that ideas and
notions which spring up in his mind “are irrevocably lost for want of noting
at the time.” This seems the first premonition of that loss of memory which
so afflicted him in after life. In his later years he always carried in his
waistcoat pocket a card on which to jot down notes and memoranda. He

would stop to set down his notes in the street, in the theatre, or in the
laboratory.
Riebau, his master in the bookbinding business, seems, from the way
he encouraged the studies of his young apprentice, to have been no ordinary
man. His name would suggest a foreign extraction; and to his shop resorted
more than one political refugee. There lodged at one time at Riebau’s an
4
artist named Masquerier, who had painted Napoleon’s portrait and had fled
from France during the troublous times. For the apprentice boy, who used to
dust his room and black his boots, Masquerier took a strong liking. He lent
him books on perspective and taught him how to draw. Another frequenter
of Riebau’s shop was a Mr. Dance, whose interest in the industry and
intelligence of the apprentice led him to an act which changed the whole
destiny of his life. Faraday himself, in the very few autobiographical notes
which he penned, wrote thus:—

During my apprenticeship I had the good fortune, through the
kindness of Mr. Dance, who was a customer of my master’s shop
and also a member of the Royal Institution, to hear four of the last
5
lectures of Sir H. Davy in that locality. The dates of these lectures
were February 29, March 14, April 8 and 10, 1812. Of these I made
notes, and then wrote out the lectures in a fuller form, interspersing
them with such drawings as I could make. The desire to be engaged
in scientific occupation, even though of the lowest kind, induced
me, 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.

LETTERS TO ABBOTT.

He submitted his notes to the criticism of his friend Abbott, with whom
he discussed chemical and electrical problems, and the experiments which
they had individually tried. Out of this correspondence, one letter only can
be given; it was written September 28, 1812, ten days before the expiry of
his apprenticeship:—

Dear A——, ... I will hurry on to philosophy, where I am a little
more sure of my ground. Your card was to me a very interesting and
pleasing object. I was highly gratified in observing so plainly
delineated the course of the electric fluid or fluids (I do not know
which). It appears to me that by making use of a card thus prepared,
you have hit upon a happy illustrating medium between a conductor
and a non-conductor; had the interposed medium been a conductor,
the electricity would have passed in connection through it—it would
not have been divided; had the medium been a non-conductor, it
would have passed in connection, and undivided, as a spark over it,
but by this varying and disjoined conductor it has been divided most
effectually. Should you pursue this point at any time still further, it
will be necessary to ascertain by what particular power or effort the
spark is divided, whether by its affinity to the conductor or by its
own repulsion; or if, as I have no doubt is the case, by the joint
action of these two forces, it would be well to observe and ascertain
the proportion of each in the effect. There are problems, the solution
of which will be difficult to obtain, but the science of electricity will
not be complete without them; and a philosopher will aim at
perfection, though he may not hit it—difficulties will not retard him,
but only cause a proportionate exertion of his mental faculties.
I had a very pleasing view of the planet Saturn last week
through a refractor with a power of ninety. I saw his ring very
distinctly; ’tis a singular appendage to a planet, to a revolving globe,
and I should think caused some peculiar phenomena to the planet
within it. I allude to their mutual action with respect to meteorology
and perhaps electricity....

The master, a French emigré named De la Roche, of King Street,
Portman Square, to whom he engaged himself as a journeyman bookbinder,
was of a very passionate disposition, and made Faraday very
uncomfortable. He longed to get out of trade, and under the encouragement
of Mr. Dance he wrote to Sir Humphry Davy, sending, “as a proof of my
earnestness,” the notes he had taken of Davy’s last four lectures. Faraday’s
letter, which has been preserved but never published, is an astounding
example of the high-flown cringing style in vogue at that date. Davy’s reply

was favourable, and led to a temporary engagement of some days as
amanuensis at the time when he was wounded in the eye by an explosion of
the chloride of nitrogen. Faraday himself, nearly twenty years afterwards,
6
wrote a full account of the circumstances.

[M. Faraday to Dr. J. A. Paris.]
Royal Institution, December 23, 1829.
My dear Sir,—You asked me to give you an account of my first
introduction to Sir H. Davy, which I am very happy to do, as I think
the circumstances will bear testimony to his goodness of heart.
When I was a bookseller’s apprentice, I was very fond of
experiment and very adverse to trade. It happened that a gentleman,
a member of the Royal Institution, took me to hear some of Sir H.
Davy’s last lectures in Albemarle Street. I took notes, and
afterwards wrote them out more fairly in a quarto volume.
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.
The answer, which makes all the point of my communication, I
send you in the original, requesting you to take great care of it, and
to let me have it back, for you may imagine how much I value it.
You will observe that this took place at the end of the year
1812, and early in 1813 he requested to see me, and told me of the
situation of assistant in the laboratory of the Royal Institution, then
just vacant.
At the same time that he thus gratified my desires as to
scientific employment, he still advised me not to give up the
prospects I had before me, telling me that Science was a harsh
mistress; and in a pecuniary point of view but poorly rewarding

those who devoted themselves to her service. He smiled at my
notion of the superior moral feelings of philosophic men, and said
he would leave me to the experience of a few years to set me right
on that matter.
Finally, through his good efforts I went to the Royal Institution
early in March of 1813, as assistant in the laboratory; and in
October of the same year went with him abroad as his assistant in
experiments and in writing. I returned with him in April, 1815,
resumed my station in the Royal Institution, and have, as you know,
ever since remained there.
I am, dear Sir, very truly yours,
M. Faraday.

WINS FAVOUR WITH DAVY.

The following is Davy’s note:—

Mr. P. Faraday, 188, Weymouth St., Portland Place.
December 24, 1812.
Sir,—I am far from displeased with the proof you have given
me of your confidence, and which displays great zeal, power of
memory, and attention. I am obliged to go out of Town, and shall
not be settled in town till the end of Jany I will then see you at any
time you wish. It would gratify me to be of any service to you; I
wish it may be in my power.
I am Sir
your obt. humble servt.
H. Davy.

Accordingly, Faraday called on Davy, who received him in the
anteroom to the lecture theatre, by the window nearest to the corridor. He
advised him then to stick to bookbinding, promising to send him books
from the Institution to bind, as well as other books. He must have been
agreeably impressed, otherwise he would not, when disabled, have sent for

Faraday to write for him. Early in 1813 the humble household, in which
Faraday lived with his widowed mother in Weymouth Street, was one night
startled by the apparition of Sir Humphry Davy’s grand coach, from which
a footman alighted and knocked loudly at the door. For young Faraday, who
was at that moment undressing upstairs, he left a note from Sir Humphry
Davy requesting him to call next morning. At that interview Davy asked
him whether he was still desirous of changing his occupation, and offered
him the post of assistant in the laboratory in place of one who had been
dismissed. The salary was to be twenty-five shillings a week, with two
rooms at the top of the house. The minute appointing him is dated March 1,
1813:—
ENTERS ROYAL INSTITUTION.

Sir Humphry Davy has the honour to inform the managers that
he has found a person who is desirous to occupy the situation in the
Institution lately filled by William Payne. His name is Michael
Faraday. He is a youth of twenty-two years of age. As far as Sir H.
Davy has been able to observe or ascertain, he appears well fitted
for the situation. His habits seem good, his disposition active and
cheerful, and his manner intelligent. He is willing to engage himself
on the same terms as those given to Mr. Payne at the time of quitting
the Institution.
Resolved—That Michael Faraday be engaged to fill the
7
situation lately occupied by Mr. Payne on the same terms.

There have come down several additions to the story. One, probably
apocryphal, says that Faraday’s first introduction to Davy was occasioned
by Davy’s calling at Riebau’s to select some bookbinding, and seeing on the
shelves the bound volume of manuscript notes of his own lectures. The
other was narrated by Gassiot to Tyndall, as follows:—

Clapham Common, Surrey,
November 28, 1867.

My dear Tyndall,—Sir H. Davy was accustomed to call on the
late Mr. Pepys in the Poultry, on his way to the London Institution,
of which Pepys was one of the original managers; the latter told me
that on one occasion Sir H. Davy, showing him a letter, 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.” The result was, that Davy engaged him to assist in the
Laboratory at weekly wages.
Davy held the joint office of Professor of Chemistry and
Director of the Laboratory; he ultimately gave up the former to the
late Professor Brande, but he insisted that Faraday should be
appointed Director of the Laboratory, and, as Faraday told me, this
enabled him on subsequent occasions to hold a definite position in
the Institution, in which he was always supported by Davy. I believe
he held that office to the last.
Believe me, my dear Tyndall, yours truly,
J. P. Gassiot.

8
In 1808 Mr. Tatum had founded a City Philosophical Society. It
consisted of thirty or forty young men in humble or moderate rank, who
met on Wednesdays for mutual instruction; lectures being given once a
fortnight by the members in turn. Tatum introduced Faraday to this Society
in 1813. Edward Magrath was secretary. Amongst Faraday’s notes of his
life is the following:—

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.

AT WORK IN CHEMISTRY.

He writes, after a week of work at the Royal Institution, to Abbott:—

Royal Institution, March 8, 1813.
It is now about nine o’clock, and the thought strikes me that the
tongues are going both at Tatum’s and at the lecture in Bedford
Street; but I fancy myself much better employed than I should have
been at the lecture at either of those places. Indeed, I have heard one
lecture already to-day, and had a finger in it (I can’t say a hand, for I
did very little). It was by Mr. Powell, on mechanics, or rather on
rotatory motion, and was a pretty good lecture, but not very fully
attended.
As I know you will feel a pleasure in hearing in what I have
been or shall be occupied, I will inform you that I have been
employed to-day, in part, in extracting the sugar from a portion of
beetroot, and also in making a compound of sulphur and carbon—a
combination which has lately occupied in a considerable degree the
attention of chemists.
With respect to next Wednesday, I shall be occupied until late in
the afternoon by Sir H. Davy, and must therefore decline seeing you
at that time; this I am the more ready to do as I shall enjoy your
company next Sunday, and hope to possess it often in a short time.

The next letter to Abbott, dated April 9, recounts an explosion in which
both he and Sir Humphry Davy received considerable injury. In June he
wrote to Abbott four very remarkable letters concerning lectures and
lecturers. He had already heard Tatum and Davy, and had now assisted
Brande and Powell in their lectures, and had keenly observed their habits,
peculiarities, and defects, as well as the effects they produced on the
audience. He writes without the slightest suspicion of suggestion that he

himself has any likelihood of becoming a lecturer, and says that he does not
pretend to any of the requisites for such an office. “If I am unfit for it,” he
says, “’tis evident that I have yet to learn; and how learn better than by the
observation of others? If we never judge at all, we shall never judge right.”
“I, too, have inducements in the C[ity] P[hilosophical] S[ociety] to draw me
forward in the acquisition of a small portion of knowledge on this point.” “I
shall point out but few beauties or few faults that I have not witnessed in the
presence of a numerous assembly.”
He begins by considering the proper shape of a lecture-room; its proper
ventilation, and need of suitable entrances and exits. Then he goes on to
consider suitability of subjects and dignity of subject. In the second of the
letters he contrasts the perceptive powers of the eye and ear, and the proper
arrangements for a lecturer’s table; then considers diagrams and
illustrations. The third letter deals with the delivery and style of the lecture,
the manner and attitudes of the lecturer, his methods of keeping alive the
attention of the audience, and duration of the discourse. In the fourth of
these letters (see p. 228), he dwells on the mistakes and defects of lecturers,
their unnecessary apologies, the choice of apt experiments, and avoidance
of trivialities.
PROPOSALS FOR FOREIGN TRAVEL.

In September, 1813, after but six months of work in the laboratory, a
proposition came to him from Sir Humphry Davy which resulted in a
complete change of scene. It was an episode of foreign travel, lasting, as it
proved, eighteen months. In the autobiographical notes he wrote:—

In the autumn Sir H. Davy proposed going abroad, and offered
me the opportunity of going with him as his amanuensis, and the
promise of resuming my situation in the Institution upon my return
to England. Whereupon I accepted the offer, left the Institution on
October 13, and, after being with Sir H. Davy in France, Italy,
Switzerland, the Tyrol, Geneva, &c., in that and the following year,
returned to England and London April 23, 1815.

Before he left England, on September 18, 1813, at the request of his
mother, he wrote to an uncle and aunt the following account of himself:—

I was formerly a bookseller and binder, but am now turned
philosopher, which happened thus:—Whilst an apprentice, I, for
amusement, learnt a little of chemistry and other parts of
philosophy, and felt an eager desire to proceed in that way further.
After being a journeyman for six months, under a disagreeable
master, I gave up my business, and, by the interest of Sir H. Davy,
filled the situation of chemical assistant to the Royal Institution of
Great Britain, in which office I now remain, and where I am
constantly engaged in observing the works of Nature and tracing the
manner in which she directs the arrangement and order of the world.
I have lately had proposals made to me by Sir Humphry Davy to
accompany him, in his travels through Europe and into Asia, as
philosophical assistant. If I go at all I expect it will be in October
next, about the end, and my absence from home will perhaps be as
long as three years. But as yet all is uncertain. I have to repeat that,
even though I may go, my path will not pass near any of my
relations, or permit me to see those whom I so much long to see.

To Faraday, who was now twenty-two years old, foreign travel meant
much more than to most young men of equal age. With his humble bringing
up and slender resources, he had never had the chance of seeing the outside
world; he had never, to his own recollection, even seen the sea. When on
Wednesday, October 13, he started out on the journey to Plymouth, in order
to cross to the port of Morlaix, he began his journal of foreign travel thus:—

This morning formed a new epoch in my life. I have never
before, within my recollection, left London at a greater distance
than twelve miles.

A NEW ELEMENT.

This journal he kept with minute care, with the sole purpose of recalling
events to his mind. It gives full details as to Davy’s scientific friends and
work, intermingled with graphic descriptions of scenery; and is remarkable
also for its personal reticence. As with many another, so with Faraday,
foreign travel took in his life the place of residence at a University. In
France, in Italy, he received enlarged ideas; and what he saw of learned men

and academies of science exercised no small formative effect upon one then
at the most impressionable age. He comments gaily on the odd incidents of
travel; the luminescence of the sea at night; the amazing fuss at the Custom
House; the postilion with his jack-boots, whip, and pouch; the glow-worm
(the first glow-worm he had ever seen); and the slim pigs of Normandy. At
Paris he visits the Louvre, where his chief comment on its treasures is, that
by their acquisition France has made herself “a nation of thieves.” He goes
to the Prefecture of Police for his passport, in which he is described as
having “a round chin, a brown beard, a large mouth, a great nose,” etc. He
visits the churches, where the theatrical air pervading the place “makes it
impossible to attach a serious or important feeling to what is going on.” He
comments on the wood fires, the charcoal used in cooking, the
washerwomen on the river bank, the internal decorations of houses, the
printing of the books. Then he goes about with Davy amongst the French
chemists. Ampère, Clément, and Désormes come to Davy to show him the
new and strange substance “X,” lately discovered by M. Courtois. They
heat it, and behold it rise in vapour of a beautiful violet colour. Ampère
himself, on November 23rd, gives Davy a specimen. They carefully note
down its characters. Davy and his assistant make many new experiments on
it. At first its origin is kept a profound secret by the Frenchman. Then it
transpires that it is made from ashes of seaweed. They work on it at
Chevreul’s laboratory. Faraday borrows a voltaic pile from Chevreul. With
that intuition which was characteristic of him, Davy jumps almost at once to
a conclusion as to the nature of the new body, which for nearly two years
had been in the hands of the Frenchmen awaiting elucidation. When he
leaves Paris, they do not wholly bless his rapidity of thought. But Faraday
has seen—with placid indifference—a glimpse of the great Napoleon
“sitting in one corner of his carriage, covered and almost hidden by an
enormous robe of ermine, and his face overshadowed by a tremendous
plume of feathers, that descended from a velvet hat”; he has also met
Humboldt, and he has heard M. Gay Lussac lecture to about two hundred
pupils.
Dumas has recorded in his “Éloge Historique” a reflection of the
impressions left by the travellers. After speaking of the criticism to which
Davy was exposed during his visit, he says:—

His laboratory assistant, long before he had won his great
celebrity by his works, had by his modesty, his amiability, and his
intelligence, gained most devoted friends at Paris, at Geneva, at
Montpellier. Amongst these may be named in the front rank M. de la
Rive, the distinguished chemist, father of the illustrious physicist
whom we count amongst our foreign associates. The kindnesses
with which he covered my youth contributed not a little to unite us
—Faraday and myself. With pleasure we used to recall that we
made one another’s acquaintance under the auspices of that
affectionate and helpful philosopher whose example so truly
witnessed that science does not dry up the heart’s blood. At
Montpellier, beside the hospitable hearth of Bérard, the associate of
Chaptal, doyen of our corresponding members, Faraday has left
memories equally charged with an undying sympathy which his
master could never have inspired. We admired Davy, we loved
Faraday.

It is December 29 when the travellers leave Paris and cross the forest of
Fontainebleau. Faraday thinks he never saw a more beautiful scene than the
forest dressed in an airy garment of crystalline hoar frost. They pass
through Lyons, Montpellier, Aix, Nice, searching on the way for iodine in
the sea-plants of the Mediterranean. At the end of January, 1814, they cross
the Col de Tende over the snow at an elevation of 6,000 feet into Italy, and
find themselves in the midst of the Carnival at Turin. They reach Genoa,
and go to the house of a chemist to make experiments on the raia torpedo,
the electric skate, trying to ascertain whether water could be decomposed
by the electrical discharges of these singular fishes. From Genoa they go by
sea to Lerici in an open boat, with much discomfort and fear of ship-wreck;
and thence by land to Florence.
WITH DAVY IN ITALY.

At Florence he goes with Davy to the Accademia del Cimento. He sees
the library, the gardens, the museum. Here is Galileo’s own telescope—a
simple tube of paper and wood, with lenses at each end—with which he
discovered Jupiter’s satellites. Here is the great burning glass of the Grand
Duke of Tuscany. And here is a numerous collection of magnets, including
one enormous loadstone supporting a weight of 150 pounds. They make

“the grand experiment of burning the diamond” in oxygen by the sun’s heat
concentrated through the Grand Duke’s burning glass. They find the
diamond to be pure carbon. Then early in April they depart for Rome.
From Rome Faraday wrote to his mother a long chatty letter
summarising his travels, and sending messages of kindly remembrance to
his old master Riebau and others. He tells how, in spite of political troubles,
Sir Humphry Davy’s high name has procured them free admission
everywhere, and how they have just heard that Paris has been taken by the
Allied troops.
At Rome they witness unconvinced some attempts of Morichini to
impart magnetism to steel needles by the solar rays. They pass the
Colosseum by moonlight, making an early morning start across the
Campagna, on the road to Naples, with an armed guard for fear of brigands.
Twice, in the middle of May, they ascend Vesuvius, the second time during
a partial eruption rendered all the more vivid by the lateness of the hour—
half-past seven—at which the edge of the crater was reached. In June they
visit Terni, and note the nearly circular rainbow visible in the spray of the
cataract; and so across the Apennines to Milan.
At Milan occurs the following entry:—

Friday 17th [June, 1814], Milan. Saw M. Volta, who came to
Sir H. Davy, an hale elderly man, bearing the red ribbon, and very
free in conversation.

He does not record how the ceremonious old Count, who had specially
attired himself in his Court uniform to welcome the illustrious chemist, was
horrified at the informal manners and uncourtly dress of the tourist
philosopher.
So, travelling by Como and Domo d’Ossola, they come to Geneva, and
here remain a long time; and Faraday writes again to his mother and to
Abbott. He can even find time to discuss with the latter the relative merits
of the French and Italian languages, and the trend of civilisation in Paris
and in Rome. Twice he sends messages to Riebau. One of his letters to
Abbott, in September, contains passages of more than transient interest:—

Some doubts have been expressed to me lately with respect to
the continuance of the Royal Institution; Mr. Newman can probably
give a guess at the issue of them. I have three boxes of books, &c.,
there, and I should be sorry if they were lost by the turning up of
unforeseen circumstances; but I hope all will end well (you will not
read this out aloud). Remember me to all friends, if you please. And
“now for you and I to ourselves.”...
In passing through life, my dear friend, everyone must expect to
receive lessons, both in the school of prosperity and in that of
adversity; and, taken in a general sense, these schools do not only
include riches and poverty, but everything that may cause the
happiness and pleasure of man, and every feeling that may give him
pain. I have been in at the door of both these schools; nor am I so far
on the right hand at present that I do not get hurt by the thorns on
my left. With respect to myself, I have always perceived (when,
after a time, I saw things more clearly) that those things which at
first appeared as misfortunes or evils ultimately were actually
benefits, and productive of much good in the future progress of
things. Sometimes I compared them to storms and tempests, which
cause a temporary disarrangement to produce permanent good;
sometimes they appeared to me like roads—stony, uneven, hilly, and
uncomfortable, it is true—but the only roads to a good beyond
them; and sometimes I said they were clouds which intervened
between me and the sun of prosperity, but which I found were
refreshing, reserving to me that tone and vigour of mind which
prosperity alone would enervate and ultimately destroy....
HINTS OF DISCOMFORT.

You talk of travelling, and I own the word is seducing, but
travelling does not secure you from uneasy circumstances. I by no
means intend to deter you from it; for though I should like to find
you at home when I come home, and though I know how much the
loss would be felt by our friends, yet I am aware that the fund of
knowledge and of entertainment opened would be almost infinite.
But I shall set down a few of my own thoughts and feelings, &c., in
the same circumstances. In the first place, then, my dear B., I fancy
that when I set my foot in England I shall never take it out again; for

I find the prospect so different from what it at first appeared to be,
that I am certain, if I could have foreseen the things that have
passed, I should never have left London. In the second place,
enticing as travelling is—and I appreciate fully its advantages and
pleasures—I have several times been more than half decided to
return hastily home; but second thoughts have still induced me to try
what the future may produce, and now I am only retained by the
wish of improvement. I have learned just enough to perceive my
ignorance, and, ashamed of my defects in everything, I wish to seize
the opportunity of remedying them. The little knowledge I have
gained in languages makes me wish to know more of them, and the
little I have seen of men and manners is just enough to make me
desirous of seeing more; added to which, the glorious opportunity I
enjoy of improving in the knowledge of chemistry and the sciences
continually determines me to finish this voyage with Sir Humphry
Davy. But if I wish to enjoy those advantages, I have to sacrifice
much; and though those sacrifices are such as an humble man would
not feel, yet I cannot quietly make them. Travelling, too, I find, is
almost inconsistent with religion (I mean modern travelling), and I
am yet so old-fashioned as to remember strongly (I hope perfectly)
my youthful education; and upon the whole, malgré the advantages
of travelling, it is not impossible but that you may see me at your
door when you expect a letter.
You will perceive, dear B., that I do not wish you hastily to
leave your present situation, because I think that a hasty change will
only make things worse. You will naturally compare your situation
with others you see around you, and by this comparison your own
will appear more sad, whilst the others seem brighter than in truth
they are; for, like the two poles of a battery, the ideas of each will
become exalted by approaching them. But I leave you, dear friend,
to act in this case as your judgment may direct, hoping always for
the best.

* * * * *
Sir Humphry works often on iodine, and has lately been making
experiments on the prismatic spectrum at M. Pictet’s. They are not

yet perfected, but from the use of very delicate air thermometers, it
appears that the rays producing most heat are certainly out of the
spectrum and beyond the red rays. Our time has been employed
lately in fishing and shooting; and many a quail has been killed in
the plains of Geneva, and many a trout and grayling have been
pulled out of the Rhone.

* * * * *
I need not say, dear Ben, how perfectly I am yours,
M. Faraday.

ARISTOCRATIC HAUTEUR.

This letter reveals, what the diary of travel so scrupulously hides, the
existence of circumstances which were hardly tolerable in Faraday’s
position. To make the reference intelligible it should be remembered that
Davy, who had come up to London in 1801 as a raw youth, of immense
ability but very uncouth exterior, had developed into a fashionable person,
had become the idol of the hour, had married a very wealthy widow, had
been knighted, and had given himself up very largely to the pursuits of
fashionable society and to the company of the aristocratic beau monde.
Lady Davy accompanied Sir Humphry in this Continental tour; and though
Faraday had been taken with them as secretary and scientific assistant, it
would seem that he had not always been treated with the respect due to one
in that position. The above letter evidently disquieted Abbott, for he wrote
back to Faraday to inquire more closely into his personal affairs, telling him
he was sure he was not happy, and asking him to share his difficulties.
Faraday, who was now back in Rome, replied in January in a long letter of
9
twelve pages, which he says he had intended to fill with an account of the
waterfalls he had seen, but which gives instead a detailed account of his
vexations. He had, he said, written his former letter when in a ruffled state
of mind. He now gives the explanation. Before, however, this letter could
reach Abbott, the latter had written yet more urgently to know what was the
matter. To this Faraday replied on February 23rd. As this shorter letter
summarises the previous one it may be given here. Both are printed in
Bence Jones’s “Life and Letters”:—

Rome, February 23, 1815.
Dear B——,—In a letter of above twelve pages I gave answers
to your question respecting my situation. It was a subject not worth
talking about, but I consider your inquiries as so many proofs of
your kindness and the interest you take in my welfare, and I thought
the most agreeable thanks I could make you would be to answer
them. The same letter also contained a short account of a paper
written by Sir Humphry Davy on ancient colours, and some other
miscellaneous matters.
SECRET OF MORTIFICATION.

I am quite ashamed of dwelling so often on my own affairs, but
as I know you wish it, I shall briefly inform you of my situation. I
do not mean to employ much of this sheet of paper on the subject,
but refer you to the before-mentioned long letter for clear
information. It happened a few days before we left England, that Sir
H.’s valet declined going with him, and in the short space of time
allowed by circumstances another could not be got. Sir H. told me
he was very sorry, but that, if I would do such things as were
absolutely necessary for him until he got to Paris, he should there
get another. I murmured, but agreed. At Paris he could not get one.
No Englishmen were there, and no Frenchman fit for the place
could talk English to me. At Lyons he could not get one; at
Montpellier he could not get one; nor at Genoa, nor at Florence, nor
at Rome, nor in all Italy; and I believe at last he did not wish to get
one: and we are just the same now as we were when he left England.
This of course throws things into my duty which it was not my
agreement, and is not my wish, to perform, but which are, if I
remain with Sir H., unavoidable. These, it is true, are very few; for
having been accustomed in early years to do for himself, he
continues to do so at present, and he leaves very little for a valet to
perform; and as he knows that it is not pleasing to me, and that I do
not consider myself as obliged to do them, he is always as careful as
possible to keep those things from me which he knows would be
disagreeable. But Lady Davy is of another humour. She likes to
show her authority, and at first I found her extremely earnest in
mortifying me. This occasioned quarrels between us, at each of

which I gained ground, and she lost it; for the frequency made me
care nothing about them, and weakened her authority, and after each
she behaved in a milder manner. Sir H. has also taken care to get
servants of the country, ycleped lacquais de place, to do everything
she can want, and now I am somewhat comfortable; indeed, at this
moment I am perfectly at liberty, for Sir H. has gone to Naples to
search for a house or lodging to which we may follow him, and I
have nothing to do but see Rome, write my journal, and learn
Italian.
But I will leave such an unprofitable subject, and tell you what I
know of our intended route. For the last few weeks it has been very
undecided, and at this moment there is no knowing which way we
shall turn. Sir H. intended to see Greece and Turkey this summer,
and arrangements were half made for the voyage; but he has just
learned that a quarantine must be performed on the road there, and
to do this he has an utter aversion, and that alone will perhaps break
up the journey.

* * * * *
Since the long letter I wrote you, Sir H. has written two short
papers for the Royal Society—the first on a new solid compound of
iodine and oxygen, and the second a new gaseous compound of
chlorine and oxygen, which contains four times as much oxygen as
euchlorine.
The discovery of these bodies contradicts many parts of Gay-
Lussac’s paper on iodine, which has been very much vaunted in
these parts. The French chemists were not aware of the importance
of the subject until it was shown to them, and now they are in haste
to reap all the honours attached to it; but their haste opposes their
aim. They reason theoretically, without demonstrating
experimentally, and errors are the result.

* * * * *
I am, my dear Friend, yours ever and faithfully,
M. Faraday.

The equivocal position thus forced upon Faraday by the hauteur of
Lady Davy nearly caused a contretemps during the stay at Geneva, which
lasted from the end of June, 1814, to about the middle of September. Bence
Jones’s account, derived from Faraday himself, is as follows:—Professor G.
de la Rive, undazzled by the brilliancy of Davy’s reputation, was able to see
the true worth of his assistant. Davy was fond of shooting, and Faraday,
who accompanied them, used to load Davy’s gun for him, while De la Rive
loaded his own. Entering into conversation with Faraday, De la Rive was
astonished to find that the intelligent and charming young man whom he
had taken hitherto for a domestic was really préparateur de laboratoire in
the Royal Institution. This led him to place Faraday, in one respect, on an
equality with Davy. Whilst they were staying in his house, he wished them
to dine together at his table. Davy, it is said, declined, because Faraday
acted in some things as his servant. De la Rive expressed his feelings
strongly, and ordered dinner in a separate room for Faraday. A rumour
spread years after that De la Rive gave a dinner in Faraday’s honour: this is
not so, however.
VISIT TO GENEVA.

Of that Geneva visit Faraday says, in 1858, to M. A. de la Rive:—

I have some such thoughts (of gratitude) even as regards your
own father, who was, I may say, the first who personally at Geneva,
and afterwards by correspondence, encouraged and by that sustained
me.

This correspondence, which began with the father and was continued
with the son, lasted altogether nearly fifty years.
From Geneva the travellers went northward, by Lausanne, Vevay, Bern,
Zürich, and Schaffhausen, across Baden and Würtemburg to Munich. After
visiting this and other German towns, they crossed Tyrol southwards to
Vicenza, halting in the neighbourhood of the Pietra Mala to collect the
inflammable gas which there rises from the soil. They spent a day in Padua,
and three days in Venice; and on by Bologna to Florence, where Davy
completed his analysis of the gas collected at Pietra Mala. Early in
November they were again in Rome. He writes once and again to his

mother, while his anxiety about the Royal Institution makes him send
inquiries to Abbott as to what is going to happen there, and to charge him,
“if any change should occur in Albemarle Street,” not to forget his books
which are lying there. “I prize them now more than ever.”
To his former master, Riebau, he wrote from Rome as follows:—

Rome, Jan. 5th, 1815.
Honoured Sir,
It is with very peculiar but very pleasing and indeed
flattering sentiments that I commence a letter intended for you, for I
esteem it as a high honour that you should not only allow but even
wish me to write to you. During the whole of the short eight years
that I was with you, Sir, and during the year or two that passed
afterwards before I left England, I continually enjoyed your
goodness and the effects of it; and it is gratifying to me in the
highest degree to find that even absence has not impaired it, and that
you are willing to give me the highest proof of (allow me to say)
friendship that distance will admit. I have received both the letters
that you have wrote to me, Sir, and consider them as far from being
the least proofs of your goodwill and remembrance of me. Allow me
to thank you humbly but sincerely for these and all other kindness,
and I hope that at some future day an opportunity will occur when I
can express more strongly my gratitude.
I beg leave to return a thousand thanks to my kind Mistress, to
Mr. and Mrs. Paine and George for their remembrances, and venture
to give mine with respect in return. I am very glad to hear that all
are well. I am very much afraid you say too much of me to Mr.
Dance, Mr. Cosway, Mrs. Udney, etc., for I feel unworthy of what
you have said of me formerly, and what you may say now. Since I
have left England, the experience I have gained in more diversified
and extended life, and the knowledge I have gained of what is to be
learned and what others know, have sufficiently shown me my own
ignorance, the degree in which I am surpassed by all the world, and
my want of powers; but I hope that at least I shall return home with
an addition to my self-knowledge. When speaking of those who are

so much my superiors, as Mr. Dance, Mr. Cosway, and Mrs. Udney,
etc., I feel a continual fear that I should appear to want respect, but
the manner in which you mention their names in your letter
emboldens me to beg that you will give my humblest respects to
those honored persons, if, and only if (I am afraid of intruding) they
should again speak of me to you. Mr. Dance’s kindness claims my
gratitude, and I trust that my thanks, the only mark that I can give,
will be accepted.
BOOKS AND BOOKSELLERS.

Since I have been abroad, my old profession of books has
oftentimes occurred to my mind and been productive of much
pleasure. It was my wish at first to purchase some useful book at
every large town we came to, but I found my stock increase so fast
that I was obliged to alter my plan and purchase only at Capital
Cities. The first books that I wanted were grammars and
dictionaries, but I found few places like London where I could get
whatever I wanted. In France (at the time we were there) English
books were very scarce, and also English and French books; and a
French grammar for an Englishman was a thing difficult to find.
Nevertheless the shops appeared well stocked with books in their
own language, and the encouragement Napoleon gave to Arts and
Sciences extended its influence even to the printing and binding of
books. I saw some beautiful specimens in both these branches at the
Bibliothèque Impériale at Paris, but I still think they did not exceed
or even equal those I had seen in London before. We have as yet
seen very little of Germany, having passed rapidly through
Switzerland and stopping but a few days at Munich, but that little
gave me a very favorable idea of the Booksellers’ shops. I got an
excellent English and German dictionary immediately I asked for it,
and other books I asked for I found were to be had, but E. and G.
Grammars were scarce, owing to the little communication between
the two Empires, and the former power of the French in Germany.
Italy I have found the country furnished with the fewest means—if
books are the means of disseminating knowledge, and even Venice
which is renowned for Printing appeared to me bare and little
worthy of its character. It is natural to suppose that the great and

most estimable use of printing is to produce those books which are
in most general use and which are required by the world at large; it
is those books which form this branch of trade, and consequently
every shop in it gives an account of the more valuable state of the
art (i.e.) the use made of it. In Italy there are many books, and the
shelves of the shops there appear full, but the books are old, or what
is new have come from France; they seem latterly to have resigned
printing and to have become satisfied with the libraries their
forefathers left them. I found at Florence an E. and I. Grammar
(Veneroni’s), which does a little credit to Leghorn; but I have
searched unsuccessfully at Rome, Naples, Milan, Bologna, Venice,
Florence, and in every part of Italy for and E. and I. Dictionary, and
the only one I could get was Rollasetti in 8vo. E. F. and I. A
circumstance still more singular is the want of bibles; even at Rome,
the seat of the Roman Catholic faith, a bible of moderate size is not
to be found, either Protestant or Catholic. Those which exist are
large folios or 4tos and in several volumes, interspersed with the
various readings and commentaries of the fathers, and they are in
the possession of the Priests and religious professors. In all shops at
Rome where I ask for a small pocket bible the man seemed afraid to
answer me, and some Priest in the shop looked at me in a very
inquisitive way.
I must now, Kind Sir, put an end to this letter, which I fear you
will think already too long. I beg you will have the goodness to send
to my Mother and say I am well, and give my duty to her and my
love to my brother and sisters. I have wrote four or five times lately
from Rome to various friends. Remember me, if you please, to Mr.
Kitchen, and others who may enquire after me. I thank you for your
concluding wishes and am, Sir,
Your most dutifully,
Faraday.

To his sisters he wrote also. To the elder, on the Church festivals, the
Carnival, and the ruins of the Colosseum. To the younger, on the best way
of learning French. His diary is full of the Carnival, the foolishness of
which afforded him much amusement. He witnessed the horse-races in the

Corso, went four times to masked balls, where his boyish love of uproarious
fun broke out beyond restraint, for to the last one he went disguised in a
night-gown and night-cap. Between gaieties in the evenings and chemical
experiments with Davy in the day, his time must have been pretty fully
occupied. They had had the intention of going on to Greece and Turkey, but
owing to dread of quarantine these projects were abandoned, and at the end
of February, 1815, they moved southwards to Naples. Here is a
characteristic entry:—

Tuesday, March 7th.—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.

He went with Sir Humphry to explore Monte Somma, and ventured to make
another ascent of the cone of Vesuvius, with the gratification of finding the
crater in much greater activity than during the visits of the preceding year.
THE END OF THE TOUR.

Then, for reasons not altogether clear, the tour was suddenly cut short.
Naples was left on March 21st, Rome on 24th, Mantua was passed on 30th.
Tyrol was recrossed, Germany traversed by Stuttgardt, Heidelberg, and
Cologne. Brussels was reached on 16th April, whence London was regained
viâ Ostend and Deal. A letter written from Brussels to his mother positively
overflows with the joy of expected return. He does not want his mother to
be inquiring at Albemarle Street as to when he is expected:—

You may be sure that my first moments will be in your
company. If you have opportunities, tell some of my dearest friends,
but do not tell everybody—that is, do not trouble yourself to do it. I
am of no consequence except to a few, and there are but a few that
are of consequence to me, and there are some whom I should like to
be the first to tell myself—Mr. Riebau for one. However, let A.
know, if you can...
Adieu till I see you, dearest Mother; and believe me ever your
affectionate and dutiful son,

M. Faraday.
[P.S.] ’Tis the shortest and (to me) the sweetest letter I ever
wrote you.

A fortnight after his return to London, Faraday was re-engaged, at a
salary of thirty shillings a week, at the Royal Institution as assistant in the
laboratory and mineralogical collection. He returned to the scene of his
former labours; but with what widened ideas! He had had eighteen months
of daily intercourse with the most brilliant chemist of the age. He had seen
and conversed with Ampère, Arago, Gay-Lussac, Chevreul, Dumas, Volta,
De la Rive, Biot, Pictet, De Saussure, and De Stael. He had formed a lasting
friendship with more than one of these. He had dined with Count Rumford,
the founder of the Royal Institution. He had gained a certain mastery over
foreign tongues, and had seen the ways of foreign society. Though it was
many years before he again quitted England for a foreign tour, he cherished
the most lively recollection of many of the incidents that had befallen him.

CHAPTER II.

LIFE AT THE ROYAL INSTITUTION.
Amongst the scientific societies of Great Britain, the Royal Institution of
London occupies a conspicuous place. It has had many imitators in its time,
yet it remains unique. A “learned society” it may claim to be, in the sense
that it publishes scientific transactions, and endeavours to concentrate
within itself and promote the highest science, within a certain range of
subjects. In some respects it resembles a college; for it appoints professors,
and provides them with space, appliances, and materials for research, and a
theatre wherein to lecture. For its members it provides a comfortable, well-
stocked library, and a reading-room where daily and periodic journals may
be consulted. But it has achieved a reputation far in excess of any it would
have held, had that reputation depended solely on its publications, or on the
numerical strength of its membership.
Founded in the year 1799 by that erratic genius Count Rumford, as a
10
sort of technical school, it would speedily have come to an end had not
others stepped in to develop it in new ways. From the certain ruin which
seemed impending in 1801, it was saved by the appearance upon the scene
of the brilliant youth Humphry Davy, whose lectures made it for ten years
the resort of fashion. In 1814 it was again in such low water that Faraday,
travelling on the Continent at that time as amanuensis to Sir Humphry, was
every month expecting to hear of its collapse. Until about 1833, when the
two Fullerian Professorships were founded, it was continually in financial
difficulties. The persistent and extraordinary efforts made by Faraday from
1826 to 1839, and the reputation of the place which accrued by his
discoveries, were beyond all question its salvation from ruin. When it was
founded it was located in two private houses in Albemarle Street, then
regarded as quite out of town, if not almost suburban; the premises being
altered and an entrance hall with staircase added. A little later the lecture-

theatre, much as it still exists, was constructed. The exterior at first
remained unchanged. The stucco pilasters of Grecian style, which give it its
air of distinction, were not erected until 1838. The fine rooms of the Davy-
Faraday laboratory at the south end were only added in 1896 by the
liberality of Mr. Ludwig Mond. Besides the laboratories for research in
physical chemistry, which have thus been associated with the older part of
the Institution, additional rooms for the library have been provided in this
munificent gift to science. The older laboratories of the Institution, though
they retain some features from Rumford’s time, have been considerably
remodelled. The old rooms where Davy, Young, Brande, Faraday,
Frankland, and Tyndall conducted their researches are still in existence; but
the chief laboratory was reconstructed in 1872 in Tyndall’s time; and it has
been quite recently enlarged and reconstructed to accommodate the heavy
machinery required in Professor Dewar’s researches on liquid air and the
properties of bodies at low temperatures.
The spirit of the place may be summed up very briefly. It has existed
for a century as the home of the highest kind of scientific research, and of
the best and most specialised kind of scientific lectures. It was here that
Davy first showed the electric arc lamp; that he astonished the world by
decomposing potash and producing potassium; that he invented the safety
lamp. It was here that Faraday worked and laboured for nearly fifty years.
Here that Tyndall’s investigations on radiant heat and diamagnetism were
carried on. Here that Brande, Frankland, Odling, Gladstone, and Dewar
have handed on the torch of chemistry from the time of Davy.
Professorships, of which the educational duties are restricted to a few
lectures in the year, giving leisure and scope for research as the main duty,
are not to be found anywhere else in the British Islands; those at colleges
and universities being invariably hampered with educational and
administrative duties.
ROYAL INSTITUTION LABORATORIES.

As for the lectures at the Royal Institution, they may be divided under
three heads: the afternoon courses; the juvenile lectures at Christmas; the
Friday night discourses. The afternoon lectures are thrice a week at three
o’clock, and consist usually of short courses, from three lectures to as many
as twelve, by eminent scientific and literary men. Invariably one of these
courses during the season, either before or after Easter, is given by one of

the regular Professors; the remaining lecturers are paid professional fees in
proportion to the duration of their course. The Christmas lectures, always
six in number, are given, sometimes by one of the Professors, sometimes by
outside lecturers of scientific reputation. But the Friday night discourses,
given at nine o’clock, during the season from January till June, are unique.
No fee is paid to the lecturer, save a contribution toward expenses if applied
for, and it is considered to be a distinct honour to be invited to give such a
discourse. There is no scientific man of any original claim to distinction; no
chemist, engineer, or electrician; no physiologist, geologist, or mineralogist,
during the last fifty years, who has not been invited thus to give an account
of his investigations. Occasionally a wider range is taken, and the eminent
writer of books, dramatist, metaphysician, or musician has taken his place
at the lecture-table. The Friday night gathering is always a brilliant one.
From the salons of society, from the world of politics and diplomacy, as
well as from the ranks of the learned professions and of the fine arts, men
and women assemble to listen to the exposition of the latest discoveries or
the newest advances in philosophy by the men who have made them. Every
discourse must, so far as the subject admits, be illustrated in the best
possible way by experiments, by diagrams, by the exhibition of specimens.
Not infrequently, the person invited to give a Friday evening discourse at
the Royal Institution will begin his preparations five or six months
beforehand. At least one instance is known—the occasion being a discourse
by the late Mr. Warren De la Rue—where the preparations were begun more
than a year beforehand, and cost several hundreds of pounds. And this was
to illustrate a research already made and completed, of which the bare
scientific results had already been communicated in a memoir to the Royal
Society. A mere enumeration of the eminent men who have thus given their
time and labours to the Royal Institution would fill many pages. It is little
cause for wonder then that the lecture-theatre at Albemarle Street is
crowded week after week in the pursuit of science under conditions like
these; or that every lecturer is spurred on by the spirit of the place to do his
subject the utmost justice by the manner in which he handles it. There are
no lectures so famous, in the best sense of the word so popular, certainly
none sustained at so high a level, as the lectures of the Royal Institution.

THE FAMOUS LECTURES.

But it was not always thus. Davy’s brilliant but ill-balanced genius had
drawn fashionable crowds to the morning lectures which he gave. Brande
proved to be a much more humdrum lecturer; and though with young
Faraday at his elbow he found his work of lecturing a task “on velvet,” he
was not exactly an inspiring person. During Davy’s protracted tour abroad
things had not altogether prospered, and his return was none too soon.
Faraday threw himself whole-heartedly into the work of the Institution, not
only helping as lecture assistant, but giving a hand also in the preparation of
the Quarterly Journal of Science, which had been established as a kind of
journal of proceedings.
But now Faraday was to take a quiet step forward. He appears at the
City Philosophical Society in the character of lecturer. He gave seven
lectures there, in 1816, on chemistry, the fourth of them being “On Radiant
Matter.” Extracts are given from most of these lectures in Bence Jones’s
“Life and Letters of Faraday”; they show all that love of accuracy, that
philosophic suspense of judgment in matters of hypothesis, which in after
years were so characteristic of the man.
He also kept a commonplace book filled with notes of scientific
matters, with literary excerpts, anagrams, epitaphs, algebraic puzzles,
varieties of spelling of his own name, and personal experiences, including a
poetical diatribe against falling in love, together with the following more
prosaic aphorism:—

What is Love?—A nuisance to everybody but the parties
concerned. A private affair which every one but those concerned
wishes to make public.

It also includes a piece in verse, by a member of the City Philosophical
Society—a Mr. Dryden—called “Quarterly Night,” which is interesting as
embalming a portrait of the youthful Faraday as he appeared to his
comrades:—

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 ere 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.

At this date there were no evening duties at the Royal Institution, but
Faraday found his evenings well occupied, as he explains to Abbott when
rallied about his having deserted his old friend. Monday and Thursday
evenings he spent in self-improvement according to a regular plan.
Wednesdays he gave to “the Society” (i.e. the City Philosophical).
Saturdays he spent with his mother at Weymouth Street; leaving only
Tuesdays and Fridays for his own business and friends.
CITY PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY.

And so the busy months pass, and he gives more lectures in the privacy
of the City Society, one of them, “On some Observations on the Means of
obtaining Knowledge,” attaining the dignity of print at the hands of
Effingham Wilson, the enterprising City publisher, who a few years later
printed Browning’s “Paracelsus” and Alfred Tennyson’s first volume,
“Poems: Chiefly Lyrical.” By the time he has given nine lectures he has
gained confidence. The discourses had all been written out beforehand,
though never literally “read.” For the tenth lecture—on Carbon—he wrote
notes only. This is in July, 1817, and in these notes he touches on a matter
in which he had been very busily aiding Sir Humphry Davy, the invention
of the safety lamp. Many of the early forms of experimental apparatus
constructed, and some of the early lamps, are still preserved in the museum

of the Royal Institution. Dr. Clanny had, in 1813, proposed an entirely
closed lamp, supplied with air from the mine, through water, by bellows.
After many experiments on explosive mixtures of gas and air, and on the
properties of flame, Davy adopted an iron-wire gauze protector for his
lamp, which was introduced into coal mining early in 1816. In Davy’s
preface to his work describing it, he says: “I am myself indebted to Mr.
Michael Faraday for much able assistance in the prosecution of my
experiments.”
A RIFT WITHIN THE LUTE.

And well might Davy be grateful. With all his immense ability, he was
a man almost destitute of the faculties of order and method. He had little
self-control, and the fashionable dissipations which he permitted himself
lessened that little. Faraday not only kept his experiments going, but made
himself responsible for their records. He preserved every note and
manuscript of Davy’s with religious care. He copied out Davy’s scrawled
researches in a neat clear delicate handwriting, begging only for his pains to
be allowed to keep the originals, which he bound in two quarto volumes.
Faraday has been known to remark to an intimate friend that amongst his
advantages he had had before him a model to teach him what he should
avoid. But he was ever loyal to Davy, earnest in his praise, and frank in his
acknowledgment of his debt to his master in science. Still there arose the
little rift within the lute. The safety lamp, great as was the practical
advantage it brought to the miner, is not safe in all circumstances. Davy did
not like to admit this, and would never acknowledge it. Examined before a
Parliamentary Committee as to whether under a certain condition the safety
lamp would become unsafe, Faraday admitted that this was the case. Not
even his devotion to his master would induce him to hide the truth. He was
true to himself in making the acknowledgment, though it angered his
master. One Friday evening at the Royal Institution—probably about 1826
—there was exhibited an improved Davy lamp with a eulogistic inscription;
Faraday added in pencil the words: “The opinion of the inventor.”
At this time he began to give private lessons in chemistry to a pupil to
whom he had been recommended by Davy. His lectures at the City Society
in Dorset Street were continued in 1818, and at the conclusion of those on
chemistry he delivered one on “Mental Inertia,” which has been recorded at
some length by Bence Jones.

In 1818 he attended a course of lessons on oratory by the elocutionist
Mr. B. H. Smart, paying out of his slender resources half a guinea a lesson,
so anxious was he to improve himself, even in his manner of lecturing. His
notes on these lessons fill 133 manuscript pages.
His other notes now begin to partake less of the character of quotations
and excerpts, and more of the nature of queries or problems for solution.
Here are some examples:—

“Do the pith balls diverge by the disturbance of electricity in
consequence of mutual induction or not?”
“Distil oxalate of ammonia. Query, results?”
“Query, the nature of the body Phillips burns in his spirit
lamp?”

The Phillips here mentioned was the chemist Richard Phillips
(afterwards President of the Chemical Society), one of his City friends,
whose name so frequently occurs in the correspondence of Faraday’s
middle life. Phillips busied himself to promote the material interests of his
friend who—to use his own language—was “constantly engaged in
observing the works of Nature, and tracing the manner in which she directs
the arrangement and order of the world,” on the splendid salary of £100 per
annum. The following note in a letter to Abbott, dated February 27, 1818,
reveals new professional labours:—

I have been more than enough employed. We have been obliged
even to put aside lectures at the Institution; and now I am so tired
with a long attendance at Guildhall yesterday and to-day, being
subpœnaed, with Sir H. Davy, Mr. Brande, Phillips, Aikin, and
others, to give chemical information on a trial (which, however, did
not come off), that I scarcely know what I say.

Shortly afterwards Davy again went abroad, but Faraday remained in
England. From Rome Davy wrote a note, the concluding sentence of which
shows how Faraday was advancing in his esteem:—

Rome: October, 1818.
Mr. Hatchett’s letter contained praises of you which were very
gratifying to me; for, believe me, there is no one more interested in
your success and welfare than your sincere well-wisher and friend,
H. Davy.

In the next year Davy wrote again, suggesting to Faraday that he might
possibly be asked to come to Naples as a skilled chemist to assist in the
unrolling of the Herculaneum manuscripts. In May he wrote again, from
Florence:—

It gives me great pleasure to hear that you are comfortable at
the Royal Institution, and I trust that you will not only do something
good and honourable for yourself, but likewise for science.
I am, dear Mr. Faraday, always your sincere friend and well-
wisher,
H. Davy.

The wish that Davy expressed that Faraday might “do something” for
himself and likewise for science was destined soon to come to fulfilment.
But in the case of one who had worked so closely and had been so
intimately associated as an assistant, it must necessarily be no easy matter
always to draw a distinction between the work of the master and that of the
assistant. Ideas suggested by one might easily have occurred to the other,
when their thoughts had so long been directed to the same ends. And so it
proved.
BEGINS ORIGINAL RESEARCHES.

Reference to Chapter III. will show that already, beginning in 1816
with a simple analysis of caustic lime for Sir Humphry Davy, Faraday had
become an active worker in the domain of original research. The fascination
of the quest of the unknown was already upon him. While working with and
for Davy on the properties of flame and its non-transmission through iron
gauze, in the investigation of the safety lamp, other problems of a kindred

nature had arisen. One of these, relating to the flow of gases through
capillary tubes, Faraday had attacked by himself in 1817. The subject
formed one of the six original papers which he published that year. In the
next two years he contributed in all no fewer than thirty-seven papers or
notes to the Quarterly Journal of Science. In 1819 began a long research on
steel which lasted over the year 1820. He had already given evidence of that
dislike of half-truths, that aversion for “doubtful knowledge” which marked
him so strongly. He had exposed, with quiet but unsparing success, the
emptiness of the claim made by an Austrian chemist to have discovered a
new metal, “Sirium,” by the simple device of analysing out from the mass
all the constituents of known sorts, leaving behind—nothing.
HE FALLS IN LOVE.

And now, Faraday being twenty-nine years of age, a new and all-
important episode in his life occurred. Amongst the members of the little
congregation which met on Sundays at Paul’s Alley, Red Cross Street, was
a Mr. Barnard, a working silversmith of Paternoster Row, an elder in the
Sandemanian body. He had two sons, Edward Barnard, a friend of
Faraday’s, and George, who became a well-known water-colour artist; and
three daughters; one who was already at this time married; Sarah, now
twenty-one years of age; and Jane, who was still younger. Edward had seen
in Faraday’s note-book those boyish tirades against falling in love, and had
told his sister Sarah of them. Nevertheless, in spite of all such misogynistic
fancies, Faraday woke up one day to find that the large-eyed, clear-browed
girl had grown to a place in his heart that he had thought barred against the
assaults of love. She asked him on one occasion to show her the rhymes
against love in his note-book. In reply he sent her the hitherto unpublished
poem:—

R. I.
Oct. 11th, 1819.

You ask’d me last night for the lines which I penn’d,
When, exulting in ignorance, tempted by pride,
I dared torpid hearts and cold breasts to commend,
And affection’s kind pow’r and soft joys to deride.

If you urge it I cannot refuse your request:
Though to grant it will punish severely my crime:
But my fault I repent, and my errors detest;
And I hoped to have shown my conversion in time.

Remember, our laws in their mercy decide
That no culprit be forced to give proof of his deed:
They protect him though fall’n, his failings they hide,
And enable the wretch from his crimes to receed (sic).

The principle’s noble! I need not urge long
Its adoption; then turn from a judge to a friend.
Do not ask for the proof that I once acted wrong,
But direct me and guide me the way to amend.

M. F.

What other previous passages between them are hinted at in the letter which
he sent her, is unknown; but on July 5, 1820, he wrote:—

Royal Institution.
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.

Sarah Barnard showed the letter to her father. She was young, and
feared to accept her lover. All her father would say by way of counsel was
that love made philosophers say many foolish things. The intensity of
Faraday’s passion proved for the time a bar to his advance. Fearing lest she
should be unable to return it with equal force, Miss Barnard shrank from
replying. To postpone an immediate decision, she went away with her sister,
Mrs. Reid, to Ramsgate. Faraday followed to press his suit, and after
several happy days in her company, varied with country walks and a run
over to Dover, he was able to say: “Not a moment’s alloy of this evening’s
happiness occurred. Everything was delightful to the last moment of my
stay with my companion, because she was so.”
Of the many letters that Faraday wrote to his future wife a number have
been preserved. They are manly, simple, full of quiet affection, but
absolutely free from gush or forced sentiment of any kind. Extracts from
several of them are printed by Bence Jones. One of these, written early in
1821, runs as follows:—

I tied up the enclosed key with my books last night, and make
haste to return it lest its absence should occasion confusion. If it has,
it will perhaps remind you of the disorder I must be in here also for
the want of a key—I mean the one to my heart. However, I know
where my key is, and hope soon to have it here, and then the
Institution will be all right again. Let no one oppose my gaining
possession of it when unavoidable obstacles are removed.
Ever, my dear girl, one who is perfectly yours,
M. Faraday.

Faraday obtained leave of the managers to bring his wife to live in his
rooms at the Institution; and in May, 1821, his position was changed from
that of lecture assistant to that of superintendent of the house and
laboratory. In these changes Sir Humphry Davy gave him willing
assistance. But his salary remained £100 a year.
Obstacles being now removed, Faraday and Miss Barnard were married
on June 12. Few persons were asked to the wedding, for Faraday wished it
to be “just like any other day.” “There will,” he wrote, “be no bustle, no
noise, no hurry ... it is in the heart that we expect and look for pleasure.”
A HAPPY MARRIAGE.

His marriage, though childless, was extremely happy. Mrs. Faraday
proved to be exactly the true helpmeet for his need; and he loved her to the
end of his life with a chivalrous devotion which has become almost a
proverb. Little indications of his attachment crop up in unexpected places in
his subsequent career; but as with his religious views so with his domestic
affairs, he never obtruded them upon others, nor yet shrank from
mentioning them when there was cause. Tyndall, in after years, made the
intensity of Faraday’s attachment to his wife the subject of a striking simile:
“Never, I believe, existed a manlier, purer, steadier love. Like a burning
diamond, it continued to shed, for six and forty years, its white and
smokeless glow.”
In his diploma-book, now in possession of the Royal Society, in which
he carefully preserved all the certificates, awards, and honours bestowed
upon him by academies and universities, there may be found on a slip
inserted in the volume this 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 the rest. We
were married on June 12, 1821.
M. Faraday.

And two years later, in the autobiographical notes he wrote:—

On June 12, 1821, he married—an event which more than any
other contributed to his earthly happiness and healthful state of
mind. The union has continued for twenty-eight years, and has
nowise changed, except in the depth and strength of its character.

When near the close of his life, he presented to the Royal Institution the
bookcase with the volumes of notes of Davy’s lectures and of books bound
by himself, the inscription recorded that they were the gift of “Michael and
Sarah Faraday.”
Every Saturday evening he used to take his wife to her father’s house at
Paternoster Row, so that on Sunday they should be nearer to the chapel at
Paul’s Alley. And in after years, when he was away on scientific work,
visiting lighthouses, or attending meetings of the British Association, he
always tried to return for the Sunday.
A letter from Liebig in 1844 (see p. 225) gives one of the very few
glimpses of contemporary date of the impression made by Mrs. Faraday
upon others.
One month after his marriage Faraday made his profession of faith
before the Sandemanian church, to which his wife already belonged, and
was admitted a member. To his religious views, and his relations to the
body he thus formally joined, reference will be found later.
FIRST ELECTRICAL DISCOVERY.

Faraday now settled down to a routine life of scientific work. His
professional reputation was rising, and his services as analyst were being
sought after. But in the midst of this he was pursuing investigations on his
own account. In the late summer of this year he made the discovery of the
electro-magnetic rotations described in Chapter III.—his first important
piece of original research—and had in consequence a serious
misunderstanding with Dr. Wollaston. On September 3rd, working with
George Barnard in the laboratory, he saw the electric wire for the first time
revolve around the pole of the magnet. Rubbing his hands as he danced
around the table with beaming face, he exclaimed: “There they go! there
they go! we have succeeded at last.” Then he gleefully proposed that they
should wind up the day by going to one of the theatres. Which should it be?

“Oh, to Astley’s, to see the horses.” And to Astley’s they went. On
Christmas Day he called his young wife to see something new: an electric
conducting-wire revolving under the influence of the magnetism of the
earth alone. He also read two chemical papers at the Royal Society,
announcing new discoveries; one of them in conjunction with his friend
Phillips. In July, 1822, he took his wife and her mother to Ramsgate, whilst
he went off with Phillips to Swansea to try a new process in Vivian’s copper
works. During this enforced parting, Faraday wrote his wife three letters
from which the following are extracts:—-
“A MERE LOVE-LETTER.”

(July 21, 1822).
I perceive that if I give way to my thoughts, I shall write you a
mere love-letter, just as usual, with not a particle of news in it: to
prevent which I will constrain myself to a narrative of what has
happened since I left you up to the present time, and then indulge
my affection.
Yesterday was a day of events—little, but pleasant. I went in the
morning to the Institution, and in the course of the day analysed the
water, and sent an account of it to Mr. Hatchett. Mr. Fisher I did not
see. Mr. Lawrence called in, and behaved with his usual generosity.
He had called in the early part of the week, and, finding that I
should be at the Institution on Saturday only, came up, as I have
already said, and insisted on my accepting two ten-pound bank-
notes for the information he professed to have obtained from me at
various times. Is not this handsome? The money, as you know, could
not have been at any time more acceptable; and I cannot see any
reason, my dear love, why you and I should not regard it as another
proof, among many, that our trust should without a moment’s
reserve be freely reposed on Him who provideth all things for His
people. Have we not many times been reproached, by such mercies
as these, for our caring after food and raiment and the things of this
world? On coming home in the evening, i.e., coming to Paternoster
Row home, I learned that Mr. Phillips had seen C., and had told her
we should not leave London until Monday evening. So I shall have

to-morrow to get things ready in, and I shall have enough to do. I
fancy we are going to a large mansion and into high company, so I
must take more clothes. Having the £20, I am become bold....
And now, how do my dear wife and mother do? Are you
comfortable? are you happy? are the lodgings convenient, and Mrs.
O. obliging? Has the place done you good? Is the weather fine? Tell
me all things as soon as you can. I think if you write directly you get
this it will be best, but let it be a long letter. I do not know when I
wished so much for a long letter as I do from you now. You will get
this on Tuesday, and any letter from you to me cannot reach
Swansea before Thursday or Friday—a sad long time to wait. Direct
to me, Post Office, Swansea; or perhaps better, to me at — Vivian
Esq., Marino, near Swansea, South Wales....
And now, my dear girl, I must set business aside. I am tired of
the dull detail of things, and want to talk of love to you; and surely
there can be no circumstances under which I can have more right.
The theme was a cheerful and delightful one before we were
married, but it is doubly so now. I now can speak, not of my own
heart only, but of both our hearts. I now speak, not with any doubt
of the state of your thoughts, but with the fullest conviction that they
answer to my own. All that I can now say warm and animated to
you, I know that you would say to me again. The excess of pleasure
which I feel in knowing you mine is doubled by the consciousness
that you feel equal joy in knowing me yours.

FROM HUSBAND TO WIFE.

Marino: Sunday, July 28, 1822.
My Dearly Beloved Wife,—I have just read your letter again,
preparatory to my writing to you, that my thoughts might be still
more elevated and quickened than before. I could almost rejoice at
my absence from you, if it were only that it has produced such an
earnest and warm mark of affection from you as that letter. Tears of
joy and delight fell from my eyes on its perusal. I think it was last
Sunday evening, about this time, that I wrote to you from London;

and I again resort to this affectionate conversation with you, to tell
you what has happened since the letter which I got franked from this
place to you on Thursday I believe.

* * * * *
We have been working very hard here at the copper works, and
with some success. Our days have gone on just as before. A walk
before breakfast; then breakfast; then to the works till four or five
o’clock, and then home to dress, and dinner. After dinner, tea and
conversation. I have felt doubly at a loss to-day, being absent from
both the meeting and you. When away from London before, I have
had you with me, and we could read and talk and walk; to-day I
have had no one to fill your place, so I will tell you how I have
done. There are so many here, and their dinner so late and long, that
I made up my mind to avoid it, though, if possible, without
appearing singular. So, having remained in my room till breakfast
time, we all breakfasted together, and soon after Mr. Phillips and
myself took a walk out to the Mumbles Point, at the extremity of
this side of the bay. There we sat down to admire the beautiful
scenery around us, and, after we had viewed it long enough,
returned slowly home. We stopped at a little village in our way,
called Oystermouth, and dined at a small, neat, homely house about
one o’clock. We then came back to Marino, and after a little while
again went out—Mr. Phillips to a relation in the town, and myself
for a walk on the sands and the edge of the bay. I took tea in a little
cottage, and, returning home about seven o’clock, found them
engaged at dinner, so came up to my own room, and shall not see
them again to-night. I went down for a light just now, and heard
them playing some sacred music in the drawing-room; they have all
been to church to-day, and are what are called regular people.
The trial at Hereford is put off for the present, but yet we shall
not be able to be in town before the end of this week. Though I long
to see you, I do not know when it will be; but this I know, that I am
getting daily more anxious about you. Mr. Phillips wrote home to
Mrs. Phillips from here even before I did—i.e. last Wednesday. This
morning he received a letter from Mrs. Phillips (who is very well)

desiring him to ask me for a copy of one of my letters to you, that he
may learn to write love-letters of sufficient length. He laughs at the
scolding, and says that it does not hurt at a distance....
It seems to me so long since I left you that there must have been
time for a great many things to have happened. I expect to see you
with such joy when I come home that I shall hardly know what to
do with myself. I hope you will be well and blooming, and animated
and happy, when you see me. I do not know how we shall contrive
to get away from here. We certainly shall not have concluded before
Thursday evening, but I think we shall endeavour earnestly to leave
this place on Friday night, in which case we shall get home late on
Saturday night. If we cannot do that, as I should not like to be
travelling all day on Sunday, we shall probably not leave until
Sunday night; but I think the first plan will be adopted, and that you
will not have time to answer this letter. I expect, nevertheless, an
answer to my last letter—i.e. I expect that my dear wife will think of
me again. Expect here means nothing more than I trust and have a
full confidence that it will be so. My kind girl is so affectionate that
she would not think a dozen letters too much for me if there were
time to send them, which I am glad there is not.
Give my love to our mothers as earnestly as you would your
own, and also to Charlotte or John, or any such one that you may
have with you. I have not written to Paternoster Row yet, but I am
going to write now, so that I may be permitted to finish this letter
here. I do not feel quite sure, indeed, that the permission to leave off
is not as necessary from my own heart as from yours.
With the utmost affection—with perhaps too much—I am, my
dear wife, my Sarah, your devoted husband,
M. Faraday.

Faraday’s next scientific success was the liquefaction of chlorine (see
Chapter III., p. 93). This discovery, which created much interest in the
scientific world, was the occasion of a serious trouble with Sir Humphry
Davy; for doubtless Davy was annoyed that he had left such a simple

experiment to a mere assistant. Writing on the matter years after, Faraday
said:—

When my paper was written, it was, according to a custom
consequent upon our relative positions, submitted to Sir H. Davy (as
were all my papers for the “Philosophical Transactions” up to a
much later period), and he altered it as he thought fit. This practice
was one of great kindness to me, for various grammatical mistakes
and awkward expressions were from time to time thus removed,
which might else have remained.

In point of fact, Davy on this occasion added a note (which was duly
printed) saying precisely how far he had any share in suggesting the
experiment, but in no wise traversing any of Faraday’s claims. Although he
thus acted generously to the latter, there can be no question that he began to
be seriously jealous of Faraday’s rising fame. The matter was the more
serious because some who did not have a nice appreciation of the
circumstances chose to rake up a charge which had been raised two years
before against Faraday by some of Dr. Wollaston’s friends—in particular by
Dr. Warburton—about the discovery of the electro-magnetic rotations, a
charge which Faraday’s straightforward action and Wollaston’s frank
satisfaction ought to have dissipated for ever. And all this was doubly
aggravating because Faraday was now expecting to be proposed as a
candidate for the Fellowship of the Royal Society, of which Sir Humphry
was President.
PROPOSED FOR THE FELLOWSHIP.

At that time, as now, the proposal paper or “certificate” of a candidate
for election must be presented, signed by a number of influential Fellows.
Faraday’s friend Phillips took in hand the pleasant task of drawing up this
certificate and of collecting the necessary signatures. The rule then was that
the certificate so presented must be read out at ten successive meetings of
the Society; after which a ballot took place. Faraday’s certificate bears
twenty-nine names. The very first is that of Wollaston, and it is followed by
those of Children, Babington, Sir John Herschel, Babbage, Phillips, Roget,
and Sir James South.

On the 5th of May, 1823, Faraday wrote to Phillips:—

A thousand thanks to you for your kindness—I am delighted
with the names—Mr. Brande had told me of it before I got your note
and thought it impossible to be better. I suppose you will not be in
Grosvenor Street this Evening, so I will put this in the post.
Our Best remembrances to Mrs. Phillips.
Yours Ever,
M. Faraday.

The certificate was read for the first time on May 1st. The absence of
the names of Davy and Brande is accounted for by the one being President
and the other Secretary. Bence Jones gives the following account of what
followed:—

That Sir H. Davy actively opposed Faraday’s election is no less
certain than it is sad.
Many years ago, Faraday gave a friend the following facts,
which were written down immediately:—“Sir H. Davy told me I
must take down my certificate. I replied that I had not put it up; that
I could not take it down, as it was put up by my proposers. He then
said I must get my proposers to take it down. I answered that I knew
they would not do so. Then he said, I as President will take it down.
I replied that I was sure Sir H. Davy would do what he thought was
for the good of the Royal Society.”
Faraday also said that one of his proposers told him that Sir H.
Davy had walked for an hour round the courtyard of Somerset
House, arguing that Faraday ought not to be elected. This was
probably about May 30.

Faraday also made the following notes on the circumstance of the
charge made by Wollaston’s friends:—

1823. In relation to Davy’s opposition to my election at the
Royal Society.
Sir H. Davy angry, May 30.
Phillips’ report through Mr. Children, June 5.
Mr. Warburton called first time, June 5 (evening).
I called on Dr. Wollaston, and he not in town, June 9.
I called on Dr. Wollaston, and saw him, June 14.
I called at Sir H. Davy’s, and he called on me, June 17.

On July 8 Dr. Warburton wrote that he was satisfied with Faraday’s
explanation, and added that he would tell his friends that “my objections to
you as a Fellow are and ought to be withdrawn, and that I now wish to
forward your election.”
Bence Jones adds:—

On June 29, Sir H. Davy ends a note, “I am, dear Faraday, very
sincerely your well wisher and friend.” So that outwardly the storm
rapidly passed away; and when the ballot was taken, after the
certificate had been read at ten meetings, there was only one black
ball.

FELLOWSHIP AND MAGNANIMITY.

The election took place January 8, 1824.
11
Of this unfortunate misunderstanding, Davy’s biographer, Dr. Thorpe,
writes:—

The jealousy thus manifested by Davy is one of the most pitiful
facts in his history. It was a sign of that moral weakness which was
at the bottom of much of his unpopularity, and which revealed itself
in various ways as his physical strength decayed....

Faraday allowed himself in after days no shade of resentment against
Davy; though he confessed rather sadly that after his election as F.R.S. his
relations with his former master were never the same as before. If anyone
recurred to the old scandal, he would fire with indignation. Dumas in his
“Éloge Historique” has given the following anecdote:—

Faraday never forgot what he owed to Davy. Visiting him at the
family lunch, twenty years after the death of the latter, he noticed
evidently that I responded with some coolness to the praises which
the recollection of Davy’s great discoveries had evoked from him.
He made no comment. But, after the meal, he simply took me down
to the library of the Royal Institution, and stopping before the
portrait of Davy he said: “He was a great man, wasn’t he?” Then,
12
turning round, he added, “It was here that he spoke to me for the
first time.” I bowed. We went down to the laboratory. Faraday took
out a note-book, opened it and pointed out with his finger the words
written by Davy, at the very moment when by means of the battery
he had just decomposed potash, and had seen the first globule of
potassium ever isolated by the hand of man. Davy had traced with a
feverish hand a circle which separates them from the rest of the
page: the words, “Capital Experiment,” which he wrote below,
cannot be read without emotion by any true chemist. I confessed
myself conquered, and this time, without hesitating longer, I joined
in the admiration of my good friend.

Dr. Thorpe in his life of Davy adds:—

... To the end of his days he [Faraday] regarded Davy as his true
master, preserving to the last, in spite of his knowledge of the moral
frailties of Davy’s nature, the respect and even reverence which is to
be seen in his early lecture notes and in his letters to his friend
Abbott.

In 1823 the Athenæum Club was started by J. Wilson Croker, Sir H.
Davy, Sir T. Lawrence, Sir F. Chantrey, and others, as a resort for literary
and scientific men. Faraday was made Club Secretary; but he found the

duties totally uncongenial, and in 1824 resigned the post to his friend
Magrath.
Faraday was advanced in 1825 to the position of Director of the
Laboratory of the Royal Institution, Brande remaining Professor of
Chemistry. One of the first acts of the new Director was to hold evening
meetings of the members in the laboratory, when experiments were shown
and some demonstration was given. There were three or four of these
informal gatherings that year. In the next year these Friday evening
meetings were held more systematically. There were seventeen during the
season, at six of which Faraday gave discourses (see p. 100). In 1827 there
were nineteen, of which he delivered three. By this time the gatherings were
held in the theatre as at present, save that ladies were only admitted at that
date, and for many years, to the upper gallery. He also originated the
Christmas lectures to juveniles, while continuing to give regular courses of
morning lectures, as his predecessors Young and Davy had done. His
activity for the Royal Institution was incessant.
FEES FOR PROFESSIONAL WORK.

Down to the year 1830 Faraday continued to undertake, at professional
fees, chemical analyses and expert work in the law-courts, and thereby
added considerably to the very slender emolument of his position; but,
finding this work to make increasing demands on his time, which he could
ill spare from the absorbing pursuit of original researches, he decided to
abandon a practice which would have made him rich, and withdrew from
expert practice. The following letter to Phillips was written only a few
weeks before this determination:—

[M. Faraday to Richard Phillips.]
Royal Institution,
June 21, 1831.
My dear Phillips,—I have been trying hard to get time enough
to write to you by post to-night, but without success; the bell has
rung, and I am too late. However, I am resolved to be ready to-
morrow. We have been very anxious and rather embarrassed in our
minds about your anxiety to know how things were proceeding, and

uncertain whether reference to them would be pleasant, and that has
been the cause why I have not written to you, for I did not know
what character your connexion with Badams had. I was a little the
more embarrassed because of my acquaintance with Mr. Rickard
and his family, and, of course with his brother-in-law, Dr. Urchell,
of whom I have made numerous enquiries to know what Mr.
Rickard intended doing at Birmingham. He (expressed a) hope it
would be nothing unpleasant to you, but was not sure. Our only bit
of comfort in the matter was on hearing from Daniell about you a
little; he was here to-day, and glad to hear of you through me. But
now that I may write, let me say that Mrs. Faraday has been very
anxious with myself, and begs me earnestly to remember her to Mrs.
Phillips. We have often wished we could have had you here for an
hour or two, to break off what we supposed might be the train of
thoughts at home.
With regard to the five guineas, do not think of it for a moment.
Whilst I supposed a mercantile concern wanted my opinion for its
own interested uses, I saw no reason why it should not pay me; but
it is altogether another matter when it becomes your affair. I do not
think you would have wished me to pay you five guineas for
anything you might have done personally for me. “Dog don’t eat
dog,” as Sir E. Home said to me in a similar case. The affair is
settled.
I have no doubt I shall be amused and, as you speak of new
facts, instructed by your letter to Dr. Reid, as I am by all your
letters. Daniell says he thinks you are breaking a fly upon the wheel.
You know I consider you as the Prince of Chemical critics.
Pearsall has been working, as you know, on red manganese
solutions. He has not proved, but he makes out a strong case for the
opinion, that they owe their colour and other properties to
manganesic acid. This paper will be in the next number of the
Journal.
With regard to the gramme, wine-pint, etc., etc., in the
manipulation I had great trouble about them, for I could find no
agreement, and at last resolved to take certain conclusions from

Capt. Kater’s paper and the Act of Parliament, and calculate the rest.
I think I took the data at page 67, paragraph 119, as the data, but am
not sure, and cannot go over them again.
My memory gets worse and worse daily. I will not, therefore,
say I have not received your Pharmacopœia—that of 1824 is what I
have at hand and use. I am not aware of any other. I have sent a
paper to the R. S., but not chemical. It is on sound, etc., etc. If they
print it, of course you will have a copy in due time.
I am, my dear Phillips,
Most faithfully and sincerely yours,
M. Faraday.
Is it right to ask what has become of Badams? I suppose he is,
of course, a defaulter at the R. S.

SACRIFICES FOR SCIENCE.

This sacrifice for science was not small. He had made £1,000 in 1830
out of these professional occupations, and in 1831 would have made more
but for his own decision. In 1832 some Excise work that he had retained
brought him in £155 9s.; but in no subsequent year did it bring in so much.
He might easily have made £5,000 a year had he chosen to cultivate the
professional connection thus formed; and as he continued, with little
intermission, in activity till 1860, he might have died a wealthy man. But he
chose otherwise; and his first reward came in the autumn of 1831, in the
great discovery of magneto-electric currents—the principle upon which all
our modern dynamos and transformers are based, the foundation of all the
electric lighting and electric transmission of power. From this work he went
on to a research on the identity of all the kinds of electricity, until then
supposed to be of separate sorts, and from this to electro-chemical work of
the very highest value. Of all these investigations some account will be
found in the chapters which follow.
But the immense body of patient scientific work thus done for the love
of science was not accomplished without sacrifices of a more than
pecuniary kind. He withdrew more and more from society, declined to dine
in company, ceased to give dinners, withdrew from all social and

philanthropic organisations; even withdrew from taking any part in the
management of any of the learned societies. The British Association for the
Advancement of Science was started in 1831. Faraday took no part in that
movement, and did not attend the inaugural meeting at York. The next year,
however, he attended the second meeting of that body at Oxford. Here he
“had the pleasure”—it is his own phrase—of making an experiment on the
great magnet in the University museum, drawing a spark by induction in a
coil of wire. This was a coil 220 feet long, wound on a hollow cylinder of
pasteboard, which had been used in the classical experiments of the
preceding year. He also showed that the induced currents could heat a thin
wire connected to the terminals of this coil. These experiments, which were
made in conjunction with Mr. (afterwards Sir William Snow) Harris,
Professor Daniell, and Mr. Duncan, seem to have excited great attention at
the time. The theologians of Oxford appear to have been mightily distressed
both by the success of the spark experiment and by the welcome shown by
the University to the representatives of science. The following passage from
13
Pusey’s life reveals the rampant clericalism which then and for a score of
years sought to put back the clock of civilisation.

During the Long Vacation of 1832 Pusey had plenty of work on
hand. The British Association had held its first meeting in Oxford
during the month of June, and on the 21st the honorary degree of
D.C.L. was bestowed on four of its distinguished members:
Brewster, Faraday, Brown, and Dalton. Keble, who was now
Professor of Poetry, was angry at the “temper and tone of the
Oxford doctors”; they had “truckled sadly to the spirit of the times”
in receiving “the hodge-podge of philosophers” as they did. Dr. L.
Carpenter had assured Dr. Macbride that “the University had
prolonged her existence for a hundred years by the kind reception he
and his fellows had received.”

THE HODGE-PODGE OF PHILOSOPHERS.

It is not without significance, perhaps, that all the four men thus
contemptuously labelled by Keble as the “hodge-podge of philosophers”
were Dissenters. Brewster and Brown (the great botanist and discoverer of
the “Brownian” motion of particles) belonged to the Presbyterian Church of

Scotland, Dalton was a Member of the Society of Friends, and Faraday a
Sandemanian. Newman appears to have been equally discomposed by the
circumstance, for he got his friend Mr. Rose to write an article—a long and
weary diatribe—against the British Association, which he inserted in the
British Critic for 1839. Its slanders, assumptions, suppressions, and
suggestions are in a very unworthy temper.
Faraday’s devotion to the Royal Institution and its operations was
marvellous. He had already abandoned outside professional work. From
1838 he refused to see any callers except three times a week. His extreme
desire was to give himself uninterruptedly to research. His friend A. de la
Rive says:—

Every morning Faraday went into his laboratory as the man of
business goes to his office, and then tried by experiment the truth of
the ideas which he had conceived overnight, as ready to give them
up if experiment said no as to follow out the consequences with
rigorous logic if experiment answered yes.

He had in 1827 declined the appointment of Professor of Chemistry in
the University (afterwards called University College) of London, giving as
his reason the interests of the Royal Institution. He wrote:—

I think it a matter of duty and gratitude on my part to do what I
can for the good of the Royal Institution in the present attempt to
establish it firmly. The Institution has been a source of knowledge
and pleasure to me for the last fourteen years; and though it does not
pay me in salary what I now strive to do for it, yet I possess the kind
feelings and goodwill of its authorities and members, and all the
privileges it can grant or I require; and, moreover, I remember the
protection it has afforded me during the past years of my scientific
life. These circumstances, with the thorough conviction that it is a
useful and valuable establishment, and the strong hopes that
exertions will be followed with success, have decided me in giving
at least two years more to it, in the belief that after that time it will
proceed well, into whatever hands it may pass.

In 1829, however, he was asked to become lecturer on chemistry at the
Royal Academy at Woolwich. As this involved only twenty lectures a year
he agreed, the salary being fixed at £200 a year. These lectures were
continued until 1849.
TRINITY HOUSE APPOINTMENT.

In 1836 the whole course of his scientific work was changed by his
appointment as scientific adviser to Trinity House, the body which has
official charge of the lighthouse service in Great Britain. To the Deputy-
master he wrote:—

I consider your letter to me as a great compliment, and should
view the appointment at the Trinity House, which you propose, in
the same light; but I may not accept even honours without due
consideration.
In the first place, my time is of great value to me; and if the
appointment you speak of involved anything like periodical routine
attendances, I do not think I could accept it. But if it meant that in
consultation, in the examination of proposed plans and experiments,
in trials, etc., made as my convenience would allow, and with an
honest sense of a duty to be performed, then I think it would consist
with my present engagements. 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 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.

As to the title, it might be what you pleased almost. Chemical
adviser is too narrow, for you would find me venturing into parts of
the philosophy of light not chemical. Scientific adviser you may
think too broad (or in me too presumptuous); and so it would be, if
by it was understood all science.

He held the post of scientific adviser for nearly thirty years. The
records of his work are to be found in nineteen large portfolios full of
manuscripts, all indexed with that minute and scrupulous attention to order
and method which characterised all his work.
He also held nominally the post of scientific adviser to the Admiralty,
at a salary of £200 a year. But this salary he never drew. Once the officials
of the Admiralty requested his opinion upon a printed advertising pamphlet
of somebody’s patent disinfecting powder and anti-miasma lamp. Faraday
returned it, with a quietly indignant protest that it was not such a document
as he could be expected to give an opinion upon.
Faraday’s hope, expressed in 1827, that in two years the Royal
Institution might be restored to a financially sound position, was not
realised. He worked with the most scrupulous economy, noting down every
detail of expenditure even in farthings. “We were living on the parings of
our own skin,” he once told the managers. In 1832 the financial question
became acute. At the end of that year a committee of investigation reported
as follows:—

The Committee are certainly of opinion that no reduction can be
made in Mr. Faraday’s salary—£100 per annum, house, coals, and
candles; and beg to express their regret that the circumstances of the
Institution are not such as to justify their proposing such an increase
of it as the variety of duties which Mr. Faraday has to perform, and
the zeal and ability with which he performs them, appear to merit.

A HUNDRED A YEAR, AND TWO ROOMS.

A hundred a year, the use of two rooms, and coals! Such was the
stipend of the man who had just before been made D.C.L. of Oxford, and
had received from the Royal Society the highest award it can bestow—the

Copley Medal! True, he made £200 by the Woolwich lectures; but he had a
wife to maintain, his aged mother was entirely dependent upon him, and
there were many calls upon his private exercise of charity.
About the year 1835 it was the intention of Sir Robert Peel to confer
upon him a pension from the Civil List, but he went out of office before this
could be arranged, and Lord Melbourne became Prime Minister. Sir James
South had in March written to Lord Ashley, afterwards the well-known Earl
of Shaftesbury, asking him to place a little historiette of Faraday in Sir
14
Robert Peel’s hands. The said historiette contained an account of
Faraday’s early career and a description of the electrical machine which he
had constructed as a lad. “Now that his pecuniary circumstances,” it went
on, “were improved, he sent his younger sister to boarding-school, but to
enable him to defray the expense, to deprive himself of dinner every other
day was absolutely indispensable.” Peel expressed to Ashley lively regret at
not having received the historiette earlier when he was still in office. To
Ashley, later, he wrote the following hitherto unpublished letter:—

Drayton Manor,
May 3, 1835.
My Dear Ashley,—You do me but justice in entertaining the
belief that had I remained in office one of my earliest
recommendations to his Majesty would have been to grant a pension
to Mr. Faraday, on the same principles precisely upon which one
was granted to Mr. Airy. If there had been the means, I would have
made the offer before I left office.
I was quite aware of Mr. Faraday’s high eminence as a man of
science, and the valuable practical service he has rendered to the
public in that capacity; but I was to blame in not having ascertained
whether his pecuniary circumstances made an addition to his
income an object to him.
I am sure no man living has a better claim to such a
consideration from the State than he has, and I trust the principle I
acted on with regard to the award of civil pensions will not only
remove away impediments of delicacy and independent feeling
from the acceptance of them, but will add a higher value to the grant

of a pension as an honourable distinction than any that it could
derive from its pecuniary amount.
Ever, my dear Ashley,
Most faithfully yours,
Robert Peel.

LORD MELBOURNE’S PARTICIPLE.

Sir James South still endeavoured to bring about the grant thus
deferred, and wrote to the Hon. Caroline Fox, asking her to put the
historiette of Faraday in the hands of Lord Holland, for him to lay before
Melbourne. Faraday at first demurred to Sir James South’s action, but on
the advice of his father-in-law, Barnard, withdrew his demurrer. Later in the
year he was asked to wait on Lord Melbourne at the Treasury. He has left a
diary of the events of the day, October 26th. According to these notes it
appears that Faraday first had a long talk with Melbourne’s secretary, Mr.
Young, about his first demurring on religious grounds to accept the pension,
about his objection to savings’ banks, and the laying-up of wealth. Later in
the day he had a short interview with the First Lord of the Treasury, when
Lord Melbourne, utterly mistaking the nature of the man before him,
inveighed roundly upon the whole system of giving pensions to scientific
and literary persons, which he described as a piece of humbug. He prefixed
the word “humbug” with a participle which Faraday’s notes describe as
“theological.” Faraday, with an instant flash of indignation, bowed and
withdrew. The same evening he left his card and the following note at the
Treasury:—

To the Right Hon. Lord Viscount Melbourne, First Lord of the
Treasury.
October 26.
My Lord,—The conversation with which your Lordship
honoured me this afternoon, including, as it did, your Lordship’s
opinion of the general character of the pensions given of late to
scientific persons, induces me respectfully to decline the favour
which I believe your Lordship intends for me; for I feel that I could
not, with satisfaction to myself, accept at your Lordship’s hands that

which, though it has the form of approbation, is of the character
which your Lordship so pithily applied to it.

Faraday’s diary says:—

Did not like it much, and, on the whole, regret that friends
should have placed me in the situation in which I found myself.
Lord Melbourne said that “he thought there had been a great deal of
humbug in the whole affair. He did not mean my affair, of course,
but that of the pensions altogether.”... I begged him to understand
that I had known nothing of the matter until far advanced, and,
though grateful to those friends who had urged it forward, wished
him to feel at perfect liberty in the affair as far as I was concerned....
In the evening I wrote and left a letter. I left it myself at ten o’clock
at night, being anxious that Lord Melbourne should have it before
anything further was done in the affair.

MICHAEL’S PENSION.

However, the matter did not end here. Faraday’s friends were indignant.
A caustic, and probably exaggerated, account—for which Faraday
disclaimed all responsibility—of the interview appeared in Fraser’s
Magazine, and was copied into The Times of November 28th, with the
result that, had it not been for the personal intervention of the King, the
pension might have been refused. The storm, however, passed away, and the
pension of £300 per annum was granted on December 24th. Years
afterwards, writing to Mr. B. Bell, Faraday said, “Lord Melbourne behaved
very handsomely in the matter.”
In Fraser’s Magazine for February, 1836 (vol. xiii., p. 224), is a portrait
of Faraday by Maclise, accompanied by a very amusing biographical notice
by Dr. Maginn. The picture represents Faraday lecturing, and surrounded by
his apparatus. The article begins thus:—

Here you have him in his glory—not that his position was
inglorious when he stood before Melbourne, then decorated with a
blue velvet travelling cap, and lounging with one leg over the chair

of Canning!—and distinctly gave that illustrious despiser of
“humbug” to understand that he had mistaken his lad. No! but here
you have him as he first flashed upon the intelligence of mankind
the condensation of the gases, or the identity of the five electricities.

After a lively summary of his career, and the jocular suggestion that, as
the successor of Sir Humphry Davy, Far-a-day must be near-a-knight the
article continues:—

The future Baronet is a very good little fellow ... playing a fair
fork over a leg of mutton, and devoid of any reluctance to partake
an old friend’s third bottle. We know of few things more agreeable
than a cigar and a bowl of punch (which he mixes admirably) in the
society of the unpretending ex-bookbinder....
Well, although Young got Broderip to write a sort of defence of
his master, and “Justice B——”—mirabile dictu!—got Hook to
print it in the John Bull, the current of public feeling could not be
stopped: Regina spoke out—William Rex, as in duty bound,
followed—Melbourne apologised—and “Michael’s pension,
Michael’s pension” is all right.

In one of his note-books of this period is found the following entry:—

15 January, 1834.
Within the last week have observed twice that a slight obscurity
of the sight of my left eye has happened. It occurred on reading the
letters of a book held about fourteen inches from the eye, being
obscured as by a fog over a space about half an inch in diameter.
This space was a little to the right and below the axes of the eye.
Looking for the effect now and other times, I cannot perceive it. I
note this down that I may hereafter trace the progress of the effect if
it increases or becomes more common.

Happily, the trouble did not recur; but the entry is characteristic of the
habits of accuracy of the man. Loss of memory, unfortunately, early set in.

There is actually a hint of this in the first of his letters to Abbott (p. 7), and
references to the trouble and to dizziness in the head recur perpetually in his
correspondence. Whenever these brain-troubles threatened, he was
compelled to drop all work and seek rest and change of scene. He often ran
down to Brighton, which he thought, however, a poor place. He constructed
15
for himself a velocipede on which to take exercise. Two or three times he
went to Switzerland for a longer holiday, usually accompanied by his wife
and her brother, George Barnard.
“Physically,” says Tyndall, “Faraday was below the middle size, well
set, active, and with extraordinary animation of countenance. His head from
forehead to back was so long that he had usually to bespeak his hats.” In
youth his hair was brown, curling naturally; later in life it approached to
white, and he always parted it down the middle. His voice was pleasant, his
laugh was hearty, his manners when with young people, or when excited by
success in the laboratory, were gay to boyishness. Indeed, until the end of
the active period of his life he never lost the capacity for boyish delight, or
for unbending in fun after the stress of severe labour.

CHAPTER III.

SCIENTIFIC RESEARCHES: FIRST PERIOD.
From first to last the original scientific researches of Faraday extend over a
period of forty-four years, beginning with an analysis of caustic lime,
published in the Quarterly Journal of Science in 1816, and ending with his
last unfinished researches of 1860 to 1862, on the possible existence of new
relations between magnetism and gravity and between magnetism and light.
The mere list of their titles fills several pages in the catalogue of scientific
papers published by the Royal Society.
For convenience of description, these forty-four years may be divided
into three periods: the first lasting from 1816 to 1830, a period of
miscellaneous and in some respects preliminary activity; the second from
1831 to the end of 1839, the period of the classical experimental researches
in electricity down to the time when they were temporarily suspended by
the serious state of his health; the third from 1844, when he was able to
resume work, down to 1860, a period which includes the completion of the
experimental researches on electricity, the discovery of the relations
between light and magnetism, and that of diamagnetism.
RESEARCHES BEGINNING.

Faraday’s first research was an analysis for Sir Humphry Davy of a
specimen of caustic lime which had been sent to him by the Duchess of
Montrose from Tuscany. The Quarterly Journal of Science, in which it
appeared, was a precursor of the Proceedings of the Royal Institution, and
was indeed edited by Professor W. F. Brande. Faraday frequently wrote for
it during these years, and took editorial charge of it on more than one
occasion during Brande’s holidays. The paper on caustic lime was reprinted
by Faraday in the volume of his “Experimental Researches on Chemistry
and Physics,” prefaced by the following note:—

I reprint this paper at full length; it was the beginning of my
communications to the public, and in its results very important to
me. Sir Humphry Davy gave me the analysis to make as a first
attempt in chemistry, at a time when my fear was greater than my
confidence, and both far greater than my knowledge; at a time also
when I had no thought of ever writing an original paper on science.
The addition of his own comments, and the publication of the paper,
encouraged me to go on making, from time to time, other slight
communications, some of which appear in this volume. Their
transference from the Quarterly into other journals increased my
boldness, and now that forty years have elapsed, and I can look back
on what successive communications have led to, I still hope, much
as their character has changed, that I have not either now or forty
years ago been too bold.

For the next two or three years Faraday was very closely occupied in
the duties of assisting Sir Humphry Davy in his researches, and in helping
to prepare the lectures for both Davy and Brande. Yet he found time still to
work on his own account. In 1817 he had six papers and notes in the
Quarterly Journal of Science, including one on the escape of gases through
capillary tubes, and others on wire-gauze safety lamps and Davy’s
experiments on flame. In 1818 he had eleven papers in the Journal; the
most important being on the production of sound in tubes by flames, while
another was on the combustion of the diamond. In 1819 he had nineteen
papers in the Quarterly Journal, chiefly of a chemical nature. These related
to boracic acid, the composition of steels, the separation of manganese from
iron, and on the supposed new metal, “Sirium” or “Vestium,” which he
showed to be only a mixture of iron and sulphur with nickel, cobalt, and
other metals.
OERSTED’S DISCOVERY.

The year 1820 was marked in the annals of science by the discovery, by
Oersted of Copenhagen, of the prime fact of electromagnetism, the
deflexion which is produced upon a magnetic needle by an electric current
that passes either under or over the needle. Often had it been suspected that
there must be some connection between the phenomena of electricity and
those of magnetism. The similarities between the attractions and repulsions

caused by electrified bodies, and those due to the magnet when acting on
iron, had constantly suggested the possibility that there was some real
connection. But, as had been pointed out centuries before by St. Augustine,
while the rubbed amber will attract any substance if only small or light
enough, being indifferent to its material, the magnet will only attract iron or
16
compounds of iron, and is totally inoperative on all other substances.
Again, while it had been noticed that in houses which had been struck by
lightning knives, needles, and other steel objects near the path of the
electric flash had become magnetised, no one had been able, by using the
most powerful electric machines, to repeat with certainty the magnetisation
of needles. In vain they had tried to magnetise knives and wires by sending
sparks through them. Sometimes they showed a trace of magnetism,
sometimes none. And in the cases where some slight magnetisation
resulted, the polarity could not be depended upon. Van Swinden had written
a whole treatise in two volumes on the analogies between electricity and
magnetism, but left the real relation between the two more obscure than
ever. After the invention, in 1800, of the voltaic pile, which for the first time
provided a means of generating a steady flow or current of electricity,
several experimenters, including Oersted himself, had again essayed to
discover the long-suspected connection, but without success. Oersted was
notoriously a poor experimenter, though a man of great philosophical
genius. Having in 1820 a more powerful voltaic battery in operation than
17
previously, he repeated the operation of bringing near to the compass
needle the copper wire that conveyed the current; and, laying it parallel to
the needle’s direction, and over or under it, found that the needle tended to
turn into a direction at right angles to the line of the current, the sense of the
deviation depending upon the direction of flow of the current, and also on
the position of the wire as to whether it were above or below the needle. A
current flowing from south to north over the needle caused the north-
pointing end of the needle to be deflected westwards. If the wire were
vertical, so that the current flowed downwards, and a compass needle was
brought near the wire on the south side, therefore tending under the earth’s
directive influence to point northwards toward the wire, it was observed
that the effect of the current flowing in the wire was to cause the north-
pointing end of the needle to turn westwards. Or, reversing the flow of
current, the effect on the needle was reversed; it now tended eastwards. All

these things Oersted summed up in the phrase that “the electric conflict acts
18
in a revolving manner” around the wire. In modern phraseology the whole
of the actions are explained if one can conceive that the effect of the electric
flow in the wire is to tend to make the north pole of a magnet revolve in one
sense around the wire, whilst it also tends to make the south pole of the
magnet revolve around the wire in the other sense. The nett result in most
cases is that the magnetic needle tends to set itself square across the line of
the current. Oersted himself was not too clear in his explanations, and
seems, in his later papers, to have lost sight of the circular motion amidst
repulsions and attractions.
This discovery, which showed what was the geometrical relation
between the magnet and the current, also showed why the earlier attempts
had failed. It was requisite that the electricity should be in a state of steady
flow; neither at rest as in the experiments with electric charges, nor yet in
capricious or oscillatory rush as in those with spark-discharges. Faraday,
adverting a quarter of a century later to Oersted’s discovery, said: “It burst
open the gates of a domain in science, dark till then, and filled it with a
flood of light.”
The very day that Oersted’s memoir was published in England, Davy
brought a copy down into the laboratory of the Royal Institution, and he and
Faraday at once set to work to repeat the experiments and verify the facts.
It is a matter of history how, on the publication of Oersted’s discovery,
Ampère leaped forward to generalise on electromagnetic actions, and
discovered the mutual actions that may exist between two currents, or rather
between two conducting wires that carry currents. They are found to
experience mutual mechanical forces urging them into parallel proximity.
Biot and Laplace added to these investigations, as also did Arago. Davy
discovered that the naked copper wire, while carrying a current, could
attract iron filings to itself—not end-ways in adherent tufts, as the pole of a
magnet does, but laterally, each filing or chainlet of filings tending to set
itself tangentially at right angles to the axis of the wire.
A PARADOXICAL PHENOMENON.

This curious right-angled relation between electric flow and magnetic
force came as a complete paradox or puzzle to the scientific world. It had

taken centuries to throw off the strange unmechanical ideas of force which
had dominated the older astronomy. The epicyclic motions of the planets
postulated by the Ptolemaic system were in no way to be accounted for
upon mechanical principles. Kepler’s laws of planetary motion were merely
empirical, embodying the results of observation, until Newton’s discovery
of the laws of circular motion and of the principle of universal gravitation
placed the planetary theory on a rational basis. Newton’s laws required that
forces should act in straight lines, and that to every action there should be
an equal and opposite reaction. If a attracted b, then b attracted a with an
equal force, and the mutual force must be in the line drawn from a to b. The
discovery by Oersted that the magnet pole was urged by the electric wire in
a direction transverse to the line joining them, appeared at first sight to
contravene the ideas of force so thoroughly established by Newton. How
could this transversality be explained? Some sought to explain the effect by
considering the conducting wire to operate as if made up of a number of
short magnets set transversely across the wire, all their north poles being set
towards the right, and all their south poles towards the left. Ampère took the
alternative view that the magnet might be regarded as equivalent to a
number of electric currents circulating transversely around the core as an
axis. In neither case was the explanation complete.
TWO YEARS WASTED.

Faraday’s scientific activities in the year 1820 were very marked. New
researches on steel had been going on for some months. It had been hoped
that by alloying iron with some other metals, such as silver, platinum, or
nickel, a non-rusting alloy might be found. This idea took its rise from the
erroneous notion that meteoric iron, which is richly alloyed with nickel,
does not rust. Faraday found nickel steel to be more readily oxidised, not
less, than ordinary steel. The platinum steel was also a failure. Silver steel
was of more interest, though it was found impossible to incorporate in the
alloy more than a small percentage of silver. Nevertheless, silver steel was
used for some time by a Sheffield firm for manufacture of fenders. The
alloys of iron with platinum, iridium, and rhodium were also of no great
use. But the research demonstrated the surprising effects which minute
quantities of other metals may have upon the quality of steel. Occasionally
in later life Faraday would present one of his friends with a razor made
from his own special steel. A paper on the use of alloys of steel in surgical

instrument making was published in the Quarterly Journal in collaboration
with Mr. Stodart. Faraday also read his first paper before the Royal Society
on two new compounds of chlorine and carbon, and on a new compound of
iodine, carbon, and hydrogen. He also succeeded in making artificial
plumbago from charcoal. In writing to his friend Professor G. de la Rive, he
gives a long and chatty abstract of his researches on the alloys of steel.
They appear to have originated in some analyses of wootz or Indian steel, a
material which, when etched with acid, shows a beautifully damascened or
reticulated surface. This effect Faraday never found with pure steel, but
imitated it successfully with a steel alloyed with “the metal of alumine,” an
element which down to that time had not been isolated. He then describes
the rhodium, silver, and nickel steels, and mentions incidentally how he has
been surprised to discover that he can volatilise silver, and that he cannot
reduce the metal titanium. He is doubtful whether this metal “ever has been
reduced at all in the pure state.” [It can now be readily reduced either in the
electric arc or by the use of metallic aluminium.] He winds up the letter
with the words: “Pray pity us that, after two years’ experiments, we have
got no further; but I am sure, if you knew the labour of the experiments, you
would applaud us for our perseverance at least.”
In 1821, the year of his marriage, came the first of the important
scientific discoveries which brought him international fame. This was the
discovery of the electromagnetic rotations. It appears that Oersted’s brilliant
flash of insight that the “electric conflict acts in a revolving manner” upon
the pole of the neighbouring compass needle had been lost sight of in the
discussions which followed, and to which allusion has been made above.
All the world was thinking about attractions and repulsions. Two men,
however, seem to have gone a little further in their ideas. Dr. Wollaston had
suggested that there ought to be a tendency, when a magnet pole was
presented towards a straight conducting wire carrying a current, for that
conducting wire to revolve around its own axis. This effect—though in
recent years it has been observed by Mr. George Gore—he unsuccessfully
tried to observe by experiments. He came in April, 1821, to the laboratory
of the Royal Institution to make an experiment, but without result. Faraday,
at the request of his friend Phillips, who was editor of the Annals of
Philosophy, wrote for that magazine in July, August, and September a
historical sketch of electromagnetism down to date. This was one of the
very few of Faraday’s writings that was anonymous. It was simply signed

“M.” This is in vol. iii. p. 107. On p. 117 the editor says: “To the historical
sketch of electromagnetism with which I have been favoured by my
anonymous correspondent, I shall add a sketch of the discoveries that have
been made by Mr. Faraday of the Royal Institution.” In the course of this
work Faraday repeated for his own satisfaction almost all the experiments
that he described. This led him to discover that a wire, included in the
circuit, but mounted so as to hang with its lower end in a pool of
quicksilver, could rotate around the pole of a magnet; and conversely that if
the wire were fixed and the pole of the magnet free to move, the latter
would rotate around the former. “I did not realise,” he wrote, “Dr.
Wollaston’s expectation of the rotation of the electromagnetic wire around
its axis.” As was so often his custom, he had no sooner finished the research
for publication than he dashed off a brief summary of it in a letter to one of
his friends. On this occasion it was Professor G. de la Rive, of Geneva, who
was the recipient of his confidences. On September 12 he wrote:—
LETTER TO DE LA RIVE.

I am much flattered and encouraged to go on by your good
opinion of what little things I have been able to do in science, and
especially as regards the chlorides of carbon.

* * * * *
You partly reproach us here with not sufficiently esteeming
Ampère’s experiments on electromagnetism. Allow me to extenuate
your opinion a little on this point. With regard to the experiments, I
hope and trust that due weight is allowed to them; but these you
know are few, and theory makes up the great part of what M.
Ampère has published, and theory in a great many points
unsupported by experiments when they ought to have been adduced.
At the same time, M. Ampère’s experiments are excellent, and his
theory ingenious; and, for myself, I had thought very little about it
before your letter came, simply because, being naturally sceptical on
philosophical theories, I thought there was a great want of
experimental evidence. Since then, however, I have engaged on the
subject, and have a paper in our “Institution Journal,” which will
appear in a week or two, and that will, as it contains experiment, be

immediately applied by M. Ampère in support of his theory, much
more decidedly than it is by myself. I intend to enclose a copy of it
to you with the other, and only want the means of sending it.
I find all the usual attractions and repulsions of the magnetic
needle by the conjunctive wire are deceptions, the motions being not
attractions or repulsions, nor the result of any attractive or repulsive
forces, but the result of a force in the wire, which instead of
bringing the pole of the needle nearer to, or further from the wire,
endeavours to make it move round it in a never ending circle and
motion whilst the battery remains in action. I have succeeded not
only in showing the existence of this motion theoretically, but
experimentally, and have been able to make the wire revolve round
a magnetic pole, or a magnetic pole round the wire, at pleasure. The
law of revolution, and to which all the other motions of the needle
and wire are reducible, is simple and beautiful.
Conceive a portion of connecting wire north and south, the
north end being attached to the positive pole of a battery, the south
to the negative. A north magnetic pole would then pass round it
continually in the apparent direction of the sun, from east to west
above, from west to east below.
Reverse the connections with the battery, and the motion of the
pole is reversed; or if the south pole be made to revolve, the motions
will be in the opposite directions, as with the north pole.
If the wire be made to revolve round the pole, the motions are
according to those mentioned. In the apparatus I used there were but
19
two plates, and the directions of the motions were of course the
reverse of those with a battery of several pairs of plates, and which
are given above. Now I have been able, experimentally, to trace this
motion into its various forms as exhibited by Ampère’s, Nelice’s,
&c., and in all cases to show that the attractions and repulsions are
only appearances due to this circulation of the pole, to show that
dissimilar poles repel as well as attract, and that similar poles attract
as well as repel, and to make, I think, the analogy between the helix
and common bar magnet far stronger than before. But yet I am by

no means decided that there are currents of electricity in the
common magnet.
I have no doubt that electricity puts the circles of the helix into
the same state as those circles are in, that may be conceived in the
bar magnet, but I am not certain that this state is directly dependant
on the electricity, or that it cannot be produced by other agencies;
and therefore, until the presence of electrical currents be proved in
the magnet by other than magnetical effects, I shall remain in doubt
about Ampère’s theory.

* * * * *
Wishing you all health and happiness, and waiting for news
from you,
I am, my dear Sir, your very obliged and grateful
M. Faraday.

The reference at the beginning of this letter to the chlorides of carbon
has to do with his discovery communicated to the Royal Society. Later in
the year, a joint paper on another compound of carbon and chlorine, by
himself and his friend Richard Phillips, was sent in. Both were printed
together in the Philosophical Transactions of 1821.
LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK.

The following is an extract from Faraday’s laboratory book relating to
the discovery. The account is incomplete, a leaf having been torn out:—

1821, Sept. 3.
The effort of the wire is always to pass off at a right angle from
the pole, indeed to go in a circle round it, so when either pole was
brought up to the wire perpendicular to it and to the radius of the
circle it described, there was neither attraction nor repulsion, but the
moment the pole varied in the slightest manner either in or out, the
wire moved one way or the other.

The poles of the magnet act on the bent wire in all positions and
not in the direction only of any axis of the magnet, so that the
current can hardly be cylindrical or arranged round the axis of a
cylinder?
From the motion above a north magnet pole in the centre of one
of the circles should make the wire continually turn round. Arranged
a magnet needle in a glass tube with mercury about it, and by a
cork, water, &c., supported a connecting wire so that the upper end
should go into the silver cup and its mercury, and the lower move in
a channel of mercury round the pole of the needle. The battery
arranged with the wire as before. In this way got the revolution of
the wire round the pole of the magnet. The direction was as follow,
looking from above down:—

Fig. 2. (Facsimile of Original Sketch.)

Very satisfactory, but make more sensible apparatus.

Tuesday, Sept. 4.
Apparatus for revolution of wire and magnet. A deep basin with
bit of wax at bottom and then filled with mercury. A magnet stuck
upright in wax so that pole just above the surface of mercury. Then
piece of wire floated by cork at lower end dipping into mercy and
above into silver cup as before:—

Fig. 3. (facsimile of
Original Sketch.)

The research on the electromagnetic rotations, which was published in
the Quarterly Journal of Science for October, 1821 (and reprinted in the
second volume of the “Experimental Researches in Electricity”), was the
occasion of a very serious misunderstanding with Dr. Wollaston and his
friends, which at one time threatened to cause Faraday’s exclusion from the
Royal Society. Faraday’s prompt and frank action in appealing to Dr.
Wollaston saved him in a very unpleasant crisis; and the latter came three or
four times to the laboratory to witness the experiments. On Christmas Day
of the same year, Faraday succeeded in making a wire through which an
electric current is passing move under the influence of the earth’s
magnetism alone. His brother-in-law, George Barnard, who was in the
laboratory at the time, wrote:—“All at once he exclaimed, ‘Do you see, do
you see, do you see, George?’ as the wire began to revolve. One end I
recollect was in the cup of quicksilver, the other attached above to the
centre. I shall never forget the enthusiasm expressed in his face and the
sparkling in his eyes!”
SCENES IN THE LABORATORY.

In 1822 little was added to Faraday’s scientific work. He had a joint
paper with Stodart on steel before the Royal Society, and in the Quarterly
Journal two short chemical papers and four on electromagnetical motions
and magnetism. He had long kept a commonplace book in which he entered
notes and queries as well as extracts from books and journals; but this year

he began a fresh manuscript volume, into which he transferred many of the
queries and suggestions of his own originating. This volume he called
“Chemical Notes, Hints, Suggestions, and Objects of Pursuit.” It contains
many of the germs of his own future discoveries, as the following examples
show:—

Convert magnetism into electricity.
Do pith balls diverge by disturbance of electricities in
consequence of induction or not?
General effects of compression, either in condensing gases, or
producing solutions, or even giving combinations at low
temperatures.
Light through gold leaf on to zine or most oxidable metals,
these being poles—or on magnetic bars.
Transparency of metals. Sun’s light through gold leaf. Two gold
leaves made poles—light passed through one to the other.

Whenever any query found an answer, he drew his pen through it and
added the date. In front of the book—probably at some later time—he wrote
these words:—

I already owe much to these notes, and think such a collection
worth the making by every scientific man. I am sure none would
think the trouble lost after a year’s experience.

A striking example had already occurred of similar suggestive notes in
the optical queries of Sir Isaac Newton.
In another manuscript notebook occur the following entries under date
of September 10, 1821:—

2 similar poles though they repell at most distances attract at
very small distances and adhere. Query why....

Could not magnetise a plate of steel so as to resemble flat
spiral. Either the magnetism would be very weak and irregular or
there would be none at all.

These are interesting as showing how Faraday was educating himself
by continual experiment. The explanation of each of these paradoxes has
long passed into the commonplace of physics; but they would still puzzle
many who have learned their science bookishly at second-hand.
It will be noted that amongst the entries cited above there are two of
absolutely capital importance, one foreshadowing the great discovery of
magneto-electric induction, the other indicating how the existence of
electro-optical relations was shaping itself as a possibility in Faraday’s
mind. An entry in his laboratory book of September 10 is of great
interest:—

Polarised a ray of lamp-light by reflection, and endeavoured to
ascertain whether any depolarising action [is] exerted on it by water
placed between the poles of a voltaic battery in a glass cistern; one
Wollaston’s trough used; the fluids decomposed were pure water,
weak solution of sulphate of soda, and strong sulphuric acid: none
of them had any effect on the polarised light, either when out of or
in the voltaic circuit, so that no particular arrangement of particles
could be ascertained in this way.

AN UNSUCCESSFUL EXPERIMENT.

It may be added that no such optical effect of electrolytic conduction as
that here looked for has yet been discovered. The experiment, unsuccessful
at that day, remains still an unsuccessful one. A singular interest attaches to
it, however, and it was repeated several times by Faraday in subsequent
years, in hope of some results.
In 1823 Faraday read two papers to the Royal Society, one on Liquid
Chlorine, the other on the Condensation of several Gases into Liquids. No
sooner was the work completed than he dashed off a letter to De la Rive to
tell him what he had accomplished. Under date March 24, 1823, he
writes:—

I have been at work lately, and obtained results which I hope
you will approve of. I have been interrupted twice in the course of
experiments by explosions, both in the course of eight days—one
burnt my eyes, the other cut them; but fortunately escaped with
slight injury only in both cases, and am now nearly well. During the
winter I took the opportunity of examining the hydrate of chlorine,
and analysing it; the results, which are not very important, will
appear in the next number of the Quarterly Journal, over which I
have no influence. Sir H. Davy, on seeing my paper, suggested to
me to work with it under pressure, and see what would happen by
heat, &c. Accordingly I enclosed it in a glass tube hermetically
sealed, heated it, obtained a change in the substance, and a
separation into two different fluids; and upon further examination I
found that the chlorine and water had separated from each other, and
the chlorine gas, not being able to escape, had condensed into the
liquid form. To prove that it contained no water, I dried some
chlorine gas, introduced it into a long tube, condensed it, and then
cooled the tube, and again obtained fluid chlorine. Hence what is
called chlorine gas is the vapour of a fluid....

* * * * *
I expect to be able to reduce many other gases to the liquid
form, and promise myself the pleasure of writing you about them. I
hope you will honour me with a letter soon.
I am, dear Sir, very faithfully, your obedient servant,
M. Faraday.

CHLORINE LIQUEFIED.

The work of liquefying the gases had been taken up by Faraday during
his hours of liberty from other duties. It was probably his characteristic
dislike to “doubtful knowledge” which prompted him to re-examine a
substance which had at one time been regarded as chlorine in a solid state,
but which Davy in 1810 had demonstrated to be a hydrate of that element.
The first work was, as narrated above, to make a new analysis of the
supposed substance. This analysis, duly written out, was submitted to Sir

Humphry, who, without stating precisely what results he anticipated might
follow, suggested heating the hydrate under pressure in a hermetically
sealed glass tube. This Faraday did. When so heated, the tube filled with a
yellow atmosphere, and on cooling was found to contain two liquids, one
limpid and colourless like water, the other of an oily appearance.
Concerning this research a curious story is told in the life of Davy. Dr.
Paris, Davy’s friend and biographer, happened to visit the laboratory while
Faraday was at work on these tubes. Seeing the oily liquid, he ventured to
rally the young assistant upon his carelessness in employing greasy tubes.
Later in the day, Faraday, on filing off the end of the tube, was startled by
finding the contents suddenly to explode; the oily matter completely
disappearing. He speedily ascertained the cause. The gas, liberated from
combination with water by heat, had under the pressure of its own evolution
liquefied itself, only to re-expand with violence when the tube was opened.
Early the next day Dr. Paris received the following laconic note:—

Dear Sir,—
The oil you noticed yesterday turns out to be liquid
chlorine.
Yours faithfully,
M. Faraday.

Later he adopted a compressing syringe to condense the gas, and again
succeeded in liquefying it. Davy, who added a characteristic note to
Faraday’s published paper, immediately applied the same method of
liquefaction by its own pressure to hydrochloric acid gas; and Faraday
reduced a number of other gases by the same means. These researches were
not without danger. In the preliminary experiments an explosion of one of
the tubes drove thirteen fragments of glass into Faraday’s eye. At the end of
the year he drew up a historical statement on the liquefaction of gases,
which was published in the Quarterly Journal for January, 1824. A further
statement by him was published in the Philosophical Magazine for 1836;
and in 1844 his further researches on the liquefaction of gases were
published in the Philosophical Transactions.

In 1824 Faraday again brought to the Royal Society a chemical
discovery of first importance. The paper was on some new compounds of
carbon and hydrogen, and on certain other products obtained during
decomposition of oil by heat. From condensed oil-gas, so obtained, Faraday
succeeded in separating the liquid known as benzin or benzol, or, as he
named it at the time, bicarburet of hydrogen. It has since its discovery
formed the basis of several great chemical industries, and is manufactured
in vast quantities. Prior to the reading of this paper he had, as we have
already related, been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, an honour to
which he had for some years aspired, and which stood alone in his regard
above the scientific honours of later years.
In this year he tried, amongst his unsuccessful experiments, two of
singular interest. One was an attempt to find whether two crystals (such as
nitre) exercised upon one another any polar attractions like those of two
lodestones. He suspended them by fibres of cocoon silk, and, finding this
material not delicate enough, by spider-lines. The other was an attempt to
discover magneto-electricity. For various reasons he concluded that the
approximation of the pole of a powerful magnet to a conductor carrying a
current would have the effect of diminishing the amount of that current. He
placed magnets within a copper wire helix, and observed with a
galvanometer whether the current sent through the circuit of the helix by a
given battery was less when the magnet was absent. The result was
negative.
RESEARCH ON OPTICAL GLASS.

In this year also began the laborious researches on optical glass, which
though in themselves leading to no immediate success of commercial value,
nevertheless furnished Faraday with the material essential at the time for the
making of the most momentous of all his discoveries. A committee had
been appointed by the President and Council of the Royal Society for the
improvement of glass for optical purposes, and Faraday was amongst those
chosen to act upon it.
In 1825 the Royal Society Committee delegated the investigation of
optical glass to a sub-committee of three, Herschel (afterwards Sir John),
Dollond (the optician), and Faraday. The chemical part, including the
experimental manufacture, was entrusted to Faraday. Dollond was to work

the glass and test its qualities from the instrument maker’s point of view,
whilst Herschel was to examine its refraction, dispersion, and other physical
properties. This sub-committee worked for nearly five years, though by the
removal of Herschel from England its number was reduced to two. In 1827
the work became more arduous. Faraday thus writes:—

The President and Council of the Royal Society applied to the
President and Managers of the Royal Institution for leave to erect on
their premises an experimental room with a furnace, for the purpose
of continuing the investigation on the manufacture of optical glass.
They were guided in this by the desire which the Royal Institution
has always evinced to assist in the advancement of science; and the
readiness with which the application was granted showed that no
mistaken notion had been formed in this respect. As a member of
both bodies, I felt much anxiety that the investigation should be
successful. A room and furnaces were built at the Royal Institution
in September, 1827, and an assistant was engaged, Sergeant
Anderson, of the Royal Artillery. He came on the 3rd of December.

Anderson, who was thus made assistant to Faraday, remained in that
capacity till his death in 1866. He was a most devoted servant. In a footnote
to the “Experimental Researches” (vol. iii. p. 3) Faraday in 1845 wrote of
him:—

I cannot resist the occasion that is thus offered me of
mentioning the name of Mr. Anderson, who came to me as an
assistant in the glass experiments, and has remained ever since in
the laboratory of the Royal Institution. He assisted me in all the
researches into which I have entered since that time; and to his care,
steadiness, exactitude, and faithfulness in the performance of all that
has been committed to his charge, I am much indebted.—M. F.

Tyndall, who had a great admiration for Anderson, declared that his
merits as an assistant might be summed up in one phrase—blind obedience.
The story is told of him by Benjamin Abbott:—

ANDERSON’S OBEDIENCE.

Sergeant Anderson ... 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.

The research on optical glass was viewed askance by several parties.
The expenditure of money which it involved was one of the “charges”
hurled against the Council of the Royal Society by Sir James South in 1830.
Nevertheless it was deemed sufficiently important to receive powerful
support, as the following letter shows:—

Admiralty, 20 Dec., 1827.
Sir,
I hereby request, on behalf of the Board of Longitude, that
you will continue, in the furnace built at the Royal Institution, the
experiments on glass, directed by the joint Committee of the Royal
Society and the Board of Longitude and already sanctioned by the
Treasury and the Board of Excise.
I am, Sir,
Your obedient servant,
Thomas Young, M.D.,
Sec. Bd. Long.
Michael Faraday, Esq.,
Royal Institution.

In February, 1825, Faraday’s duties towards the Royal Institution were
somewhat modified. Hitherto he had been nominally a mere assistant to
Davy and Brande, though he had occasionally undertaken lectures for the
latter. Now, on Davy’s recommendation, he was, as we have seen,

appointed by the managers Director of the Laboratory under the
superintendence of the Professor of Chemistry. He was relieved, “because
of his occupation in research,” from his duty as chemical assistant at the
lectures.
The research on optical glass was not concluded till 1829, when its
results were communicated to the Royal Society in the Bakerian lecture of
that year—a memoir so long that it is said three sittings were occupied in its
delivery. It is printed in extenso in the Philosophical Transactions of 1830.
It opens as follows:—

When the philosopher desires to apply glass in the construction
of perfect instruments, and especially the achromatic telescope, its
manufacture is found liable to imperfections so important and so
difficult to avoid, that science is frequently stopped in her progress
by them—a fact fully proved by the circumstance that Mr. Dollond,
one of our first opticians, has not been able to obtain a disc of flint
glass 4½ inches in diameter, fit for a telescope, within the last five
years; or a similar disc, of 5 inches, within the last ten years.
This led to the appointment by Sir H. Davy of the Royal
Society Committee, and the Government removed the excise
restrictions, and undertook to bear all the expenses as long as the
investigation offered a reasonable hope of success.
The experiments were begun at the Falcon Glass Works, three
miles from the Royal Institution, and continued there in 1825, 1826,
and to Sept., 1827, when a room was built at the Institution. At first
the inquiry was pursued principally as related to flint and crown
glass; but in September, 1828, it was directed exclusively to the
preparation and perfection of peculiar heavy and fusible glasses,
from which time continued progress has been made.

In 1830 the experiments on glass-making were stopped.
In 1831 the Committee for the Improvement of Glass for Optical
Purposes reported to the Royal Society Council that the telescope made
with Mr. Faraday’s glass had been examined by Captain Kater and Mr.
Pond. “It bears as great a power as can reasonably be expected, and is very

achromatic. The Committee therefore recommend that Mr. Faraday be
requested to make a perfect piece of glass of the largest size that his present
apparatus will admit, and also to teach some person to manufacture the
glass for general sale.”
GLASS-MAKING LAID ASIDE.

In answer to this Faraday sent the following letter to Dr. Roget, Sec.
R.S.:—

[M. Faraday to P. M. Roget.]
Royal Institution, July 4, 1831.
Dear Sir,—I send you herewith four large and two small
manuscript volumes relating to optical glass, and comprising the
journal book and sub-committee book, since the period that
experimental investigations commenced at the Royal Institution.
With reference to the request which the Council of the Royal
Society have done me the honour of making—namely, that I should
continue the investigation—I should, under circumstances of perfect
freedom, assent to it at once; but obliged as I have been to devote
the whole of my spare time to the experiments already described,
and consequently to resign the pursuit of such philosophical
inquiries as suggested themselves to my own mind, I would wish,
under the present circumstances, to lay the glass aside for a while,
that I may enjoy the pleasure of working out my own thoughts on
other subjects.
If at a future time the investigation should be renewed, I must
beg it to be clearly understood I cannot promise full success should
I resume it: all that industry and my abilities can effect shall be
done; but to perfect a manufacture, not being a manufacturer, is
what I am not bold enough to promise.
I am, &c.,
M. Faraday.

The optical glass was a failure, so far as concerned the original hope
that it would lead to great improvements in telescopes. Nevertheless it
furnished scientific men with a new material, the “heavy glass” consisting
essentially of boro-silicate of lead, for which sundry uses in spectroscopy
and other optical instruments have since been found.
In 1845 Faraday added this note:—

I consider our results as negative, except as regards any good
that may have resulted from my heavy glass in the hands of Amici
(who applied it to microscopes) and in my late experiments on light.

These were the famous experiments on magneto-optics and
diamagnetism. Incidentally the research had led also to the permanent
engagement of Sergeant Anderson as assistant to Faraday.
RESEARCHES AND LECTURES.

During these years, from 1825 to 1829, which had been thus occupied
in an apparently fruitless quest, he had been far from idle. He had gone on
contributing chemical papers to the Philosophical Transactions and to the
Quarterly Journal. These dealt with sulpho-naphthalic acid, with the limits
of vaporisation, with caoutchouc, bisulphide of copper, the fluidity of
sulphur and phosphorus, the diffusion of gases, and the relation of water to
hot polished surfaces. He had also originated at the Royal Institution the
Friday evening discourses (see p. 33), the first of which he held in 1826.
For some years he himself delivered no inconsiderable portion of these
discourses every session. In 1826 he gave six, in 1827 three, in 1828 five, in
1829 six, and these in addition to his regular afternoon courses of six or
eight lectures on some connected subject. He had also, in 1826, begun the
Christmas lectures adapted to a juvenile audience, and had in 1827 given a
course of twelve lectures at the London Institution in Finsbury Circus. In
addition to these labours he had, in 1827, brought out the first edition of his
book on “Chemical Manipulation.” In 1829 he began his lectures at the
Royal Military Academy at Woolwich, which continued till 1849.
The year 1830 may be regarded as the close of the first period of
Faraday’s researches, during which time, though much of his labour had
been of a preparatory and even desultory kind, it had been a training for the

higher work to come. He had made three notable discoveries in chemistry,
the new substances benzol and butylene, and the solubility of naphthalene
in sulphuric acid forming the first of a new class of bodies, the sulpho-
acids. He had also made an important discovery in physics, that of the
electromagnetic rotations. He had already published sixty original papers,
besides many notes of lesser importance, nine of these papers being
memoirs in the Philosophical Transactions. He had already begun to
receive from learned societies, academies, and universities the recognition
of his scientific attainments, and he had established firmly both his own
reputation as a lecturer, and the reputation of the Royal Institution, which
was the scene of his lectures.

CHAPTER IV.

SCIENTIFIC RESEARCHES: SECOND PERIOD.
With the year 1831 begins the period of the celebrated “Experimental
Researches in Electricity and Magnetism.” During the years which had elapsed
since his discovery of the electromagnetic rotations in 1823, Faraday, though
occupied, as we have seen, with other matters, had not ceased to ponder the
relation between the magnet and the electric current. The great discoveries of
Oersted, Ampère, and Arago had culminated in England in two results: in
Faraday’s discovery that the wire which carries an electric current tends to
revolve around the pole of a neighbouring magnet; and in Sturgeon’s invention
of the soft-iron electromagnet, a core of iron surrounded by a coil of copper
wire, capable of acting as a magnet at will when the electric current is
transmitted to the coil and so caused to circulate around the iron core.
FORESHADOWINGS.

This production of magnetism from electricity, at will, and at a distance,
by the simple device of sending the electricity to circulate as a current around
the central core of iron was then, as now, a cause of much speculation. The
iron core which is to be made temporarily into a magnet stands alone, isolated.
Though surrounded outwardly by the magnetising coil of copper wire, it does
not touch it; nay, must be screened from contact with it by appropriate
insulation. The electric current entering the copper coil at one end is confined
from leaving the copper wire by any lateral path: it must circulate around each
and every convolution, nor be permitted to flow back by the return-wire until it
has performed the required amount of circulation. That the mere external
circulation of electric current around a totally disconnected interior core of
iron should magnetise that core; that the magnetisation should be maintained
so long as the circulation of electricity is maintained; and that the magnetising
forces should cease so soon as the current is stopped, are facts, familiar enough
to every beginner in the science, but mysterious enough from the abstract point
of view. Faraday was firmly persuaded that, great as had been these
discoveries of the production of magnetism and magnetic motions from

electricity, there remained other relations of no less importance to be
discovered. Again and again his mind recurred to the subject. If it were
possible to use electricity to produce magnetism, why should not the converse
be true? In 1822 his notebook suggestion was, as we have seen, “Convert
magnetism into electricity.” Yes, but how?
He possessed an intuitive bent of mind to inquire about the relations of
facts to one another. Convinced by sheer converse with nature in the
laboratory, of the correlation of forces and of the conservation of energy long
before either of those doctrines had received distinct enunciation as principles
of natural philosophy, he seems never to have viewed an action without
thinking of the necessary and appropriate reaction; never to have deemed any
physical relation complete in which discovery had not been made of the
converse relations for which instinctively he sought. So in December, 1824, we
find him experimenting on the passage of a bar magnet through a helix of
copper wire (see Quarterly Journal for July, 1825), but without result. In
November, 1825, he sought for evidence that might prove an electric current in
a wire to exercise an influence upon a neighbouring wire connected to a
galvanometer. But again, and yet again in December of the same year, the
entry stands “No result.” A third failure did not convince him that the search
was hopeless: it showed him that he had not yet found the right method of
experimenting. It is narrated of him how at this period he used to carry in his
waistcoat pocket a small model of an electromagnetic circuit—a straight iron
core about an inch long, surrounded by a few spiral turns of copper wire—
which model he at spare moments would take out and contemplate, using it
thus objectively to concentrate his thoughts upon the problem to be solved. A
copper coil, an iron core. Given that electricity was flowing through the one, it
evoked magnetism in the other. What was the converse? At first sight it might
seem simple enough. Put magnetism from some external source into the iron
core, and then try whether on connecting the copper coil to a galvanometer
there was any indication of an electric current. But this was exactly what was
found not to result.
OTHER MEN’S FAILURES.

And not Faraday alone, but others, too, were foiled in the hope of
observing the expected converse. Not all who tried were as wise or as frank as
Faraday in confessing failure. Fresnel, in the height of the fever of Oersted’s
discovery, had announced to the Academy of Sciences at Paris, on the 6th of
November, 1820, that he had decomposed water by means of a magnet which

was laid motionless within a spiral of wire. Emboldened by this
announcement, Ampère remarked that he too had noticed something in the way
of production of currents from a magnet. But before the end of the year both
these statements were withdrawn by their authors. Again, in the year 1822,
Ampère, being at Geneva, showed to Professor A. de la Rive in his laboratory
a number of electromagnetic experiments from his classical researches; and
20
amongst them one which has been almost forgotten, but which, had it been
followed up, would assuredly have led Ampère to the discovery of the
induction of currents. In the experiment in question a thin copper ring, made of
a narrow strip folded into a circle, was hung inside a circular coil of wire,
traversed by a current. To this apparatus a powerful horse-shoe magnet was
presented; and De la Rive states that, when the magnet was brought up, the
suspended ring was observed sometimes to move between the two limbs of the
magnet, and sometimes to be repelled from between them according to the
sense of the current in the surrounding coil. He and Ampère both attributed the
effect to temporary magnetism conferred upon the copper ring. Ampère
himself was at the time disposed to attribute it to the possible presence of a
little iron as an impurity in the copper. There are, however, some discrepancies
in the three published versions of the story. According to Becquerel, Ampère
had by 1825 satisfied himself of the non-existence of induction currents.
A PUZZLING EXPERIMENT.

Quite independently, the question of the possibility of creating currents by
magnets was raised by another discovery, that of the so-called “magnetism of
rotation.” In 1824 Arago had observed that a fine magnetic compass
constructed for him by Gambey, having the needle suspended in a cell, the
base of which was a plate of pure copper, was thereby damped in its
oscillations, and instead of making two or three hundred vibrations before it
came to rest, as would be the case in the open air, executed only three or four
21
of rapidly decreasing amplitude. In vain did Dumas at the request of Arago
analyse the copper, in the supposition that iron might be present. Inquiry
compelled the conclusion that some other explanation must be sought. And,
reasoning from the apparent action of stationary copper in bringing a moving
magnetic needle to rest, he conjectured that a moving mass of copper might
produce motion in a stationary magnetic needle. Accordingly he set into
revolution, beneath a compass needle, a flat disc of copper, and found that,
even when a sheet of card or glass was interposed to cut off all air-currents, the
needle tended to follow the moving copper disc, turning as if dragged by some

invisible influence. To the suggestion that mere rotation conferred upon copper
a sort of temporary magnetism Arago listened with some impatience. All
theories proposed to account for the phenomenon he discredited, even though
emanating from the great mathematician Poisson. He held his judgment in
absolute suspense. Babbage and Herschel measured the amount of retarding
force exerted on the needle by different materials, and found the most effective
to be silver and copper (which are the two best conductors of electricity), after
them gold and zinc, whilst lead, mercury, and bismuth were inferior in power.
The next year the same experimenters announced the successful inversion of
Arago’s experiment; for by spinning the magnet underneath a pivoted copper
disc they caused the latter to rotate briskly. They also made the notable
observation that if slits are cut radially in the copper disc they diminish its
tendency to be dragged by the spinning magnet. Sturgeon showed that the
damping effect of a moving copper disc was diminished by the presence of a
second magnet pole of contrary kind placed beside the first. All these things
were most suggestive of the real explanation. It clearly had something to do
with the electric conductivity of the metal disc, and therefore with electric
currents. Sturgeon five years later came very near to the explanation: after
repeating the experiments he concluded that the effect was an electric
disturbance in the copper disc, “a kind of reaction to that which takes place in
electromagnetism.”
Faraday knew of all the discussions which had arisen respecting Arago’s
rotations. They may have been the cause of his unsuccessful attempts of 1824
and 1825. In April, 1828, for the fourth time he tried to discover the currents
which he was convinced must be producible by the magnet, and for the fourth
time without result. The cause of failure was that both magnet and coil were at
rest.

Fig. 4.

The summer of 1831 witnessed him for the fifth time making the attack on
the problem thus persistently before him. In his laboratory note-book he heads
the research “Experiments on the production of electricity from magnetism.”
The following excellent summary of the laboratory notes is taken from Bence
Jones’s “Life and Letters”:—

I have had an iron ring made (soft iron), iron round and ⅞ths of an
inch thick, and ring six inches in external diameter. Wound many coils
of copper round, one half of the coils being separated by twine and
calico; there were three lengths of wire, each about twenty-four feet
long, and they could be connected as one length, or used as separate
lengths. By trials with a trough each was insulated from the other. Will
call this side of the ring a. On the other side, but separated by an
interval, was wound wire in two pieces, together amounting to about
sixty feet in length, the direction being as with the former coils. This
22
side call b.
Charged a battery of ten pairs of plates four inches square. Made
the coil on b side one coil, and connected its extremities by a copper
wire passing to a distance, and just over a magnetic needle (three feet

from wire ring), then connected the ends of one of the pieces on a side
with battery: immediately a sensible effect on needle. It oscillated and
settled at last in original position. On breaking connection of a side
with battery, again a disturbance of the needle.

SUCCESS IN SIGHT.

In the seventeenth paragraph, written on the 30th of August, he says, “May
not these transient effects be connected with causes of difference between
power of metals at rest and in motion in Arago’s experiments?” After this he
prepared fresh apparatus.
As was his manner, he wrote off to one of his friends a letter telling what
he was at work upon. On this occasion the recipient of his confidences was his
friend Phillips:—

[Michael Faraday to Richard Phillips.]
Royal Institution.
Sept. 23, 1831.
My Dear Phillips,
I write now, though it may be some time before I send my
letter, but that is of no great consequence. I received your letter to Dr.
Reid and read it on the coach going to Hastings, where I have been
passing a few weeks, and I fancy my fellow passengers thought I had
got something very droll in hand; they sometimes started at my sudden
bursts, especially when I had the moment before been very grave and
serious amongst the proportions. As you say in the letter there are
some new facts and they are always of value; otherwise I should have
thought you had taken more trouble than the matter deserved. Your
quotation from Boyle has nevertheless great force in it.
I shall send with this a little thing in your own way “On the
Alleged decline of science in England.” It is written by Dr. Moll of
Utrecht, whose name may be mentioned in conversation though it is
not printed in the pamphlet. I understand the view taken by Moll is not
at all agreeable to some. “I do not know what business Moll had to
interfere with our scientific disputes” is however the strongest
observation I have heard of in reply.

I do not think I thanked you for your last Pharmacopœia. I do so
now very heartily. I shall detain this letter a few days that I may send a
couple of my papers (i.e. a paper and appendix) with it, for though not
chemical I think you will like to have them. I am busy just now again
on Electro-Magnetism, and think I have got hold of a good thing, but
can’t say; it may be a weed instead of a fish that after all my labour I
may at last pull up. I think I know why metals are magnetic when in
motion though not (generally) when at rest.
We think about you all very much at times, and talk over affairs of
Nelson Square, but I think we dwell more upon the illnesses and
nursings and upon the sudden calls and chats rather than the regular
parties. Pray remember us both to Mrs. Phillips and the damsils—I
hope the word is not too familiar.
I am Dear Phillips,
Most Truly Yours,
M. Faraday.
R. Phillips, Esq.,
&c., &c., &c.

TEN DAYS OF SPLENDID WORK.

September 24 was the third day of his experiments. He began (paragraph
21) by trying to find the effect of one helix of wire, carrying the voltaic current
of ten pairs of plates, upon another wire connected with a galvanometer. “No
induction sensible.” Longer and different metallic helices (paragraph 22)
showed no effect; so he gave up those experiments for that day, and tried the
effects of bar magnets instead of the ring magnet he had used on the first day.
In paragraph 33 he says:—

An iron cylinder had a helix wound on it. The ends of the wires of
the helix were connected with the indicating helix at a distance by
copper wire. Then the iron placed between the poles of bar magnets as
in accompanying figure (Fig. 5). Every time the magnetic contact at n
or s was made or broken, there was magnetic motion at the indicating
helix—the effect being, as in former cases, not permanent, but a mere
momentary push or pull. But if the electric communication (i.e. by the
copper wire) was broken, then the disjunction and contacts produced

no effect whatever. Hence here distinct conversion of
magnetism into electricity.

The fourth day of work was October 1. Paragraphs 36, 37,
and 38 describe the discovery of induced voltaic currents:—

36. A battery of ten troughs, each of ten pairs of plates
four inches square, charged with good mixture of sulphuric
and nitric acid, and the following experiments made with it
in the following order.
37. One of the coils (of a helix of copper wire 203 feet
long) was connected with the flat helix, and the other (coil
of same length round same block of wood) with the poles of
the battery (it having been found that there was no metallic
contact between the two); the magnetic needle at the
indicating flat helix was affected, but so little as to be
hardly sensible.
Fig. 5.
38. In place of the indicating helix, our galvanometer
was used, and then a sudden jerk was perceived when the
battery communication was made and broken, but it was so slight as to
be scarcely visible. It was one way when made, the other when broken,
and the needle took up its natural position at intermediate times.
Hence there is an inducing effect without the presence of iron, but
it is either very weak or else so sudden as not to have time to move the
needle. I rather suspect it is the latter.

The fifth day of experiment was October 17. Paragraph 57 describes the
discovery of the production of electricity by the approximation of a magnet to
a wire:—

A cylindrical bar magnet three-quarters of an inch in diameter, and
eight inches and a half in length, had one end just inserted into the end
of the helix cylinder (220 feet long); then it was quickly thrust in the
whole length, and the galvanometer needle moved; then pulled out,
and again the needle moved, but in the opposite direction. This effect
was repeated every time the magnet was put in or out, and therefore a

wave of electricity was so produced from mere approximation of a
magnet, and not from its formation in situ.

The cause of all the earlier failures was, then, that both magnet and coil
were at rest. The magnet might lie in or near the coil for a century and cause
no effect. But while moving towards the coil, or from it, or by spinning near it,
electric currents were at once induced.
The ninth day of his experiments was October 28, and this day he “made a
copper disc turn round between the poles of the great horse-shoe magnet of the
Royal Society. The axis and edge of the disc were connected with a
galvanometer. The needle moved as the disc turned.” The next day that he
made experiments, November 4, he found “that a copper wire one-eighth of an
inch drawn between the poles and conductors produced the effect.” In his
paper, when describing the experiment, he speaks of the metal “cutting” the
magnetic curves, and in a note to his paper he says, “By magnetic curves I
mean lines of magnetic forces which would be depicted by iron filings.”
SUCCESS AND ITS SECRET.

We here come upon those “lines of force” which played so important a
part in these and many of Faraday’s later investigations. They were known
before Faraday’s time—had, in fact, been known for two hundred years.
Descartes had seen in them evidence for his hypothetical vortices.
Musschenbroek had mapped them. But it was reserved to Faraday to point out
their true significance. To the very end of his life he continued to speculate and
experiment upon them.
All this splendid work had occupied but a brief ten days. Then he
rearranged the facts which he had thus harvested, and wrote them out in
corrected form as the first series of his “Experimental Researches in
Electricity.” The memoir was read to the Royal Society on November 24,
1831, though it did not appear in printed form until January, 1832—a delay
which gave rise to serious misunderstandings. The paper having been read, he
went away to Brighton to take a holiday, and in the exuberance of his heart
23
penned the following letter to Phillips:—

[M. Faraday to R. Phillips.]
Brighton: November 29, 1831.

Dear Phillips,—For once in my life I am able to sit down and
write to you without feeling that my time is so little that my letter must
of necessity be a short one and accordingly I have taken an extra large
sheet of paper intending to fill it with news and yet as to news I have
none for I withdraw more and more from Society, and all I have to say
is about myself.
But how are you getting on? are you comfortable? and how does
Mrs. Phillips do; and the girls? Bad correspondant as I am, I think you
owe me a letter and as in the course of half an hour you will be doubly
in my debt pray write us, and let us know all about you. Mrs. Faraday
wishes me not to forget to put her kind remembrances to you and Mrs.
Phillips in my letter.
24
To-morrow is St. Andrew’s day, but we shall be here until
Thursday. I have made arrangements to be out of the Council and care
little for the rest although I should as a matter of curiosity have liked to
see the Duke in the chair on such an occasion.
We are here to refresh. I have been working and writing a paper
and that always knocks me up in health, but now I feel well again and
able to pursue my subject and now I will tell you what it is about. The
title will be, I think, Experimental Researches in Electricity: §I. On
the induction of electric currents. § II. On the evolution of Electricity
from magnetism. § III. On a New electrical condition of matter. § IV.
On Arago’s magnetic phenomena. There is a bill of fare for you; and
what is more I hope it will not disappoint you. Now the pith of all this
I must give you very briefly; the demonstrations you shall have in the
paper when printed—
THE PITH OF THE DISCOVERY.

§ I. When an electric current is passed through one of two parallel
25
wires it causes at first a current in the same direction through the
other, but this induced current does not last a moment, notwithstanding
the inducing current (from the Voltaic battery) is continued all seems
unchanged except that the principal current continues its course, but
when the current is stopped then a return current occurs in the wire
under induction of about the same intensity and momentary duration
but in the opposite direction to that first found. Electricity in currents
therefore exerts an inductive action like ordinary electricity but subject

to peculiar laws: the effects are a current in the same direction when
the induction is established: a reverse current when the induction
ceases and a peculiar state in the interim. Common electricity
probably does the same thing but as it is at present impossible to
separate the beginning and the end of a spark or discharge from each
other, all the effects are simultaneous and neutralise each other—
§ II. Then I found that magnets would induce just like voltaic
currents and by bringing helices and wires and jackets up to the poles
of magnets, electrical currents were produced in them these currents
being able to deflect the galvanometer, or to make, by means of the
helix, magnetic needles, or in one case even to give a spark. Hence the
evolution of electricity from magnetism. The currents were not
permanent, they ceased the moment the wires ceased to approach the
magnet because the new and apparently quiescent state was assumed
just as in the case of the induction of currents. But when the magnet
was removed, and its induction therefore ceased, the return currents
appeared as before. These two kinds of induction I have distinguished
by the terms Volta-electric and Magneto-electric induction. Their
identity of action and results is, I think, a very powerful proof of the
truth of M. Ampère’s theory of magnetism.
A JUBILANT EPISTLE.

§ III. The new electrical condition which intervenes by induction
between the beginning and end of the inducing current gives rise to
some very curious results. It explains why chemical action or other
results of electricity have never been as yet obtained in trials with the
magnet. In fact, the currents have no sensible duration. I believe it will
explain perfectly the transference of elements between the poles of the
pile in decomposition but this part of the subject I have reserved until
the present experiments are completed and it is so analogous, in some
of its effects to those of Ritter’s secondary piles, De la Rive and Van
Beck’s peculiar properties of the poles of a voltaic pile, that I should
not wonder if they all proved ultimately to depend on this state. The
condition of matter I have dignified by the term Electrotonic, The
Electrotonic State. What do you think of that? Am I not a bold man,
26
ignorant as I am, to coin words but I have consulted the scholars, and
now for § IV. The new state has enabled me to make out and explain
all Arago’s phenomena of the rotating magnet or copper plate, I

believe, perfectly; but as great names are concerned Arago, Babbage,
Herschel, &c., and as I have to differ from them, I have spoken with
27
that modesty which you so well know you and I and John Frost have
in common, and for which the world so justly commends us. I am even
half afraid to tell you what it is. You will think I am hoaxing you, or
else in your compassion you may conclude I am deceiving myself.
However, you need do neither, but had better laugh, as I did most
heartily when I found that it was neither attraction nor repulsion, but
just one of my old rotations in a new form. I cannot explain to you all
the actions, which are very curious; but in consequence of the
electrotonic state being assumed and lost as the parts of the plate whirl
under the pole, and in consequence of magneto-electric induction,
currents of electricity are formed in the direction of the radii;
continuing, for simple reasons, as long as the motion continues, but
ceasing when that ceases. Hence the wonder is explained that the metal
has powers on the magnet when moving, but not when at rest. Hence is
also explained the effect which Arago observed, and which made him
contradict Babbage and Herschel, and say the power was repulsive;
but, as a whole, it is really tangential. It is quite comfortable to me to
find that experiment need not quail before mathematics, but is quite
competent to rival it in discovery; and I am amused to find that what
the high mathematicians have announced as the essential condition to
the rotation—namely, that time is required—has so little foundation,
that if the time could by possibility be anticipated instead of being
required—i.e. if the currents could be formed before the magnet came
over the place instead of after—the effect would equally ensue. Adieu,
dear Phillips.
Excuse this egotistical letter from yours very faithfully,
M. Faraday.

The second section shows that Faraday had discovered the cause of all the
previous failures to evoke electric currents in wires by means of a magnet: it
required relative motion. What the magnet at rest fails to do, the magnet in
motion accomplishes. This crucial point is admirably commemorated in the
following impromptu given by Mr. Herbert Mayo to Sir Charles
Wheatstone:—

Around the magnet Faraday
Was sure that Volta’s lightnings play:
But how to draw them from the wire?
He took a lesson from the heart:
’Tis when we meet, ’tis when we part,
Breaks forth the electric fire.

Faraday’s holiday was brief; by December 5 he was again at work on his
researches. He re-observed the directions of the induced currents about which,
as the slip in his letter to Phillips shows, his mind was in some doubt. Then on
December 14th comes the entry:—“Tried the effects of terrestrial magnetism
in evolving electricity. Obtained beautiful results.”
“The helix had the soft iron cylinder (freed from magnetism by a full red
heat and cooling slowly) put into it, and it was then connected with the
galvanometer by wires eight foot long; then inverted the bar and helix, and
immediately the needle moved; inverted it again, the needle moved back; and,
by repeating the motion with the oscillations of the needle, made the latter
vibrate 180°, or more.”
The same day he “made Arago’s experiment with the earth magnet, only
no magnet used, but the plate put horizontal and rotated. The effect at the
needle was slight but very distinct.... Hence Arago’s plate a new electrical
machine.”
POINTS IN THE DISCOVERY.

When we compare these manuscript notes, recording the experiments in
the order in which they were made with the published account of them in the
“Experimental Researches,” we find many of them transcribed almost
verbatim. But there is a difference in the order of their arrangement. In point of
time the experiments on the evolution of electricity from magnetism,
beginning with the ring (p. 108), preceded those on the induction of a current
by another current. In the printed “Researches” the experiments on the
induction of currents are put first, with an introductory paragraph on the
28
general phenomenon of induction. Faraday’s habit of working up an
experiment—whether successful or unsuccessful—by increasing the power to
the maximum available is illustrated in the course of the experiments on the
iron ring. At first he used a battery of ten pairs of plates four inches square.

Then, having been eminently successful in producing deflexions of his
galvanometer, he increased the battery to one hundred pairs of plates, with the
result that when contact was completed or broken in the primary circuit the
impulse on the galvanometer in the secondary circuit was so great as to make
the needle spin round rapidly four or five times before its motion was reduced
to a mere oscillation. Then he removed the galvanometer and fixed small
pencils of charcoal to the ends of the secondary helix; and to his great joy
perceived a minute spark between the lightly touching charcoal points
whenever the contact of the battery to the primary helix was completed. This
was the first transformer, for the first time set—on a small scale—to produce a
tiny electric light. The spark he regarded as a precious indication that what he
was producing really was an electric current. Using the great compound steel
magnet of the Royal Society (constructed by Dr. Gowin Knight) at Christie’s
house at Woolwich he had, as narrated above, also obtained a spark from the
induced current. For some time he failed to obtain either physiological or
chemical effects. But upon repeating the experiments more at leisure at the
Royal Institution, with Daniell’s armed loadstone capable of lifting thirty
pounds, a frog was found to be convulsed very strongly each time magnetic
contact between the magnet and the iron core of the experimental coil was
made or broken.
The absence of evidence as to chemical action seemed still to disquiet
him. He wanted to be sure that his induced currents would do everything that
ordinary voltaic currents would do. Failing the final proof from chemical
action, he rested the case on the other identical properties. “But an agent,” he
says, “which is conducted along metallic wires in the manner described;
which, whilst so passing, possesses the peculiar magnetic actions and force of
a current of electricity; which can agitate and convulse the limbs of a frog; and
which, finally, can produce a spark by its discharge through charcoal, can only
be electricity. As all the effects can be produced by ferruginous electro-
magnets, there is no doubt that arrangements like the magnets of Professors
Moll, Henry, Ten Eyke, and others, in which as many as two thousand pounds
have been lifted, may be used for these experiments; in which case not only a
brighter spark may be obtained, but wires also ignited, and as the currents can
pass liquids, chemical action be produced. These effects are still more likely to
be obtained when the magneto-electric arrangements, to be explained in the
fourth section, are excited by the powers of such apparatus.” The apparatus
described in the fourth section comprised several forms of magneto-electric
machines, that is to say, primitive kinds of dynamos. Having in his mind the

phenomenon discovered by Arago, and the experiments of Babbage and
Herschel on the so-called magnetism of rotation, he followed up the idea that
these effects might be due to induced currents eddying round in the copper
disc. No sooner had he obtained electricity from magnets than he attempted to
make Arago’s experiment a new source of electricity, and, as he himself says,
“did not despair” “of being able to construct a new electrical machine.”

Fig. 6. (Facsimile of Original Sketch.)

A NEW ELECTRICAL MACHINE.

The “new electrical machine” was an exceedingly simple contrivance. A
disc of copper, twelve inches in diameter (Fig. 6), and about one-fifth of an
inch in thickness, fixed upon a brass axle, was mounted in frames, so as to
allow of revolution, its edge being at the same time introduced between the
magnetic poles of a large compound permanent magnet, the poles being about
29
half an inch apart. The magnet first used was the historical magnet of Gowin
Knight. The edge of the plate was well amalgamated, for the purpose of
obtaining a good but movable contact, and a part round the axle was also
prepared in a similar manner. Conducting strips of copper and lead, to serve as
electric collectors, were prepared, so as to be placed in contact with the edge of
the copper disc; one of these was held by hand to touch the edge of the disc
between the magnet poles. The wires from a galvanometer were connected, the

one to the collecting-strip, the other to the brass axle; then on revolving the
disc a deflexion of the galvanometer was obtained, which was reversed in
direction when the direction of the rotation was reversed. “Here, therefore, was
demonstrated the production of a permanent current of electricity by ordinary
magnets.” These effects were also obtained from the poles of electro-magnets,
and from copper helices without iron cores. Several other forms of magneto-
electric machines were tried by Faraday.
NEW FORMS OF APPARATUS.

Fig. 7.

30
In one, a flat ring of twelve inches’ external diameter, and one inch
broad, was cut from a thick copper plate, and mounted to revolve between the
poles of the magnet, two conductors being applied to make rubbing contact at
the inner and outer edge at the part which passed between the magnetic poles.
31
In another, a disc of copper, one-fifth of an inch thick and only 1½ inch in
diameter (Fig. 7), was amalgamated at the edge, and mounted on a copper
axle. A square piece of sheet metal had a circular hole cut in it, into which the
disc fitted loosely; a little mercury completed communication between the disc
and its surrounding ring. The latter was connected by wire to a galvanometer;
the other wire being connected from the instrument to the end of the axle.
Upon rotating the disc in a horizontal plane, currents were obtained, though the
earth was the only magnet employed.

Fig. 8.

32
Faraday also proposed a multiple machine having several discs,
metallically connected alternately at the edges and centres by means of
mercury, which were then to be revolved alternately in opposite directions, In
33
another apparatus, a copper cylinder (Fig. 8), closed at one extremity, was
put over a magnet, one half of which it enclosed like a cap, and to which it was
attached without making metallic contact. The arrangement was then floated
upright in a narrow jar of mercury, so that the lower edge of the copper cap
touched the fluid. On rotating the magnet and its attached cap, a current was
sent through wires from the mercury to the top of the copper cap. In another
34
apparatus, still preserved at the Royal Institution, a cylindrical bar magnet,
half immersed in mercury, was made to rotate, and generated a current, its own
35
metal serving as a conductor. In another form, the cylindrical magnet was
rotated horizontally about its own axis, and was found to generate currents
which flowed from the middle to the ends, or vice versâ, according to the
rotation. The description of these new electrical machines is concluded with
the following pregnant words:—

AN EARTH-INDUCTOR.

I have rather, however, been desirous of discovering new facts and
relations dependent on magneto-electric induction, than of exalting the
force of those already obtained; being assured that the latter would find
their full development hereafter.

Fig. 9.

36
In yet another machine (Fig. 9), constructed by Faraday some time later,
a simple rectangle of copper wire w, attached to a frame, was rotated about a
horizontal axis placed east and west, and generated alternate currents, which
could be collected by a simple commutator c.
Within a few months machines on the principle of magneto-induction had
been devised by Dal Negro, and by Pixii. In the latter’s apparatus a steel
horseshoe magnet, with its poles upwards, was caused to rotate about a vertical
shaft, inducing alternating currents in a pair of bobbins fixed above it, and
provided with a horseshoe core of soft iron. Later, in 1832, Pixii produced, at
37
the suggestion of Ampère, a second machine, provided with mercury cup
connections to rectify the alternations of the current. One of these machines
was shown at the British Association meeting at Oxford in the same year
(p. 64).

The idea developed in the third part of this research was intensely original
and suggestive. Faraday’s own statement is as follows:—
THE ELECTROTONIC STATE.

Whilst the wire is subject to either volta-electric or magneto-
electric induction, it appears to be in a peculiar state; for it resists the
formation of an electrical current in it, whereas, if left in its common
condition, such a current would be produced; and when left
uninfluenced it has the power of originating a current, a power which
the wire does not possess under common circumstances. This electrical
condition of matter has not hitherto been recognised, but it probably
exerts a very important influence in many, if not most, of the
phenomena produced by currents of electricity. For reasons which will
immediately appear, I have, after advising with several learned friends,
ventured to designate it as the electrotonic state.
This peculiar condition shows no known electrical effects whilst it
continues; nor have I yet been able to discover any peculiar powers
exerted or properties possessed by matter whilst retained in this state.

* * * * *
This state is altogether the effect of the induction exerted, and
ceases as soon as the inductive force is removed.... The state appears to
be instantly assumed, requiring hardly a sensible portion of time for
that purpose.... In all those cases where the helices or wires are
advanced towards or taken from the magnet, the direct or inverted
current of induced electricity continues for the time occupied in the
advance or recession; for the electro-tonic state is rising to a higher or
falling to a lower degree during that time, and the change is
accompanied by its corresponding evolution of electricity; but these
form no objections to the opinion that the electro-tonic state is
instantly assumed.
This peculiar state appears to be a state of tension, and may be
considered as equivalent to a current of electricity, at least equal to that
produced either when the condition is induced or destroyed.

Faraday further supposed that the formation of this state in the
neighbourhood of a coil would exert a reaction upon the original current,
giving rise to a retardation of it; but he was unable at the time to ascertain
experimentally whether this was so. He even looked—though also
unsuccessfully—for a self-induced return current from a conductor of copper
through which a strong current was led and then suddenly interrupted, the
expected current of reaction being “due to the discharge of its supposed
electrotonic state.”
If we would understand the rather obscure language in which this idea of
an electrotonic state is couched, we must try to put ourselves back to the epoch
when it was written. At that date the only ideas which had been formulated to
explain magnetic and electric attractions and repulsions were founded upon the
notion of action at a distance. Michell had propounded the view that the
electric and magnetic forces vary, like gravity, according to a law of the
inverse squares of the distances. Coulomb, in a series of experiments requiring
extraordinary patience as well as delicacy of manipulation, had shown—by an
application of Michell’s torsion balance—that in particular cases where the
electric charges are concentrated on small spheres, or where the magnetic
poles are small, so as to act as mere points, this law—which is essentially a
geometric law of point-action—is approximately fulfilled. The
mathematicians, Laplace and Poisson at their head, had seized on this
demonstration and had elaborated their mathematical theories. Before them,
though the research lay for a century unpublished, Cavendish had shown that
the only law of force as between one element of an electric charge and another
compatible with a charge being in equilibrium was the law of inverse squares.
But in all these mathematical reasonings one thing had been quite left out of
sight—namely, the possible properties of the intervening medium. Faraday, to
whom the idea of mere action at a distance was abhorrent, if not unthinkable,
conceived of all these forces of attraction and repulsion as effects taking place
by something going on in the intervening medium, as effects propagated from
point to point continuously through space. In his earlier work on the
electromagnetic rotations he had grown to regard the space around the
conducting wire as being affected by the so-called current; and the space about
the poles of a magnet he knew to be traversed by curved magnetic lines,
invisible indeed, but real, needing only the simplest of expedients—the
sprinkling of iron filings—to reveal their existence and trend. When therefore
he found that these new effects of the induction of one electric current by
another could likewise cross an intervening space, whether empty or filled

with material bodies, he instinctively sought to ascribe this propagation of the
effect to a property or state of the medium. And finding that state to be
different from any state previously known, different from the state existing
between two magnets at rest or between two stationary electric charges, he
followed the entirely philosophical course of exploring its properties and of
denoting it by a name which he deemed appropriate. As we shall see, this idea
of an electrotonic state recurred in his later researches with new and important
connotations.

Fig. 10.

He was soon at work again, as we have seen.
He experimented, in January, 1832, on the currents produced by the earth’s
rotation—on the 10th at the round pond in Kensington Gardens, and on the
12th and 13th at Waterloo Bridge.
A SPARK FROM A MAGNET.

“This evening,” he writes in his notebook under date February 8, “at
38
Woolwich, experimenting with magnet, and for the first time got the
magnetic spark myself. Connected ends of a helix into two general ends, and
then crossed the wires in such a way that a blow at a b would open them a little
[Fig. 10]. Then bringing a b against the poles of a magnet, the ends were
disjoined, and bright sparks resulted.”
From succeeding with a steel magnet it was but a short step to succeed
when a natural loadstone was used. The next day we find this entry:—“At
home succeeded beautifully with Mr. Daniell’s magnet. Amalgamation of

wires very needful. This is a natural loadstone, and perhaps the first used for
the spark.”
He sent to the Royal Society an account of these and the earlier
experiments; his paper on terrestrial magneto-electric induction, and on the
force and direction of magneto-electric induction, received the distinction of
being read as the Bakerian lecture of the year.
TYNDALL’S SUMMARY.

The following summary of this second paper is from the pen of Professor
Tyndall:—

He placed a bar of iron in a coil of wire, and lifting the bar into the
direction of the dipping needle, he excited by this action a current in
the coil. On reversing the bar, a current in the opposite direction rushed
through the wire. The same effect was produced, when, on holding the
helix in the line of dip, a bar of iron was thrust into it. Here, however,
the earth acted on the coil through the intermediation of the bar of iron.
He abandoned the bar, and simply set a copper plate spinning in a
horizontal plane; he knew that the earth’s lines of magnetic force then
crossed the plate at an angle of about 70°. When the plate spun round,
the lines of force were intersected and induced currents generated,
which produced their proper effect when carried from the plate to the
galvanometer. “When the plate was in the magnetic meridian, or in any
other plane coinciding with the magnetic dip, then its rotation
produced no effect upon the galvanometer.”
At the suggestion of a mind fruitful in suggestions of a profound
and philosophic character—I mean that of Sir John Herschel—Mr.
Barlow, of Woolwich, had experimented with a rotating iron shell. Mr.
Christie had also performed an elaborate series of experiments on a
rotating iron disc. Both of them had found that when in rotation the
body exercised a peculiar action upon the magnetic needle, deflecting
it in a manner which was not observed during quiescence; but neither
of them was aware at the time of the agent which produced this
extraordinary deflection. They ascribed it to some change in the
magnetism of the iron shell and disc.
But Faraday at once saw that his induced currents must come into
play here, and he immediately obtained them from an iron disc. With a

hollow brass ball, moreover, he produced the effects obtained by Mr.
Barlow. Iron was in no way necessary; the only condition of success
was that the rotating body should be of a character to admit of the
formation of currents in its substance; it must, in other words, be a
conductor of electricity. The higher the conducting power, the more
copious were the currents. He now passes from his little brass globe to
the globe of the earth. He plays like a magician with the earth’s
magnetism. He sees the invisible lines along which its magnetic action
is exerted, and, sweeping his wand across these lines, he evokes this
new power. Placing a simple loop of wire round a magnetic needle, he
bends its upper portion to the west; the north pole of the needle
immediately swerves to the east; he bends his loop to the east, and the
north pole moves to the west. Suspending a common bar magnet in a
vertical position, he causes it to spin round its own axis. Its pole being
connected with one end of a galvanometer wire, and its equator with
the other end, electricity rushes round the galvanometer from the
rotating magnet. He remarks upon the “singular independence” of the
magnetism and the body of the magnet which carries it. The steel
behaves as if it were isolated from its own magnetism.
And then his thoughts suddenly widen, and he asks himself
whether the rotating earth does not generate induced currents as it
turns round its axis from west to east. In his experiment with the
twirling magnet the galvanometer wire remained at rest; one portion of
the circuit was in motion relatively to another portion. But in the case
of the twirling planet the galvanometer wire would necessarily be
carried along with the earth; there would be no relative motion. What
must be the consequence? Take the case of a telegraph wire with its
two terminal plates dipped into the earth, and suppose the wire to lie in
the magnetic meridian. The ground underneath the wire is influenced,
like the wire itself, by the earth’s rotation; if a current from south to
north be generated in the wire, a similar current from south to north
would be generated in the earth under the wire; these currents would
run against the same terminal plate, and thus neutralise each other.
This inference appears inevitable, but his profound vision
perceived its possible invalidity. He saw that it was at least possible
that the difference of conducting power between the earth and the wire
might give one an advantage over the other, and that thus a residual or
differential current might be obtained. He combined wires of different

materials, and caused them to act in opposition to each other, but found
the combination ineffectual. The more copious flow in the better
conductor was exactly counterbalanced by the resistance of the worst.
Still, though experiment was thus emphatic, he would clear his mind of
all discomfort by operating on the earth itself. He went to the round
lake near Kensington Palace, and stretched 480 feet of copper wire,
north and south, over the lake, causing plates soldered to the wire at its
ends to dip into the water. The copper wire was severed at the middle,
and the severed ends connected with a galvanometer. No effect
whatever was observed. But though quiescent water gave no effect,
moving water might. He therefore worked at Waterloo Bridge for three
days, during the ebb and flow of the tide, but without any satisfactory
result. Still he urges, “Theoretically it seems a necessary consequence,
that where water is flowing there electric currents should be formed. If
a line be imagined passing from Dover to Calais through the sea and
returning through the land, beneath the water, to Dover, it traces out a
circuit of conducting matter, one part of which, when the water moves
up or down the Channel, is cutting the magnetic curves of the earth,
whilst the other is relatively at rest.... There is every reason to believe
that currents do run in the general direction of the circuit described,
either one way or the other, according as the passage of the waters is
up or down the Channel.” This was written before the submarine cable
was thought of, and he once informed me that actual observation upon
that cable had been found to be in accordance with his theoretic
deduction.

Fig. 11.

It may here be apposite to discuss a fundamental question raised in these
researches. In Faraday’s mind there arose the conviction of a connection
between the induction of currents by magnets and the magnetic lines which
invisibly fill all the space in the neighbourhood of the magnet. That relation he
discovered and announced in the following terms:—
THE LAW OF INDUCTION.

“The relation which holds between the magnetic pole, the moving wire or
metal, and the direction of the current evolved—i.e. the law which governs the
evolution of electricity by magneto-electric induction, is very simple, though
rather difficult to express. If in Fig. 11, P N represent a horizontal wire passing
by a marked [i.e. ‘north-seeking’] magnetic pole, so that the direction of its
motion shall coincide with the curved line proceeding from below upwards; or
if its motion parallel to itself be in a line tangential to the curved line, but in
the general direction of the arrows; or if it pass the pole in other directions, but
39
so as to cut the magnetic curves in the same general direction, or on the same
side as they would be cut by the wire if moving along the dotted curved line;
then the current of electricity in the wire is from p to n. If it be carried in the
reverse direction, the electric current will be from n to p. Or if the wire be in
the vertical position, figured p´ n´, and it be carried in similar directions,
coinciding with the dotted horizontal curve so far as to cut the magnetic curves
on the same side with it, the current will be from p´ to n´.”
CUTTING THE MAGNETIC LINES.

When resuming the research in December, Faraday investigated the point
whether it was essential or not that the moving wire should, in “cutting” the
magnetic curves, pass into positions of greater or lesser magnetic force; or
whether, always intersecting curves of equal magnetic intensity, the mere
motion sufficed for the production of the current. He found the latter to be true.
This notion of cutting the invisible magnetic lines as the essential act necessary
and sufficient for induction was entirely original with Faraday. For long it
proved a stumbling-block to the abstract mathematicians, since there was, in
most cases, no direct or easy way in which to express the number of magnetic
lines that were cut. Neither had any convention been adopted up to that time as
to how to reckon numerically the number of magnetic lines in any given space
near a magnet. Later, in 1851, Faraday himself gave greater precision to these
ideas. He found that the current was proportional to the velocity, when the
conductor was moving in a uniform magnetic field with a uniform motion.

Also, that the quantity of electricity thrown by induction into the circuit was
directly proportional to the “amount of curves intersected.” The following
passage, from Clerk Maxwell’s article on Faraday in the “Encyclopædia
Britannica,” admirably sums up the matter:—

The magnitude and originality of Faraday’s achievement may be
estimated by tracing the subsequent history of his discovery. As might
be expected, it was at once made the subject of investigation by the
whole scientific world, but some of the most experienced physicists
were unable to avoid mistakes in stating, in what they conceived to be
more scientific language than Faraday’s, the phenomena before them.
Up to the present time the mathematicians who have rejected Faraday’s
method of stating his law as unworthy of the precision of their science,
have never succeeded in devising any essentially different formula
which shall fully express the phenomena without introducing
hypotheses about the mutual action of things which have no physical
existence, such as elements of currents which flow out of nothing, then
along a wire, and finally sink into nothing again.
After nearly half a century of labour of this kind, we may say that,
though the practical applications of Faraday’s discovery have increased
and are increasing in number and value every year, no exception to the
statement of these laws as given by Faraday has been discovered, no
new law has been added to them, and Faraday’s original statement
remains to this day the only one which asserts no more than can be
verified by experiment, and the only one by which the theory of the
phenomena can be expressed in a manner which is exactly and
numerically accurate, and at the same time within the range of
elementary methods of exposition.

In the year 1831, which witnessed this masterpiece of scientific research,
Faraday was busy in many other ways. He was still undertaking chemical
analyses and expert work for fees, as witness his letter to Phillips on p. 62. He
was also, until November, on the Council of the Royal Society. To the
“Philosophical Transactions” he contributed a paper “On Vibrating Surfaces,”
in which he solved a problem in acoustics which had previously gone without
explanation. It had long been known that in the experiments of obtaining the
patterns called “Chladni’s figures,” by strewing powders upon vibrating plates,

while the heavier powders, such as sand, moved into the nodal lines, lighter
substances, such as lycopodium dust, collected in little circular heaps over the
parts where the vibration was most energetic. Faraday’s explanation was that
these lighter powders were caught and whirled about in little vortices which
formed themselves at spots where the motions were of greatest amplitude.
He also wrote a paper “On a Peculiar Class of Optical Deceptions,”
dealing with the illusions that result from the eye being shown in successive
glimpses, as between the teeth of a revolving wheel, different views of a
moving body. This research was, in effect, the starting point of a whole line of
optical toys, beginning with the phenakistiscope or stroboscope, which
developed through the zoetrope and praxino-scope into the kinematograph and
animatograph of recent date.
LECTURES ON PHYSICAL SUBJECTS.

He gave four afternoon lectures at the Royal Institution and five Friday
evening discourses. These were on optical deceptions, on light and
phosphorescence, being an account of experiments recently made by Mr.
Pearsall, chemical assistant in the Institution; on oxalamide, then recently
discovered by M. Dumas; on Trevelyan’s experiments about the production of
sound by heated bodies; and on the arrangements assumed by particles upon
vibrating surfaces.
In 1832 he gave five Friday evening discourses, four of which related to
his own researches. In August he entered upon the third series of
“Experimental Researches in Electricity,” which was devoted to the identity of
electricities derived from different sources, and on the relation by measure of
common [i.e. frictional] and voltaic electricity. He did not like any doubt to
hang about as to whether the electricity obtained from magnets by induction
was really the same as that obtainable from other sources. Possibly he had in
his mind the difficulties which had arisen thirty years before over the
discoveries of Galvani and Volta, when it was so far doubted whether the
electricity in currents from piles and batteries of cells was the same as the
electricity evoked by friction, that the distinctive and misleading name of
“galvanism” was assigned to the former. He commented on the circumstance
that many philosophers—and he included Davy by name in an explicit
40
reference—were vainly drawing distinctions between electricities from
different sources, or at least doubting whether their identity were proven. His
first point was to consider whether “common electricity,” “animal electricity,”

and “magneto-electric currents” could, like “voltaic electricity,” produce
chemical decompositions. He began by demonstrating that an ordinary electric
discharge from a friction machine can affect a suitably disposed galvanometer.
One of his instruments of sufficient sensitiveness was surrounded by an
enclosing cage of double metal foil and wire-work, duly connected to “earth,”
so as to render it independent of all disturbances by external electric charges in
its neighbourhood. His “earth” for this purpose consisted of a stout metal wire
connected through the pipes in the house to the metallic gas-pipes belonging to
the public gas works of London, and also with the metallic water-pipes of
London—an effectual “discharging train.” He used a friction electric machine
with a glass plate 50 inches in diameter, and a Leyden-jar battery of fifteen
jars, each having about 84 square inches of coated glass. This battery of jars
was first charged from the machine and then discharged through a wet thread
four feet long, and through the galvanometer to earth viâ the “discharging
train.” Having by this means satisfied himself that these electric discharges
could deflect a galvanometer, whether through the wet thread, a copper wire,
or through water, or rarefied air, or by connection through points in air, he
went on to the question of chemical decomposition. Dipping two silver wires
into a drop of solution of sulphate of copper, he found that one of them became
copper-plated by the electricity that was evolved by 100 or 200 turns of the
disc machine. He bleached indigo, turned starch purple with iodine liberated
from iodide of potassium, exactly as might have been done by a “volta-electric
current” from a battery of cells. He also decomposed water, giving due
recognition to the antecedent experiments of Van Troostwyk, Pearson, and
Wollaston.
IDENTITY OF ELECTRICITIES.

In the paper which he drew up he compares these results with others made
with electric discharges from an electric kite and with those of the torpedo and
other electric fishes. He recapitulates the properties of magneto-electricity and
the proofs now accumulating that it can decompose water. He drew up a
schedule of the different effects which electricity can produce, and of the
different sources of electricity, showing in tabular form how far each so-called
kind of electricity had been found to produce each effect. The conclusion was
that there is no philosophical difference between the different cases; since the
phenomena produced by the different kinds of electricity differ not in their
character but only in degree. “Electricity, whatever may be its source, is
identical in its nature.” On comparing the effects produced by different

41
discharges, he concludes that “if the same absolute quantity of electricity
pass through the galvanometer, whatever may be its intensity, the deflecting
force upon the magnetic needle is the same.” He was then able to go on to a
quantitative comparison between the “quantity” of electricity from different
sources, and came to the conclusion that both in magnetic deflection and in
chemical force the current of electricity given by his standard battery for eight
beats of his watch was equal to that of the friction machine evolved by thirty
revolutions; further, that “the chemical power, like the magnetic force, is in
direct proportion to the absolute quantity of electricity which passes.”
ELECTRO-CHEMICAL WORK.

This series of researches was published in January, 1833. In April of the
same year he sent to the Royal Society another paper—the fourth series—on
electric conduction. It arose from the surprising observation that, though water
conducts, ice acts as a complete non-conductor. This led to an examination of
the conducting power of fusible solids in general. He found that as a rule—
excepting on the one hand the metals, which conduct whether solid or liquid,
and on the other hand fatty bodies, which are always non-conductors—they
assume conducting power when liquefied, and lose it when congealed.
Chloride of lead, of silver, of potassium, and of sodium, and many chlorates,
nitrates, sulphates, and many other salts and fusible substances were found to
follow this rule. All the substances so found to act were compound bodies, and
capable of decomposition by the current. When conduction ceased,
decomposition ceased also. An apparent exception was found in sulphide of
silver, which, when heated, acquired conducting powers even before it
assumed the liquid state, yet decomposed in the solid state. This led him on to
study electro-chemical decompositions more closely. Here he was following
directly in the footsteps of his master Davy, whose discovery of the
decomposition of potash and soda by the electric current had been one of the
most prominent scientific advances resulting from the invention of the voltaic
cell. The fifth series of researches, published in June, 1833, embodies the
work. He first combats the prevailing opinion that the presence of water is
necessary for electro-chemical decomposition; then analyses the views of
various philosophers—Grotthuss, Davy, De la Rive, and others—who had
discussed the question whether the decompositions are due to attractions
exercised by the two poles of the electric circuit. This he contests in the most
direct manner. Already he has reason to believe that for a given quantity of
electricity passed through the liquid the amount of electro-chemical action is a

constant quantity, and depends in no way on the distance of the particles of the
decomposable substance from the poles. He regards the elements as
progressing in two streams in opposite directions parallel to the current, while
the poles “are merely the surfaces or doors by which the electricity enters into
or passes out of the substance suffering decomposition.”
Amongst the laboratory notes of this time are many which were never
published in the “Experimental Researches,” or of which only brief abstracts
appeared. Some of these are of great interest.
Here is one literally transcribed:—

26 Feb. 1833.
Chloride Magnesium.—When solid and wire fuzed in non-
conductor—When fuzed conducted very well and was decomposed A
and P Pole much action and gas—chlorine? At N Pole Magnesium
separated and no gas. Sometimes Magnesium burnt flying off in
globules burning brilliantly. When wire at that pole put in water or
white M A [muriatic acid] matter round it acted powerfully evolving
hydrogen and forming Magnesia; and when wire and surrounding
matter heated in spirit lamp Magnesium burnt with intense light into
Magnesia. VERY GOOD EXPT.

This recalls the “capital experiment” entry which Sir Humphry Davy
wrote after the account of his decomposition of caustic potash. On the 7th of
April we come to a marvellous page of speculations. He has seen that liquids,
both solutions and fused salts, can be decomposed by the current, and that at
least one solid is capable of electrolysis. But he finds that alloys and metals are
not decomposed. He finds that electrolysis is easiest for those compounds that
consist of the most diverse elements, and is led on to speculate as to the
possible constitution of those conductors that the current does not decompose.
This may involve a recasting of accepted ideas; but from such a step he does
not shrink, as the following extracts show:—

Metals may not be compounds of elements most frequently
combined, but rather of such as are so similar to each other as to pass
out of the limit of voltaic decomposition.
13th April (same page).

If voltaic decomposition of the kind I believe then review all
substances upon the new view to see if they may not be decomposable,
&c. &c. &c.

ATTRACTION BY POLES DOUBTED.

He has now found that the facts observed do not admit of being explained
on the supposition that the motion of the ions is due to the attraction of the
poles, and accordingly there follows the entry:—

(Ap. 13, 1833.)
A single element is never attracted by a pole, i.e. without attraction
of other element at other pole. Hence doubt Mr. Brande’s Expts on
attraction of gases and vapours. Doubt attraction by poles altogether.

To this subject he returned in 1834; an intervening memoir—the sixth—
being taken up with the power of metals and solids to bring about the
combination of gaseous bodies. In the seventh series, published in January,
1834, his first work is to explain the new terms which he has adopted, on the
advice of Whewell, to express the facts. The so-called poles, being in his view
merely doors or ways by which the current passes, he now terms electrodes,
42
distinguishing the entrance and exit respectively as anode and cathode, while
the decomposable liquid is termed an electrolyte, and the decomposing process
electrolysis. “Finally,” he says, in a passage (here italicised) worthy to be
engraved in gold for the essential truth it enunciates on a question of
terminology, “I require a term to express those bodies which can pass to the
electrodes, or, as they are usually called, the poles. Substances are frequently
spoken of as being electronegative, or electropositive, according as they go
under the supposed influence of a direct attraction to the positive or negative
pole. But these terms are much too significant for the use to which I should
have to put them; for though the meanings are perhaps right, they are only
hypothetical, and may be wrong; and then, through a very imperceptible but
still very dangerous, because continual, influence, they do great injury to
science, by contracting and limiting the habitual views of those engaged in
pursuing it. I propose to distinguish such bodies by calling those anions which
go to the anode of the decomposing body; and those passing to the cathode,
cations; and when I shall have occasion to speak of these together, I shall call

43
them ions. Thus, the chloride of lead is an electrolyte, and when electrolyzed
evolves the two ions, chlorine and lead, the former being an anion and the
latter a cation.” In Faraday’s own bound volume of the “Experimental
Researches” he has illustrated these terms by the sketch here reproduced.
(Fig. 12.)
Faraday’s letter to Whewell when he consulted him as to the new words
has not been preserved. He discarded, when the paper was printed, the terms
he had first used. Whewell’s replies of April 25th and May 5th, 1834, have
been preserved and are printed in Todhunter’s biography of Whewell. From the
later of the two the following passage is extracted:—
NEW NOMENCLATURE.

[Whewell to Faraday], May 5, 1834.
If you take anode and cathode, I would propose for the two
elements resulting from electrolysis the terms anion and cation, which
are neuter participles signifying that which goes up, and that which
goes down; and for the two together you might use the term ions.... The
word is not a substantive in Greek, but it may easily be so taken, and I
am persuaded that the brevity and simplicity of the terms you will thus
have will in a fortnight procure their universal acceptation. The anion
is that which goes to the anode, the cation is that which goes to the
cathode. The th in the latter word arises from the aspirate in hodos
(way), and therefore is not to be introduced in cases where the second
term has not an aspirate, as ion has not.

Fig. 12.

On May 15th Faraday replied as follows:—

[Faraday to Whewell.]
I have taken your advice and the names, and use anode, cathode,
anions, cations and ions; the last I shall have but little occasion for. I
had some hot objections made to them here, and found myself very
much in the condition of the man with his Son and Ass, who tried to
please everybody; but when I held up the shield of your authority it
was wonderful to observe how the tone of objection melted away. I am
quite delighted with the facility of expression which the new terms
give me, and shall ever be your debtor for the kind assistance you have
given me.

As though to prepare the way for a still further cutting of himself adrift
from the slavery of using terms that might be found misleading, he added the
following note:—

It will be well understood that I am giving no opinion respecting
the nature of the electric current now, beyond what I have done on
former occasions; and that though I speak of the current as proceeding
from the parts which are positive to those which are negative, it is
merely in accordance with the conventional, though in some degree

tacit, agreement entered into by scientific men, that they may have a
constant, certain, and definite means of referring to the direction of the
forces of that current.

The “former occasions” is a reference to an earlier suggestion that a
current might mean anything progressive, whether a flow in one direction or
two fluids moving in opposite directions, or merely vibrations, or, still more
generally, progressive forces. He had expressly said that what we call the
electric current “may perhaps best be conceived of as an axis of power having
contrary forces, exactly equal in amount, in contrary directions.”
ELECTRO-CHEMICAL LAWS.

He then suggests as a measurer of current the standard form of electrolytic
cell ever since known as the voltameter. He preferred that kind in which water
is decomposed, the quantity of electricity which had flowed through it being
measured by the quantity of the gas or gases evolved during the operation.
Before adopting this he undertook careful experiments in which his fine
manipulative skill, no less than his chemical experience, was called into
service to verify the fact that the quantity of water decomposed was really
proportionate to the quantity of electricity which has been passed through the
instrument. Having this standard, he investigated numerous other cases of
decomposition by the current, and so arrived at a substantial basis for the
doctrine of definite electro-chemical action. Speaking of the substances into
which electrolytes are divided by the current, and which he had called ions, he
says: “They are combining bodies; are directly associated with the
fundamental parts of the doctrine of chemical affinity; and have each a definite
proportion, in which they are always evolved during electrolytic action.... I
have proposed to call the numbers representing the proportions in which they
are evolved electro-chemical equivalents. Thus hydrogen, oxygen, chlorine,
iodine, lead, tin are ions; the three former are anions, the two metals cations,
and 1, 8, 36, 125, 104, 58, are their electro-chemical equivalents nearly.”
This fundamental law being set upon an impregnable basis of facts, he
goes on to speculate upon the absolute quantity of electricity or electric power
belonging to different bodies; a notion which only within the last few years has
found general acceptance.
In developing this theory he uses the following language:—

According to it [i.e. this theory], the equivalent weights of bodies
are simply those quantities of them which contain equal quantities of
electricity, or have naturally equal electric powers; it being the
electricity which determines the equivalent number, because it
determines the combining force. Or, if we adopt the atomic theory or
phraseology, then the atoms of bodies which are equivalents to each
other in their ordinary chemical action, have equal quantities of
electricity naturally associated with them. But I must confess I am
jealous of the term atom....

Here we find the modern doctrine of electrons or unitary atomic charges,
clearly formulated in 1834. In the course of this speculation he remarks that “if
the electrical power which holds the elements of a grain of water in
combination, or which makes a grain of oxygen or hydrogen in the right
proportions unite into water when they are made to combine, could be thrown
into the condition of a current, it would exactly equal the current required for
the separation of that grain of water into its elements again.” And all this years
before there was any doctrine of the conservation of energy to guide the mind
of the philosopher! The passage just cited contains the germs of the
thermodynamic theory of electromotive forces worked out a dozen years later
by Sir William Thomson (now Lord Kelvin), by which theory we can predict
the electromotive forces of any given chemical combination from a knowledge
of the heat evolved by a given mass of the product in the act of combining.
ANOTHER UNSUCCESSFUL QUEST.

The eighth series of the researches, which was read in June, 1834, deals
chiefly with voltaic cells and batteries of cells. He is now applying to the
operations inside the primary cell the electrochemical principles learned by the
study of electrolysis in secondary cells. His thoughts have been incessantly
playing around the problem of electrolytic conduction. He was convinced that
the forces which shear the anions from combination with the cations and
transfer them in opposite directions must be inherent before the circuit is
completed, and therefore before any actual transfer or movement takes place.
“It seems to me impossible,” he says, “to resist the idea that it [the “transfer,”
or “what is called the voltaic current”] must be preceded by a state of tension
in the fluid. I have sought carefully for indications of a state of tension in the
electrolytic conductor; and conceiving that it might produce something like
structure, either before or during its discharge, I endeavoured to make this

evident by polarised light.” He used a solution of sulphate of soda, but without
the slightest trace of optical action in any direction of the ray. He repeated the
experiment, using a solid electrolyte, borate of lead, in its non-conducting
state, but equally without result.
During the time of these electrochemical researches in 1833 and 1834,
Faraday’s activities for the Royal Institution were undiminished. In 1833 he
gave seven Friday discourses, three of them on the researches in hand, one on
Wheatstone’s investigation of the velocity of the electric spark, and one on the
practical prevention of dry rot in timber, which was afterwards republished as
a pamphlet, and ran to two editions. In 1834 he gave four Friday discourses;
two on his electrochemical researches, one on Ericsson’s heat-engine, and the
other on caoutchouc.
The ninth series of electrical researches occupied the autumn of 1834. In it
he returns to the study of the magnetic and inductive actions of the current,
investigating the self-induced spark at the break of the circuit, to which his
attention had been directed by Mr. W. Jenkin. Several points in this research
are little known even now to electricians, the laboratory notes being much
more detailed than the published paper. He describes an exceedingly neat high-
speed break for producing rapid interruptions, using for that purpose stationary
ripples on the surface of a pool of mercury. In a wonderful day’s work on 13th
November, filling thirty-four pages of the laboratory book, illustrated with
numerous unpublished sketches, he tracks out the properties of self-induction.
He proves that the spark (on breaking circuit) from a wire coiled up in a helix
is far brighter than that from an identical wire laid out straight. He finds that a
non-inductive and, therefore, sparkless coil can be made by winding the wire
in two opposite helices. “Thus the whole [inductive] effect of the length of
wire was neutralised by the reciprocal and contrary action of the two halves
which constituted the helices in contrary directions.” The next day he writes:
“These effects show that every part of an electric circuit is acting by induction
on the neighbouring parts of the same current, even in the same wire and the
same part of the wire.”
EFFECTS OF SELF-INDUCTION.

On 22nd November he is trying another set of experiments, also never
fully published. They relate to the diminution of self-induction of a straight
conductor by dividing it into several parallel strands at a small distance apart
from one another. The note in the laboratory book runs thus:—

Copper wire 1/23 of inch in diameter. Six lengths of five feet each,
soldered at ends to piece of copper plate so as form terminations, and
these amalgamated. When this bundle was used to connect the electro-
motor it gave but very feeble spark on breaking contact, but the spark
was sensibly better when the wires are held together so as to act
laterally than when they were opened out from each other, thus
showing lateral action.
Made a larger bundle of the same fine copper wire. There were 20
lengths of 18 feet 2 inches each and the thick terminal pieces of copper
wire 6 inches long and ⅓ of inch thick.

Fig. 13.

This bundle he compared with a length of 19 feet 6 inches of a single
copper wire ⅕ inch in diameter, having about equal sectional area. The latter
gave decidedly the largest sparks on breaking circuit.
Faraday did not see fit at this time to accept the idea, suggested indeed by
himself in 1831, that these effects of self-induction were the analogue of
momentum or inertia. That explanation he set aside on finding that the same
wire when coiled had greater self-inductive action than when straight. Had he
at that time grasped this analogy, he would have seen that the very property
which gives rise to the spark at break of circuit also retards the rapid growth of
a current; and then the experiment described above would have shown him that
Sir W. Snow Harris was right in preferring flat copper ribbon to a round wire
of equivalent section as a material for lightning conductors. He was, however,
disappointed to find so small a difference between round wires and parallel
strands. The memoir as published contains an exceedingly interesting
conclusion:—

Notwithstanding that the effects appear only at the making and
breaking of contact (the current, remaining unaffected, seemingly, in
the interval,) I cannot resist the impression that there is some

connected and correspondent effect produced by this lateral action of
the elements of the electric stream during the time of its continuance.
An action of this kind, in fact, is evident in the magnetic relations of
the parts of the current. But admitting (as we may do for the moment)
the magnetic forces to constitute the power which produces such
striking and different results at the commencement and termination of
a current, still there appears to be a link in the chain of effects—a
wheel in the physical mechanism of the action, as yet unrecognised.

The tenth series of researches, on the voltaic battery, though completed in
October, 1834, was not published till June, 1835.
ACTION IN A MEDIUM.

The next research, begun in the autumn of 1835, after a lull of about eight
months, lasted over two years. It was not completed till December, 1837. This
investigation took Faraday away from magnetic and electrochemical matters to
the old subject of statical electric charges, a subject hitherto untouched in his
researches. But he had long brooded over the question as to the nature of an
electric charge. Over and over again, as he had watched the inductive effect of
electric currents acting from wire to wire, his mind turned to the old problem
of the inductive influence—discovered eighty years before, by John Canton—
exerted, apparently at a distance, by electric charges. He had learned to distrust
action at a distance, and now the time was ripe for a searching inquiry as to
44
whether electric influence, or induction as it was then called, was also an
action propagated by contiguous actions in the intervening medium.
Faraday had done no special electric work during the first nine months of
1835. He had worked at a chemical investigation of fluorine through the
spring, and in July took a hurried tour in Switzerland, and returned to work at
fluorine. Not till November 3rd does he turn to the subject over which he had
been brooding. On that date, intercalated between notes of his chemical
studies, filling a dozen pages of the laboratory book, are a magnificent series
of speculations as to the nature of charges, and on the part played by the
electric—or, as we should now say, the dielectric—medium. They begin
thus:—
“Have been thinking much lately of the relation of common and voltaic
electricity, of induction by the former and decomposition by the latter, and am
quite convinced that there must be the closest connection. Will be first needful

to make out the true character”—note the phrase—“of ordinary electrical
phenomena.” The following notes are for experiment and observation.
“Does common electricity reside upon the surface of a conductor or upon
the surface of the [di-]electric in contact with it?”
He goes on to consider the state of a dielectric substance, such as glass,
when situated between a positively charged and a negatively charged surface,
as in a charged Leyden jar, and argues from analogy thus:—
“Hence the state of the plate [of glass] under induction is the same as the
state of a magnet, and if split or broken would present new P[ositive] and
N[egative] surfaces before not at all evident.” This speculation was later
verified by Matteucci.
“Probable that phenomena of induction prove more decidedly than
anything else that the electricity is in the [di-]electric not in the conductor.”
He still worked for a week or two on fluorine, interposing some
experiments on the temperature-limit of magnetisation, but on December 4th
decides not to go on with fluorine at present. Then, beginning on December
5th, there follow twenty-nine pages of the laboratory diary, illustrated with
sketches. He had borrowed from a Mr. Kipp a large deep copper pan thirty-five
inches in diameter, and he set to work electrifying it and exploring the
distribution of the charges, inside and out, and the inductive effect on objects
placed within. Everywhere he is mentally comparing the distribution of the
effects with that of the flow of currents in an electrolyte. Before many days he
writes:—
PREGNANT SUGGESTIONS.

“It appears to me at present that ordinary and electrolytic induction are
identical in their first nature, but that the latter is followed by an effect which
cannot but from the nature and state of the substances take place with the
former.” Then comes this pregnant suggestion:—
“Try induction through a solid crystalline body as to the consequent action
on polarized light.”
By the end of a week he had begun to suspect that his magnet analogy
went farther than he was at first prepared to hold. The action of a magnet was
along curved lines of force. So he asks:—

“Can induction through air take place in curves or round a corner—can
probably be found experimentally—if so not a radiating effect.”
After ten days more he has made another step.
“Electricity appears to exist only in polarity as in air, glass, electrolytes,
etc. Now metals, being conductors, cannot take up that polar state of their own
power, or rather retain it, and hence probably cannot retain developed electric
forces.

* * * * *
“Metals, however, probably hold it for a moment, as other things do for a
longer time; an end coming at last to all.”
This, it will be observed, is nothing more or less than Clerk Maxwell’s
theory of conduction as being the breaking down of an electrostatic strain.
In January, 1836, followed the famous experiment of building a twelve-
foot cube, which when electrified exteriorly to the utmost extent, showed
inside no trace of electric forces. The account in the unpublished MS. of the
laboratory book is, as is the case with so many of these middle-period
researches, much fuller than the published résumé of them in the
“Experimental Researches.” All through 1836 he was still at work. Even when
on a holiday in the Isle of Wight, in August, he took his notebook with him,
and writes:—
“After much consideration (here at Ryde) of the manner in which the
electric forces are arranged in the various phenomena generally, I have come to
certain conclusions which I will endeavour to note down without committing
myself to any opinion as to the cause of electricity, i.e. as to the nature of the
power. If electricity exist independently of matter, then I think that the
hypothesis of one fluid will not stand against that of two fluids. There are, I
think, evidently, what I may call two elements of power of equal force and
acting towards each other. These may conventionally be represented by oxygen
and hydrogen, which represent them in the voltaic battery. But these powers
may be distinguished only by direction, and may be no more separate than the
north and south forces in the elements of a magnetic needle. They may be the
polar points of the forces originally placed in the particles of matter; and the
description of the current as an axis of power which I have formerly given
suggests some similar general impression for the forces of quiescent electricity.

Law of electric tension might do, and though I shall use the terms positive and
negative, by them I merely mean the termini of such lines.”
Right on until November 30th, 1837, this research was continued. The
summary of this and the succeeding researches of 1838 on the same subject,
45
drawn up by Professor Tyndall, is at once so masterly and so impartial that it
cannot be bettered. It is therefore here transcribed without alteration.
ACTION AT A DISTANCE UNTHINKABLE.

His first great paper on frictional electricity was sent to the Royal
Society on November 30, 1837. We here find him face to face with an
idea which beset his mind throughout his whole subsequent life—the
idea of action at a distance. It perplexed and bewildered him. In his
attempts to get rid of this perplexity he was often unconsciously
rebelling against the limitations of the intellect itself. He loved to quote
Newton upon this point: over and over again he introduces his
memorable words, “That gravity should be innate, inherent, and
essential to matter, so that one body may act upon another at a distance
through a vacuum and without the mediation of anything else, by and
through which this action and force may be conveyed from one to
another, is to me so great an absurdity, that I believe no man who has
in philosophical matters a competent faculty of thinking can ever fall
into it. Gravity must be caused by an agent acting constantly according
to certain laws; but whether this agent be material or immaterial I have
46
left to the consideration of my readers.”
Faraday does not see the same difficulty in his contiguous
particles. And yet by transferring the conception from masses to
particles we simply lessen size and distance, but we do not alter the
quality of the conception. Whatever difficulty the mind experiences in
conceiving of action at sensible distances, besets it also when it
attempts to conceive of action at insensible distances. Still the
investigation of the point whether electric and magnetic effects were
wrought out through the intervention of contiguous particles or not,
had a physical interest altogether apart from the metaphysical
difficulty. Faraday grapples with the subject experimentally. By simple
intuition he sees that action at a distance must be exerted in straight
lines. Gravity, he knows, will not turn a corner, but exerts its pull along

a right line; hence his aim and effort to ascertain whether electric
action ever takes place in curved lines. This once proved, it would
follow that the action is carried on by means of a medium surrounding
the electrified bodies. His experiments in 1837 reduced, in his opinion,
this point to demonstration. He then found that he could electrify by
induction an insulated sphere placed completely in the shadow of a
body which screened it from direct action. He pictured the lines of
electric force bending round the edges of the screen, and reuniting on
the other side of it; and he proved that in many cases the augmentation
of the distance between his insulated sphere and the inducing body,
instead of lessening, increased the charge of the sphere. This he
ascribed to the coalescence of the lines of electric force at some
distance behind the screen.
SPECIFIC INDUCTIVE CAPACITY.

Faraday’s theoretic views on this subject have not received general
acceptance, but they drove him to experiment, and experiment with
him was always prolific of results. By suitable arrangements he places
a metallic sphere in the middle of a large hollow sphere, leaving a
space of something more than half an inch between them. The interior
sphere was insulated, the external one uninsulated. To the former he
communicated a definite charge of electricity. It acted by induction
upon the concave surface of the latter, and he examined how this act of
induction was affected by placing insulators of various kinds between
the two spheres. He tried gases, liquids, and solids, but the solids alone
gave him positive results. He constructed two instruments of the
foregoing description, equal in size and similar in form. The interior
sphere of each communicated with the external air by a brass stem
ending in a knob. The apparatus was virtually a Leyden jar, the two
coatings of which were the two spheres, with a thick and variable
insulator between them. The amount of charge in each jar was
determined by bringing a proof-plane into contact with its knob, and
measuring by a torsion balance the charge taken away. He first charged
one of his instruments, and then dividing the charge with the other,
found that when air intervened in both cases, the charge was equally
divided. But when shell-lac, sulphur, or spermaceti was interposed
between the two spheres of one jar, while air occupied this interval in
the other, then he found that the instrument occupied by the “solid

dielectric” took more than half the original charge. A portion of the
charge was absorbed in the dielectric itself. The electricity took time to
penetrate the dielectric. Immediately after the discharge of the
apparatus no trace of electricity was found upon its knob. But after a
time electricity was found there, the charge having gradually returned
from the dielectric in which it had been lodged. Different insulators
possess this power of permitting the charge to enter them in different
degrees. Faraday figured their particles as polarised, and he concluded
that the force of induction is propagated from particle to particle of the
dielectric from the inner sphere to the outer one. This power of
propagation possessed by insulators he calls their “Specific Inductive
Capacity.”

Fig. 14.

Faraday visualises with the utmost clearness the state of his
contiguous particles; one after another they become charged, each
succeeding particle depending for its charge upon its predecessor. And

now he seeks to break down the wall of partition between conductors
and insulators. “Can we not,” he says, “by a gradual chain of
association carry up discharge from its occurrence in air through
spermaceti and water to solutions, and then on to chlorides, oxides, and
metals, without any essential change in its character?” Even copper, he
urges, offers a resistance to the transmission of electricity. The action
of its particles differs from those of an insulator only in degree. They
are charged like the particles of the insulator, but they discharge with
greater ease and rapidity; and this rapidity of molecular discharge is
what we call conduction. Conduction, then, is always preceded by
atomic induction; and when through some quality of the body, which
Faraday does not define, the atomic discharge is rendered slow and
difficult, conduction passes into insulation.
Though they are often obscure, a fine vein of philosophic thought
runs through these investigations. The mind of the philosopher dwells
amid those agencies which underlie the visible phenomena of
induction and conduction; and he tries by the strong light of his
imagination to see the very molecules of his dielectrics. It would,
however, be easy to criticise these researches, easy to show the
looseness, and sometimes the inaccuracy, of the phraseology
employed; but this critical spirit will get little good out of Faraday.
Rather let those who ponder his works seek to realise the object he set
before him, not permitting his occasional vagueness to interfere with
their appreciation of his speculations. We may see the ripples, and
eddies, and vortices of a flowing stream, without being able to resolve
all these motions into their constituent elements; and so it sometimes
strikes me that Faraday clearly saw the play of fluids and ethers and
atoms, though his previous training did not enable him to resolve what
he saw into its constituents, or describe it in a manner satisfactory to a
mind versed in mechanics. And then again occur, I confess, dark
sayings, difficult to be understood, which disturb my confidence in this
conclusion. It must, however, always be remembered that he works at
the very boundaries of our knowledge, and that his mind habitually
dwells in the “boundless contiguity of shade” by which that knowledge
is surrounded.

CABLE RETARDATION PREDICTED.

In the researches now under review the ratio of speculation and
reasoning to experiment is far higher than in any of Faraday’s previous
works. Amid much that is entangled and dark we have flashes of
wondrous insight and utterances which seem less the product of
reasoning than of revelation. I will confine myself here to one example
of this divining power:—By his most ingenious device of a rapidly
rotating mirror, Wheatstone had proved that electricity required time to
pass through a wire, the current reaching the middle of the wire later
than its two ends. “If,” says Faraday, “the two ends of the wire in
Professor Wheatstone’s experiments were immediately connected with
two large insulated metallic surfaces exposed to the air, so that the
primary act of induction, after making the contact for discharge, might
be in part removed from the internal portion of the wire at the first
instance, and disposed for the moment on its surface jointly with the
air and surrounding conductors, then I venture to anticipate that the
middle spark would be more retarded than before. And if those two
plates were the inner and outer coatings of a large jar or Leyden
battery, then the retardation of the spark would be much greater.” This
was only a prediction, for the experiment was not made. Sixteen years
subsequently, however, the proper conditions came into play, and
Faraday was able to show that the observations of Werner Siemens and
Latimer Clark on subterraneous and submarine wires were
illustrations, on a grand scale, of the principle which he had enunciated
in 1838. The wires and the surrounding water act as a Leyden jar, and
the retardation of the current predicted by Faraday manifests itself in
every message sent by such cables.
The meaning of Faraday in these memoirs on induction and
conduction is, as I have said, by no means always clear; and the
difficulty will be most felt by those who are best trained in ordinary
theoretic conceptions. He does not know the reader’s needs, and he
therefore does not meet them. For instance, he speaks over and over
again of the impossibility of charging a body with one electricity,
though the impossibility is by no means evident. The key to the
difficulty is this. He looks upon every insulated conductor as the inner
coating of a Leyden jar. An insulated sphere in the middle of a room is
to his mind such a coating; the walls are the outer coating, while the air

between both is the insulator, across which the charge acts by
induction. Without this reaction of the walls upon the sphere, you
could no more, according to Faraday, charge it with electricity than
you could charge a Leyden jar, if its outer coating were removed.
Distance with him is immaterial. His strength as a generaliser enables
him to dissolve the idea of magnitude; and if you abolish the walls of
the room—even the earth itself—he would make the sun and planets
the outer coating of his jar. I dare not contend that Faraday in these
memoirs made all these theoretic positions good. But a pure vein of
philosophy runs through these writings; while his experiments and
reasonings on the forms and phenomena of electrical discharge are of
imperishable importance.

In another part of the twelfth memoir, not included in the above summary,
Faraday deals with the disruptive discharge, and with the nature of the spark
under varying conditions. This is continued on into the thirteenth memoir, read
February, 1838, and is extended to the cases of “brush” and “glow” discharges.
He discovered the existence of the very remarkable phenomenon of the “dark”
discharge near the cathode in rarefied air. He sought to correlate all the various
forms of discharge, as showing the essential nature of an electric current. “If a
ball be electrified positively,” he says, “in the middle of a room, and be then
moved in any direction, effects will be produced, as if a current in the same
direction (to use the conventional mode of expression) had existed.” This is the
theory of convection currents later adopted by Maxwell, and verified by
experiment by Rowland in 1876.
COINAGE OF NEW WORDS.

In the course of this research on induction, Faraday had, as we have seen,
been compelled to adopt new ideas, and therefore to adopt new names to
denote them. The term dielectric for the medium in or across which the electric
forces operate was one of these. As in previous cases, he consulted with his
friends as to suitable terms. In this instance the following letter from Whewell
explains itself. The letter to which it is a reply has not been preserved, but the
reference to Faraday’s objection to the word current may be elucidated by a
comparison with what Faraday wrote in criticism of that word on pages 146
and 212.

[Rev. W. Whewell to M. Faraday.]

Trin. Coll., Cambridge, Oct. 14, 1837.
My dear Sir,—I am always glad to hear of the progress of your
researches, and never the less so because they require the fabrication of
a new word or two. Such a coinage has always taken place at the great
epochs of discovery; like the medals that are struck at the beginning of
a new reign:—or rather like the change of currency produced by the
accession of a new sovereign; for their value and influence consists in
their coming into common circulation. I am not sure that I understand
the views which you are at present bringing into shape sufficiently well
to suggest any such terms as you think you want. I think that if I could
have a quarter of an hour’s talk with you I should probably be able to
construct terms that would record your new notions, so far as I could
be made to understand them better than I can by means of letters: for it
is difficult without question and discussion to catch the precise kind of
relation which you want to express. However, by way of beginning
such a discussion, I would ask you whether you want abstract terms to
denote the different and related conditions of the body which exercises
and the body which suffers induction? For though both are active and
both passive it may still be convenient to suppose a certain ascendancy
on one side. If so would two such words as inductricity and inducteity
answer your purpose? They are not very monstrous in their form; and
are sufficiently distinct. And if you want the corresponding adjectives
you may call the one the inductric, and the other the inducteous body.
This last word is rather a startling one; but if such relations are to be
expressed, terminations are a good artifice, as we see in chemistry: and
I have no doubt if you give the world facts and laws which are better
expressed with than without such solecisms, they will soon
accommodate to the phrases, as they have often done to worse ones.
But I am rather in the dark as to whether this is the kind of relation
which you want to indicate. If not, the attempt may perhaps serve to
shew you where my dulness lies. I do not see my way any better as to
the other terms, for I do not catch your objection to current, which
appears to me to be capable of jogging on very well from cathode to
anode, or vice versa. As for positive and negative, I do not see why
cathodic and anodic should not be used, if they will do the service you
want of them.
I expect to be in London at the end of the month, and could
probably see you for half an hour on the 1st of November, say at 10,

11, or 12. But in the mean time I shall be glad to hear from you
whether you can make anything of such conundrums as I have
mentioned, and am always yours very truly,
W. Whewell.
M. Faraday Esqre.
Royal Institution.

LATERAL ACTIONS OF CURRENT.

The concluding part of the thirteenth memoir, in which these new terms
are used, is an exceedingly striking speculation on the lateral or transverse
effects of the current. In calling special attention to them, he says: “I refer of
course to the magnetic action and its relations; but though this is the only
recognised lateral action of the current, there is great reason for believing that
others exist and would by their discovery reward a close search for them.” He
seems to have had an instinctive perception of something that eluded his grasp.
Not until after Maxwell had given mathematical form to Faraday’s own
suggestions was this vision to be realised. He is dimly aware that there appears
to be a lateral tension or repulsion possessed by the lines of electric inductive
action; and onward runs his thought in free speculation:—

When current or discharge occurs between two bodies, previously
under inductrical relations to each other, the lines of inductive force
will weaken and fade away, and, as their lateral repulsive tension
diminishes, will contract and ultimately disappear in the line of
discharge. May not this be an effect identical with the attractions of
similar currents? i.e. may not the passage of static electricity into
current electricity, and that of the lateral tension of the lines of the
inductive force into the lateral attraction of lines of similar discharge,
have the same relation and dependences, and run parallel to each
other?

Series fourteen of the memoirs is on the nature of the electric force and on
the relation of the electric and magnetic forces, and comprises an inconclusive
inquiry as to a possible relation between specific inductive capacity and axes
of crystallisation in crystalline dielectrics—a relation later assumed as true by
Maxwell even before it was demonstrated by Von Boltzmann. In this memoir,

too, occurs a description of a simple but effective induction balance. Then he
asks what happens to insulating substances, such as air or sulphur, when they
are put in a place where the magnetic forces are varying; they ought, he thinks,
to undergo some state or condition corresponding to the state that causes
currents in metals and conductors, and, further, that state ought to be one of
tension. “I have,” he says, “by rotating non-conducting bodies near magnetic
poles, and poles near them, and also by causing powerful electric currents to
be suddenly formed and to cease around and about insulators in various
directions, endeavoured to make some such state sensible, but have not
succeeded.” In short, he was looking for direct evidence of the existence of
what Maxwell called “displacement currents”—evidence which was later
found independently by the author and by Röntgen. And, again, there rises in
his mind a perception of that electrotonic state which had haunted his earlier
researches as a something imposed upon the surrounding medium during the
growth or dying of an electric current.
INCESSANT ACTIVITIES.

In these years (1835–1838) Faraday was still indefatigable in his lecture
duties. In 1835 he gave four Friday discourses, and in May and June eight
afternoon lectures at the Royal Institution on the metals; also a course of
fourteen lectures on electricity to the medical students at St. George’s Hospital.
In 1836 he published in the Philosophical Magazine a paper on the magnetism
of the metals—notable as containing the still unverified speculation that all
metals would become magnetic in the same way as iron if only cooled to a
sufficiently low temperature—and three other papers, including one on the
“passive” state of iron. He gave four Friday discourses and six afternoon
lectures on heat. In 1837 also four Friday night discourses and six afternoon
lectures were delivered. In 1838 three Friday discourses and eight afternoon
lectures on electricity, ending in June with a distinct enunciation of the
doctrine of the transformations of “force” (i.e. energy) and its indestructibility,
afforded evidence of his industry in this respect. At the same time he was
giving scientific advice to the authorities of Trinity House as to their
lighthouses.
The laboratory notebook for March to August, 1838, shows a long
research, occupying nearly 100 folio pages, on the relation of specific
inductive capacity to crystalline structure. This is followed by some
experiments upon an electric eel, at the Royal Adelaide Gallery, with some
unpublished sketches of the distribution in the water of the currents it emits.

He proved, with great satisfaction, that the currents it gave were capable of
producing magnetic effects, sparks, and chemical decomposition. These
observations were embodied in the fifteenth series of memoirs.
One entry in the laboratory book, of date April 5th, 1838, is of great
interest, as showing how his mind ever recurred to the possibility of finding a
connection between optical and electric phenomena: “Must try polarized light
across a crystalline dielectric under charge. Good reasons perhaps now evident
why a non-crystalline dielectric should have no effect.”
Faraday was now feeling greatly the strain of all these years of work, and
in 1839 did little research until the autumn. Then he returned to the question of
the origin of the electromotive force of the voltaic cell, and by the end of the
year completed two long papers on this vexed question; they formed the
sixteenth and seventeenth series, and conclude the memoirs of this second
period.
THE CONTACT THEORY OF ELECTRICITY.

In the eighth series, completed in April, 1834, on the “Electricity of the
Voltaic Pile,” Faraday had dealt with the question—at that time a topic of
excited controversy—of the origin of the electromotive force in a cell, Volta,
who knew nothing of the chemical actions, ascribed it to the contact of
dissimilar metals, whilst Wollaston, Becquerel, and De la Rive considered it
the result of chemical actions. The controversy has long ceased to interest the
scientific world; for, with the recognition of the principle of the conservation
of energy, it became evident that mere contact cannot provide a continuing
supply of energy. It would now be altogether dead but for the survival of a
belief in the contact theory on the part of one of the most honoured veterans in
science. But in the years 1834 to 1840 it was of absorbing interest. Faraday’s
work quietly removed the props which supported the older theory, and it
crumbled away. He found that the chemical and electrical effects in the cell
were proportional one to the other, and inseparable. He discovered a way of
making a cell without any metallic contacts. He showed that without chemical
action there was no current produced. But his results were ignored for the time.
After six years Faraday reopened the question. Again the admirable summary
of Professor Tyndall is drawn upon for the following account:—

The memoir on the “Electricity of the Voltaic Pile,” published in
1834, appears to have produced but little impression upon the

supporters of the contact theory. These indeed were men of too great
intellectual weight and insight lightly to take up, or lightly to abandon,
a theory. Faraday therefore resumed the attack in two papers
communicated to the Royal Society on February 6 and March 19,
1840. In these papers he hampered his antagonists by a crowd of
adverse experiments. He hung difficulty after difficulty about the neck
of the contact theory, until in its efforts to escape from his assaults it so
changed its character as to become a thing totally different from the
theory proposed by Volta. The more persistently it was defended,
however, the more clearly did it show itself to be a congeries of
devices, bearing the stamp of dialectic skill rather than that of natural
truth.
In conclusion, Faraday brought to bear upon it an argument which,
had its full weight and purport been understood at the time, would
have instantly decided the controversy. “The contact theory,” he urged,
“assumes that a force which is able to overcome powerful resistance,
as for instance that of the conductors, good or bad, through which the
current passes, and that again of the electrolytic action where bodies
are decomposed by it, can arise out of nothing; that without any
change in the acting matter, or the consumption of any generating
force, a current shall be produced which shall go on for ever against a
constant resistance, or only be stopped, as in the voltaic trough, by the
ruins which its exertion has heaped up in its own course. This would
indeed be a creation of power, and is like no other force in nature. We
have many processes by which the form of the power may be so
changed, that an apparent conversion of one into the other takes place.
So we can change chemical force into the electric current, or the
current into chemical force. The beautiful experiments of Seebeck and
Peltier show the convertibility of heat and electricity; and others by
Oersted and myself show the convertibility of electricity and
magnetism. But in no case, not even in those of the gymnotus and
torpedo, is there a pure creation or a production of power without a
corresponding exhaustion of something to supply it.”

In 1839 Faraday gave five Friday discourses and a course of eight
afternoon lectures on the non-metallic elements. In 1840 he gave three Friday
discourses and seven lectures on chemical affinity. But in the summer came the
serious breakdown alluded to on page 75. He did no experimental work after

September 14th, nor indeed for nearly two years. Even then it was only a
temporary return to research to investigate the source of the electrification
produced by steam in the remarkable experiments of Mr. (afterwards Lord)
Armstrong. He proved it to be due to friction. This done, he continued to rest
from research until the middle of 1844, though he lectured a little for the Royal
Institution. In 1841 he gave the juvenile lectures. In 1842 he gave two Friday
discourses, one of them being on the lateral discharge in lightning-rods. He
also gave the Christmas lectures on electricity.
END OF SECOND ACTIVE PERIOD.

In 1843 he gave three Friday discourses, one of which was on the
electricity generated by a jet of steam; and repeated the eight afternoon
lectures he had given in 1838. In 1844 he gave eight lectures on heat and two
Friday discourses. He also resumed research on the condensation of gases, and
vainly tried to liquefy oxygen and hydrogen, though he succeeded with
ammonia and nitrous oxide.
During these years of rest he also did a little work for Trinity House,
chiefly concerning lighthouses and their ventilation.

CHAPTER V.

SCIENTIFIC RESEARCHES: THIRD PERIOD.
Throughout the fruitful ten years of Faraday’s middle period two magistral
ideas had slowly grown up in his mind, and as he let his thought play about
the objects of his daily activities, these ideas possessed and dominated him
as no newly suggested idea could have done. They were the correlation and
inter-convertibility of the forces of nature, and the optical relations of
magnetism and electricity.
During the period of enforced rest, from 1839 to 1844, these ideas had
been ever with him. His was a mind which during times of quiet brooding
did not cease to advance. In silence his thoughts arranged themselves in
readiness for the next period of activity, and his work, when it began again,
was all the more fruitful for the antecedent period of cogitation.
OPTICAL ANALYSIS.

On August 30th, 1845, Faraday for the sixth time set to work in his
laboratory to search for the connection between light and electricity for
which he had so often looked, and about which he had so boldly speculated.
He began by looking for some effect to be produced on polarised light by
passing it through a liquid which was undergoing electrolysis. What effect
precisely he expected to observe is unknown. Doubtless he had an open
mind to perceive effects of any kind had such occurred. Earlier in the
century the phenomena of polarised light had been worked out in great
detail, through a host of beautiful phenomena, by Arago, Biot, Brewster,
and others; and their discoveries had shown that this agent is capable of
revealing in transparent substances details of structure which otherwise
would be quite invisible. Placed between two Nicol prisms or two slices of
tourmaline, to serve respectively as “polariser” and “analyser,” thin sheets
of transparent crystal—selenite or mica—were made to reveal the fact that
they possessed an axis of maximum elasticity. For when the analyser and

polariser were set in the “crossed” position, where the one would cut off all
the luminous vibrations that the other would transmit, no light would be
visible to the observer, unless in the intervening space there were interposed
some substance endowed with one of two properties, either that of resolving
some part of the vibrations into an oblique direction or else that of rotating
the plane of the vibrations to right or to left. If either of these things is done,
light appears through the analyser. It is thus that structure is observed in
horn and in starch grains. It is thus that the strains in a piece of compressed
glass are made visible. It is thus that crystalline structures generally can be
studied. It is thus that the discovery was made of the substances which
possess the strange property of twisting or rotating the plane of polarisation
of light—namely, quartz crystal, solutions of sugar and of certain alkaloids,
and certain other liquids, such as turpentine. Such was the agent which
Faraday proposed to employ to detect whether electric forces impress any
quality resembling that of structure upon transparent materials.
The notes begin with the words:—
“I have had a glass trough made 24 inches long, 1 inch wide and about
1½ deep, in which to decompose electrolites and, whilst under
decomposition, along which I could pass a ray of light in different
conditions and afterwards examine it.”
He put into this trough two platinum electrodes and a solution of
sulphate of soda, but could find no effects. Eight pages of the notebook are
filled with details all leading to negative results. For ten days he worked at
these experiments with liquid electrolytes. The substances used were
distilled water, solution of sugar, dilute sulphuric acid, solution of sulphate
of soda (using platinum electrodes), and solution of sulphate of copper
(using copper electrodes). The current was sent along the ray, and
perpendicular to it in two directions at right angles with each other. The ray
was made to rotate, by altering the position of the polariser (in this case a
black-glass mirror at the proper angle), so that the plane of polarisation
might be varied. The current was used as a continuous current, as a rapidly
intermitting current, and as a rapidly alternating induction current; but in no
case was any trace of action perceived.

A DIFFICULT RESEARCH.

Then he turned to solid dielectrics to see if under electric strain they
would yield any optical effect. He had indeed so far back as 1838 tried the
experiment of coating two opposite faces of a glass cube with metal foil
plates that were then electrified by a powerful electric machine. But the
experiment had no result. This experiment he now repeats with a score of
elaborate variations, trying both crystalline and non-crystalline dielectrics.
Rock-crystal, Iceland spar, flint glass, heavy-glass, turpentine, and air, had a
beam of polarised light passed through them, and at the same time “lines of
electrostatic tension” were, by means of the coatings, Leyden jars, and the
electric machine, directed across these bodies, both parallel to the polarised
ray and across it, both in and across the plane of polarisation; but again
without any visible effect. Then he tries on the same bodies, and on water,
the “tension” of a rapidly alternating induced current, but still with the same
negative result. Professor Tyndall stated that from conversation with
Faraday, and with his faithful assistant Anderson, he inferred that the labour
expended on this preliminary and apparently fruitless research was very
great. It occupies many pages of the laboratory notebook. That thirty-two
years later Dr. Kerr succeeded in finding this optical effect of electrostatic
strain for which Faraday vainly sought, is no reflection upon Faraday’s
powers of observation. Had there been no Faraday there had doubtless been
no discovery by Kerr.
So far the quest had been carried on either with electric currents
flowing through the transparent substance or else with mere statical electric
forces, and a whole fortnight had been spent without result. Now another
track is taken, and it leads straight to success. He substitutes magnetic for
electric forces.
MAGNETO-OPTIC DISCOVERY.

“13th Sept. 1845.

Fig. 15.

“To-day worked with lines of magnetic force, passing them across
different bodies transparent in different directions, and at the same time
passing a polarized ray of light through them, and afterwards examining the
ray by a Nichol’s Eye-piece or other means. The magnets were Electro-
magnets one being our large cylinder Electro-magnet and the other a
temporary iron core put into the helix on a frame. This was not nearly so
strong as the former. The current of 5 cells of Grove’s battery was sent
through both helices at once and the magnets were made and unmade by
putting in or stopping off the electric current.” Air, flint-glass, rock-crystal,
calcareous spar, were examined, but without effect. And so he worked on
through the morning, trying first one specimen, then another, altering the
directions of the poles of his magnets, reversing their polarity, changing the
position of his optical apparatus, increasing the battery-power of his
magnetising current. Then he bethinks him of that “heavy-glass”—the boro-
silicate of lead—which had cost him nearly four years of precious labour
during the first period of his scientific life. The entry in the notebook is
characteristic.

Fig. 16.

“A piece of heavy glass, which was 2 inches by 1·8 inches and 0·5 of
an inch thick, being a silico-borate of lead, was experimented with. It gave
no effects when the same magnetic poles or the contrary poles were on
opposite sides (as respects the course of the polarised ray);—nor when the
same poles were on the same side either with the constant or intermitting
current; BUT when contrary magnetic poles were on the same side there
was an effect produced on the polarised ray, and thus magnetic force and
light were proved to have relations to each other. This fact will most likely
prove exceedingly fertile, and of great value in the investigation of
conditions of natural force.
“The effect was of this kind. The glass, a result of one of my old
experiments on optical glass, had been exceedingly well annealed so that it
did not in any degree affect the polarized ray. The two magnetic poles were
in a horizontal plane, and the piece of glass put up flat against them so that
the polarized ray could pass through its edges and be examined by the eye
at a Nicholl’s eye piece. In its natural state the glass had no effect on the
polarized ray but on making contact at the battery so as to render the cores

N and S magnets instantly the glass acquired a certain degree of power of
depolarizing the ray which it retained steadily as long as the cores were
magnets but which it lost the instant the electric current was stopped. Hence
it was a permanent condition and as was expected did not sensibly appear
with an intermitting current.

Fig. 17.

“The effect was not influenced by any jogging motion or any moderate
pressure of the hands on the glass.
“The heavy glass had tinfoil coatings on its two sides but when these
were taken off the effect remained exactly the same.
“A mass of soft iron on the outside of the heavy glass greatly
diminished the effect [see Fig. 17]....
“All this shews that it is when the polarized ray passes parallel to the
lines of magnetic induction or rather to the direction of the magnetic curves,
that the glass manifests its power of affecting the ray. So that the heavy
glass in its magnetized state corresponds to the cube of rock crystal: the
direction of the magnetic curves in the piece of glass corresponding to the
direction of the optic axis in the crystal (see Exp. Researches 1689–1698)....

Fig. 18.

“Employed our large ring electro-magnet which is very powerful and
has of course the poles in the right [position] only they are very close not
more than [0·5] of an inch apart. When the heavy glass was put up against it
the effect was produced better than in any former case....
ENOUGH FOR TO-DAY.

“Have got enough for to-day.”
The description which he published in the “Researches” of the first
successful experiment is as follows:—
“A piece of this glass about 2 inches square and 0·5 of an inch thick,
47
having flat and polished edges, was placed as a diamagnetic between the
poles (not as yet magnetized by the electric current), so that the polarized
ray should pass through its length; the glass acted as air, water, or any other
indifferent substance would do; and if the eye-piece [i.e. analyzer] were
previously turned into such a position that the polarized ray was
extinguished, or rather the image produced by it rendered invisible, then the
introduction of this glass made no alteration in that respect. In this state of
circumstances the force of the electromagnet was developed, by sending an
electric current through its coils, and immediately the image of the lamp-
flame became visible, and continued so as long as the arrangement
continued magnetic. On stopping the electric current, and so causing the
magnetic force to cease, the light instantly disappeared; these phænomena

could be renewed at pleasure, at any instant of time, and upon any occasion,
showing a perfect dependence of cause and effect.”
He paused for four days in order to procure more powerful
electromagnets, for the effect which he had observed was exceedingly
slight: “A person looking for the phænomenon for the first time would not
be able to see it with a weak magnet.”
The entry in the notebook begins again:—
“18th Sept. 1845.
“Have now borrowed and received the Woolwich magnet.”
AN EXCELLENT DAY’S WORK.

This was a more powerful electromagnet than that at the Institution.
With this he sets to work with such energy that twelve pages of the
laboratory book are filled in one day. His thoughts had ripened during the
five days, and he advanced rapidly from point to point. The first experiment
with the Woolwich magnet brings out another point, of which at once he
grasped the significance:—
48
“Heavy Glass (original, or 174 ) when placed thus produced a very
fine effect. The brightness of the image produced rose gradually not
instantly, due to this that the iron cores do not take their full intensity of
magnetic state at once but require time, and so the magnetic curves rise in
intensity. In this way the effect is one by which an optical examination of
the electromagnet can be made—and the time necessary clearly shewn.”
He next ascertains definitely that the phenomenon is one of rotatory
polarisation—that is to say, the action of the magnet is to twist and rotate
the plane of polarisation through a definite angle depending on the strength
of the magnet and the direction of the exciting current. He finds the
direction of the rotation, and verifies it by comparison with the ordinary
optical rotation produced by turpentine and by a solution of sugar, winding
up with the words:—
“An excellent day’s work.”
For four days he went on accumulating proofs, and now succeeding
with the very substances with which he formerly failed. On September 26th

he tried the conjoint effect of a magnetic and an electric field. He also tried
the effect of a current running along a transparent liquid electrolytically
whilst the magnet was in operation. The only results appeared to be those
due to the magnet alone. For six days in October the experiments were
continued. He noted, as a desideratum, a transparent oxide of iron. “With
some degree of curiosity and hope” he “put gold leaf into the magnetic
lines, but could perceive no effect.” He was instinctively looking for the
phenomenon which Kundt later discovered as a property of thin transparent
films of iron. He entered amongst the speculative suggestions in his
notebook the query: “Does this [magnetic] force tend to make iron and
oxide of iron transparent?” On October 3rd he tried experiments on light
reflected from the surface of metals placed in the magnetic field. He indeed
obtained an optical rotation by reflection at the surface of a polished steel
button, but the results were inconclusive owing to imperfection of the
surface. It was reserved for Dr. Kerr to rediscover and follow up this effect.
On October 6th he looked for mechanical and magnetic effects on pieces of
heavy-glass and on liquids in glass bulbs placed between the poles of his
magnet, but found none. He also looked for possible effects of rapid motion
given to the diamagnetic while jointly subject to the action of magnetism
and the light, but found none.
UNFULFILLED EXPECTATIONS.

On October 11th he thinks he has got hold of another new fact when
experimenting on liquids in a long glass tube, the record of it filling three
pages. But two days afterwards he finds it only a disturbing effect due to the
communication of heat to the liquid from the surrounding magnetising coil.
He seems to regret the loss of the new fact, but adds: “As to the other
phenomenon of circular polarization, that comes out constant, clear, and
beautiful.”
Then, with that idea of the correlation of forces always in his head,
there recurs to him the notion that if magnetism or electric currents can
affect a beam of light, there must be some sort of converse phenomenon,
and that in some way or other light must be able to electrify or to
magnetise. Thirty-one years before, when visiting Rome with Davy, he had
witnessed the experiments of Morichini on the alleged magnetic effect of
violet light, and had remained unconvinced. His own idea is very different.
And October 14th being a bright day with good sunlight, he makes the

attempt. Selecting a very sensitive galvanometer, he connects it to a spiral
of wire 1 inch in diameter, 4·2 inches long, of 56 convolutions, and then
directs a beam of sunlight along its axis. He tries letting the beam pass
alternately through the coil while the outside is covered, and then along the
exterior while the interior is shaded. But still there is no effect. Then he
inserts an unmagnetised steel bar within the coil, and rotates it while it is
exposed to the sun’s rays. Still there is no effect, and the sun goes down on
another of the unfulfilled expectations. But had he lived to learn of the
effect of light in altering the electric resistance of selenium discovered by
Mayhew, of the photoelectric currents discovered by Becquerel, of the
discharging action of ultra-violet light discovered by Hertz, of the
revivifying effect of light on recently demagnetised iron discovered by
Bidwell, he would have rejoiced that such other correlations should have
been found, though different from that which he sought. On November 3rd
he receives a new horseshoe magnet, with which he hoped to find some
optical effect on air and other gases, but again without result. That the
magnetism of the earth does actually rotate the plane of polarisation of sky
light was the discovery of Henri Becquerel so late as 1878.
Faithful to his own maxim: “Work, finish, publish,” Faraday lost no
time in writing out his research. It was presented to the Royal Society on
November 6th, but the main result was verbally mentioned on November
3rd at the monthly meeting of the Royal Institution, and reported in the
Athenæum of November 8th, 1845.
But even before the memoir was thus given to the world another
discovery had been made. For on November 4th with the new magnet he
repeated an experiment which a month previously had been without result.
So preoccupied was he over the new event that he did not even go to the
meeting of the Royal Society on November 20th, when his paper on the
“Action of Magnets on Light” was read. What that new discovery was is
well told by Faraday himself in the letter which he sent to Professor A. de la
Rive on December 4th:—
FRESH MAGNETIC DISCOVERY.

[Faraday to Professor Aug. de la Rive.]
Brighton, December 4, 1845.

My Dear Friend,— * * * I count upon you as one of those
whose free hearts have pleasure in my success, and I am very
grateful to you for it. I have had your last letter by me on my desk
for several weeks, intending to answer it; but absolutely I have not
been able, for of late I have shut myself up in my laboratory and
wrought, to the exclusion of everything else. I heard afterwards that
even your brother had called on one of these days and been
excluded.
Well, a part of this result is that which you have heard, and my
paper was read to the Royal Society, I believe, last Thursday, for I
was not there; and I also understand there have been notices in the
Athenæum, but I have not had time to see them, and I do not know
how they are done. However, I can refer you to the Times of last
Saturday (November 29th) for a very good abstract of the paper. I
do not know who put it in, but it is well done, though brief. To that
account, therefore, I will refer you.
For I am still so involved in discovery that I have hardly time
for my meals, and am here at Brighton both to refresh and work my
head at once, and I feel that unless I had been here, and been
careful, I could not have continued my labours. The consequence
has been that last Monday I announced to our members at the Royal
Institution another discovery, of which I will give you the pith in a
few words. The paper will go to the Royal Society next week, and
probably be read as shortly after as they can there find it convenient.
Many years ago I worked upon optical glass, and made a
vitreous compound of silica, boracic acid, and lead, which I will
now call heavy glass, and which Amici uses in some of his
microscopes; and it was this substance which enabled me first to act
on light by magnetic and electric forces. Now, if a square bar of this
substance, about half an inch thick and two inches long, be very
freely suspended between the poles of a powerful horse-shoe
electro-magnet, immediately that the magnetic force is developed,
the bar points; but it does not point from pole to pole, but
equatorially or across the magnetic lines of force—i.e. east and west
in respect of the north and south poles. If it be moved from this
position it returns to it, and this continues as long as the magnetic

force is in action. This effect is the result of a still simpler action of
the magnet on the bar than what appears by the experiment, and
which may be obtained at a single magnetic pole. For if a cubical or
rounded piece of the glass be suspended by a fine thread six or eight
feet long, and allowed to hang very near a strong magneto-electric
pole (not as yet made active), then on rendering the pole magnetic
the glass will be repelled, and continue repelled until the magnetism
ceases. This effect or power I have worked out through a great
number of its forms and strange consequences, and they will occupy
two series of the “Experimental Researches.” It belongs to all
matter (not magnetic, as iron) without exception, so that every
substance belongs to the one or the other class—magnetic or
diamagnetic bodies. The law of action in its simple form is that such
matter tends to go from strong to weak points of magnetic force, and
in doing this the substance will go in either direction along the
magnetic curves, or in either direction across them. It is curious that
amongst the metals are found bodies possessing this property in as
high a degree as perhaps any other substance. In fact, I do not know
at present whether heavy glass, or bismuth, or phosphorus is the
most striking in this respect. I have very little doubt that you have
an electro-magnet strong enough to enable you to verify the chief
facts of pointing equatorially and repulsion, if you will use bismuth
carefully examined as to its freedom from magnetism, and making
of it a bar an inch and a half long, and one-third or one-fourth of an
inch wide. Let me, however, ask the favour of your keeping this fact
to yourself for two or three weeks, and preserving the date of this
letter as a record. I ought (in order to preserve the respect due to the
Royal Society) not to write a description to anyone until the paper
has been received or even read there. After three weeks or a month I
think you may use it, guarding, as I am sure you will do, my right.
And now, my dear friend, I must conclude, and hasten to work
again. But first give my kindest respects to Madame de la Rive, and
many thanks to your brother for his call.
Ever your obedient and affectionate friend,
M. Faraday.

MAGNETIC EXPERIMENTS.

The discovery of diamagnetism which Faraday thus announced was in
itself a notable achievement. As Tyndall points out, the discovery itself was
in all probability due to Faraday’s habit of not regarding as final any
negative result of an experiment until he had brought to bear upon it the
most powerful resources at his command. He had tried the effects of
ordinary magnets on brass and copper and other materials commonly
considered as non-magnetic. But when, for the purpose of the preceding
research on the relation of magnetism to light, he had deliberately procured
electromagnets of unusual power, he again tried what their effect might be
upon non-magnetic stuffs. Suspending a piece of his heavy glass near the
poles in a stirrup of writing-paper slung upon the end of a long thread of
cocoon silk, he found it to experience a strong mechanical action when the
magnet was stimulated by turning on the current. His precision of
description is characteristic:—

I shall have such frequent occasion to refer to two chief
positions of position across the magnetic field, that, to avoid
periphrasis, I will here ask leave to use a term or two conditionally.
One of these directions is that from pole to pole, or along the lines
of magnetic force, I will call it the axial direction; the other is the
direction perpendicular to this, and across the line of magnetic force
and for the time, and as respects the space between the poles, I will
call it the equatorial direction.

Note the occurrence in the above passage for the first time of the term
“the magnetic field.” Faraday’s description of the discovery continues as
follows:—

The bar of silicated borate of lead or heavy glass already
described as the substance in which magnetic forces were first made
effectually to bear on a ray of light, and which is 2 inches long, and
about 0·5 inch wide and thick, was suspended centrally between the
magnetic poles, and left until the effect of torsion was over. The
magnet was then thrown into action by making contact at the voltaic
battery. Immediately the bar moved, turning round its point of

suspension, into a position across the magnetic curve or line of
force, and, after a few vibrations, took up its place of rest there. On
being displaced by hand from this position it returned to it, and this
occurred many times in succession.

Fig. 19.

Either end of the bar indifferently went to either side of the
axial line. The determining circumstance was simply inclination of
the bar one way or the other to the axial line at the beginning of the
experiment. If a particular or marked end of the bar were on one
side of the magnetic or axial line when the magnet was rendered
active, that end went further outwards until the bar had taken up the
equatorial position....
Here, then, we have a magnetic bar which points east and west
in relation to north and south poles—i.e. points perpendicularly to
the lines of magnetic force....
DIAMAGNETIC LAWS.

To produce these effects of pointing across the magnetic curves,
the form of the heavy glass must be long. A cube or a fragment
approaching roundness in form will not point, but a long piece will.
Two or three rounded pieces or cubes, placed side by side in a paper
tray, so as to form an oblong accumulation, will also point.
Portions, however, of any form are repelled; so if two pieces be
hung up at once in the axial line, one near each pole, they are
repelled by their respective poles, and approach, seeming to attract

each other. Or if two pieces be hung up in the equatorial line, one on
each side of the axis, then they both recede from the axis, seeming
to repel each other.
From the little that has been said, it is evident that the bar
presents in its motion a complicated result of the force exerted by
the magnetic power over the heavy glass, and that when cubes or
spheres are employed a much simpler indication of the effect may
be obtained. Accordingly, when a cube was thus used with the two
poles, the effect was repulsion or recession from either pole, and
also recession from the magnetic axis on either side.
So the indicating particle would move either along the magnetic
curves or across them, and it would do this either in one direction or
the other, the only constant point being that its tendency was to
move from stronger to weaker places of magnetic force.
This appeared much more simply in the case of a single
magnetic pole, for then the tendency of the indicating cube or
sphere was to move outwards in the direction of the magnetic lines
of force. The appearance was remarkably like a case of weak
electric repulsion.
The cause of the pointing of the bar, or any oblong arrangement
of the heavy glass, is now evident. It is merely a result of the
tendency of the particles to move outwards, or into the positions of
weakest magnetic action.

* * * * *
When the bar of heavy glass is immersed in water, alcohol, or
æther, contained in a vessel between the poles, all the preceding
effects occur—the bar points and the cube recedes exactly in the
same manner as in air.
The effects equally occur in vessels of wood, stone, earth,
copper, lead, silver, or any of those substances which belong to the
diamagnetic class.
I have obtained the same equatorial direction and motions of the
heavy glass bar as those just described, but in a very feeble degree,

by the use of a good common steel horseshoe magnet.

Then he goes on to enumerate the many bodies of all sorts: crystals,
powders, liquids, acids, oils; organic bodies such as wax, olive-oil, wood,
beef (fresh and dry), blood, apple, and bread, all of which were found to be
diamagnetic. On this he remarks:—

It is curious to see such a list as this of bodies presenting on a
sudden this remarkable property, and it is strange to find a piece of
wood, or beef, or apple, obedient to or repelled by a magnet. If a
man could be suspended with sufficient delicacy after the manner of
Dufay, and placed in the magnetic field, he would point equatorially,
for all the substances of which he is formed, including the blood,
possess this property.

THE MAGNETIC BRAKE.

A few bodies were found to be feebly magnetic, including paper,
sealing-wax, china ink, asbestos, fluorspar, peroxide of lead, tourmaline,
plumbago, and charcoal. As to the metals, he found iron, cobalt, and nickel
to stand in a distinct class. A feeble magnetic action in platinum, palladium,
and titanium was suspected to be due to traces of iron in them. Bismuth
proved to be the most strongly diamagnetic, and was specially studied. The
repellent effect between bismuth and a magnet had indeed been casually
observed twice in the prior history of science, first by Brugmans, then by Le
Baillif. Faraday, with characteristic frankness, refers to his having a “vague
impression” that the repulsion of bismuth by a magnet had been observed
before, though unable at the time of writing to recollect any reference. His
own experiments ran over the whole range of substances, however, and
demonstrated the universal existence in greater or less degree of this
magnetic nature. Certain differences observed between the behaviour of
bismuth and of heavy glass on the one hand, and of copper on the other
hand, though all are diamagnetic, led him to note and describe some of the
pseudo-diamagnetic effects which occur in copper and silver, in
consequence of the induction in them of eddy-currents, from which heavy-
glass and bismuth are, by their inferior electric conductivity, comparatively
free. He described the beautiful and now classical experiment of arresting,

by turning on the exciting current, the rotation of a copper cylinder spinning
between the poles of an electromagnet.
Faraday continued to prosecute this newest line of research, and at the
end of December, 1845, presented another memoir (the twenty-first series
of the Experimental Researches) to the Royal Society. He had now
examined the salts of iron, and had found that every salt and compound
containing iron in the basic part was magnetic, both in the solid and in the
liquid state. Even prussian-blue and green bottle-glass were magnetic. The
solutions of the salts of iron were of special importance, since they furnish
the means of making a magnet which is for the time liquid, transparent, and,
within certain limits, adjustable in strength. His next step was to examine
how bodies behaved when immersed in some surrounding medium. A weak
solution of iron, enclosed in a very thin glass tube, though it pointed axially
when hung in air, pointed equatorially when immersed in a stronger
solution. A tube full of air pointed axially, and was attracted as if magnetic
when surrounded with water. Substances such as bismuth, copper, and
phosphorus are, however, highly diamagnetic when suspended in vacuo.
Such a view would make mere space magnetic. Hence Faraday inclined at
first to the opinion that diamagnetics had a specific action antithetically
distinct from ordinary magnetic action. Several times he pointed out that all
the phenomena resolve themselves simply into this, that a portion of such
matter as is termed diamagnetic tends to move from stronger to places or
points of weaker force in the magnetic field. He does, indeed, hazard the
suggestion that the phenomena might be explained on the assumption that
there was a sort of diamagnetic polarity—that magnetic induction caused in
them a contrary state to that which it produced in ordinary magnetic matter.
But his own experiments failed to support this view, and, in opposition to
Weber and Tyndall, he maintained afterwards the non-polar nature of
diamagnetic action.
In 1846 Faraday gave two Friday night discourses on these magnetic
researches, one on the cohesive force of water, and one on Wheatstone’s
electromagnetic chronoscope. At the conclusion of the last-named he said
that he was induced to utter a speculation which had long been gaining
strength in his mind, that perhaps those vibrations by which radiant
energies, such as light, heat, actinic rays, etc., convey their force through
space are not mere vibrations of an æther, but of the lines of force which, in

his view, connect different masses, and so was inclined, in his own phrase,
“to dismiss the æther.” In one of his other discourses he made the
suggestion that we might “perhaps hereafter obtain magnetism from light.”
THOUGHTS ON RAY VIBRATIONS.

The speculation above referred to is of such intrinsic importance, in
view of the developments of the last decade, that it compels further notice.
Faraday himself further expanded it in a letter to Richard Phillips, which
was printed in the Philosophical Magazine for May, 1846, under the title
“Thoughts on Ray-vibrations.” In this avowedly speculative paper Faraday
touched the highest point in his scientific writings, and threw out, though in
a tentative and fragmentary way, brilliant hints of that which his
imagination had perceived, as in a vision;—the doctrine now known as the
electromagnetic theory of light. At the dates when the earlier biographies of
Faraday appeared, neither that doctrine nor this paper had received the
recognition due to its importance. Tyndall dismisses it as “one of the most
singular speculations that ever emanated from a scientific man.” Bence
Jones just mentions it in half a line. Dr. Gladstone does not allude to it. It
therefore seems expedient to give here some extracts from the letter
itself:—

THOUGHTS ON RAY-VIBRATIONS.

To Richard Phillips, Esq.

Dear Sir,—At your request, I will endeavour to convey to you
a notion of that which I ventured to say at the close of the last
Friday evening meeting ...; but, from first to last, understand that I
merely threw out, as matter for speculation, the vague impressions
of my mind, for I gave nothing as the result of sufficient
consideration, or as the settled conviction, or even probable
conclusion at which I had arrived.
The point intended to be set forth for the consideration of the
hearers was whether it was not possible that the vibrations—which
in a certain theory are assumed to account for radiation and radiant
phenomena—may not occur in the lines of force which connect
particles, and consequently masses, of matter together—a notion

which, as far as it is admitted, will dispense with the æther, which,
in another view, is supposed to be the medium in which these
vibrations take place.

* * * * *
Another consideration bearing conjointly on the hypothetical
view, both of matter and radiation, arises from the comparison of the
velocities with which the radiant action and certain powers of matter
are transmitted. The velocity of light through space is about 190,000
49
miles a second. The velocity of electricity is, by the experiments
of Wheatstone, shown to be as great as this, if not greater. The light
is supposed to be transmitted by vibrations through an æther which
is, so to speak, destitute of gravitation, but infinite in elasticity; the
electricity is transmitted through a small metallic wire, and is often
viewed as transmitted by vibrations also. That the electric
transference depends on the forces or powers of the matter of the
wire can hardly be doubted when we consider the different
conductibility of the various metallic and other bodies, the means of
affecting it by heat or cold, the way in which conducting bodies by
combination enter into the constitution of non-conducting
substances, and the contrary, and the actual existence of one
elementary body (carbon) both in the conducting and non-
conducting state. The power of electric conduction, being a
transmission of force equal in velocity to that of light, appears to be
tied up in and dependent upon the properties of the matter, and is, as
it were, existent in them.

* * * * *

LATERAL VIBRATIONS.

Fig. 20.

In experimental philosophy we can, by the phenomena
presented, recognise various kinds of lines of force. Thus there are
the lines of gravitating force, those of electrostatic induction, those
of magnetic action, and others partaking of a dynamic character
might be perhaps included. The lines of electric and magnetic action
are by many considered as exerted through space like the lines of
gravitating force. For my own part, I incline to believe that when
there are intervening particles of matter—being themselves only
centres of force—they take part in carrying on the force through the
line, but that when there are none the line proceeds through space.
Whatever the view adopted respecting them may be, we can, at all
events, affect these lines of force in a manner which may be
conceived as partaking of the nature of a shake or lateral vibration.
For suppose two bodies, a b, distant from each other, and under
50
mutual action, and therefore connected by lines of force, and let us
fix our attention upon one resultant of force having an invariable
direction as regards space; if one of the bodies move in the least
degree right or left, or if its power be shifted for a moment within
the mass (neither of these cases being difficult to realise if a or b be
either electric or magnetic bodies), then an effect equivalent to a
lateral disturbance will take place in the resultant upon which we are
fixing our attention, for either it will increase in force whilst the
neighbouring resultants are diminishing, or it will fall in force while
they are increasing.

* * * * *
The view which I am so bold as to put forth considers,
therefore, radiation as a high species of vibration in the lines of
force which are known to connect particles, and also masses, of
matter together. It endeavours to dismiss the æther, but not the
vibrations. The kind of vibration which, I believe, can alone account
for the wonderful, varied, and beautiful phenomena of polarisation
is not the same as that which occurs on the surface of disturbed
water or the waves of sound in gases or liquids, for the vibrations in
these cases are direct, or to and from the centre of action, whereas
the former are lateral. It seems to me that the resultant of two or
more lines of force is in an apt condition for that action, which may
be considered as equivalent to a lateral vibration; whereas a
uniform medium like the æther does not appear apt, or more apt
than air or water.
The occurrence of a change at one end of a line of force easily
suggests a consequent change at the other. The propagation of light,
and therefore probably of all radiant action, occupies time; and that
a vibration of the line of force should account for the phenomena of
radiation, it is necessary that such vibration should occupy time
also.

* * * * *
THE SHADOW OF A SPECULATION.

And now, my dear Phillips I must conclude. I do not think I
should have allowed these notions to have escaped from me had I
not been led unawares, and without previous consideration, by the
51
circumstances of the evening on which I had to appear suddenly
and occupy the place of another. Now that I have put them on paper,
I feel that I ought to have kept them much longer for study,
consideration, and perhaps final rejection; and it is only because
they are sure to go abroad in one way or another, in consequence of
their utterance on that evening, that I give them a shape, if shape it
may be called, in this reply to your inquiry. One thing is certain, that

any hypothetical view of radiation which is likely to be received or
retained as satisfactory must not much longer comprehend alone
certain phenomena of light, but must include those of heat and of
actinic influence also, and even the conjoined phenomena of
sensible heat and chemical power produced by them. In this respect
a view which is in some degree founded upon the ordinary forces of
matter may perhaps find a little consideration amongst the other
views that will probably arise. I think it likely that I have made
many mistakes in the preceding pages, for even to myself my ideas
on this point appear only as the shadow of a speculation, or as one
of those impressions on the mind which are allowable for a time as
guides to thought and research. He who labours in experimental
inquiries knows how numerous these are, and how often their
apparent fitness and beauty vanish before the progress and
development of real, natural truth.
I am, my dear Phillips,
Ever truly yours,
M. Faraday.
Royal Institution,
April 15, 1846.

If it be thought that too high a value has here been set upon a document
which its author himself only claimed to be “the shadow of a speculation,”
let that value be justified out of the mouth of the man who eighteen years
later enriched the world with the mathematical theory of the propagation of
electric waves, the late Professor Clerk Maxwell. In 1864 he published in
the Philosophical Transactions a “Dynamical Theory of the
Electromagnetic Field,” in which the following passages occur:—

We have therefore reason to believe, from the phenomena of
light and heat, that there is an æthereal medium filling space and
permeating bodies capable of being set in motion, and of
transmitting that motion to gross matter, so as to heat it and affect it
in various ways.... Hence the parts of this medium must be so
connected that the motion of one part depends in some way on the
motion of the rest; and at the same time these connections must be

capable of a certain kind of elastic yielding, since the
communication of motion is not instantaneous, but occupies time.
The medium is therefore capable of receiving and storing up two
kinds of energy—namely, the “actual” energy depending on the
motion of its parts, and “potential” energy, consisting of the work
which the medium will do in recovering from displacement in virtue
of its elasticity.
The propagation of undulations consists in the continual
transformation of one of these forms of energy into the other
alternately, and at any instant the amount of energy in the whole
medium is equally divided, so that half is energy of motion and half
is elastic resilience.

* * * * *
In order to bring these results within the power of symbolic
calculation, I then express them in the form of the general equations
of the electromagnetic field.

* * * * *
The general equations are next applied to the case of a magnetic
disturbance propagated through a non-conducting field, and it is
shown that the only disturbances which can be so propagated are
those which are transverse to the direction of propagation, and that
the velocity of propagation is the velocity v, found from
experiments such as those of Weber, which expresses the number of
electrostatic units of electricity which are contained in one
electromagnetic unit. This velocity is so nearly that of light, that it
seems we have strong reason to conclude that light itself (including
radiant heat and other radiations, if any) is an electromagnetic
disturbance in the form of waves propagated through the
electromagnetic field according to electromagnetic laws....
Conducting media are shown to absorb such radiations rapidly, and
therefore to be generally opaque.

ELECTROMAGNETIC THEORY OF LIGHT.

The conception of the propagation of transverse magnetic
disturbances to the exclusion of normal ones is distinctly set forth
by Professor Faraday in his “Thoughts on Ray Vibrations.” The
electromagnetic theory of light, as proposed by him, is the same in
52
substance as that which I have begun to develop in this paper,
except that in 1846 there were no data to calculate the velocity of
propagation.

During the rest of this year (1846) and the next Faraday did very little
research, though he continued his Royal Institution lectures and his reports
for Trinity House. Amongst the latter in 1847 was one on a proposal to light
buoys by incandescent electric lamps containing a platinum wire spiral. He
was compelled, indeed, to rest by a recurrence of brain troubles, giddiness,
and loss of memory. Honours however, continued to be heaped upon him
both abroad and at home, as the following extract from Bence Jones
shows:—

In 1846, for his two great discoveries, the Rumford and the
Royal Medals were both awarded to him. This double honour will
probably long be unique in the annals of the Royal Society. In
former years he had already received the Copley and Royal Medals
for his experimental discoveries. As his medals increased it became
remarkable that he—who kept his diploma-book, his portraits and
letters of scientific men, and everything he had in the most perfect
order—seemed to take least care of his most valuable rewards. They
were locked up in a box, and might have passed for old iron.
Probably he thought, as others did afterwards, that their value, if
seen, might lead to their loss.

CRYSTALLINE FORCES.

Between the twenty-first and twenty-second series of “Experimental
Researches” nearly three years elapsed. In the autumn of 1848 the matter
which claimed investigation was the peculiar behaviour of bismuth in the
magnetic field. Certain anomalies were observed which were finally traced

to the crystalline nature of the metal, for it appeared that when in that state
the crystals themselves—to adopt modern phraseology—showed a greater
magnetic permeability in a direction perpendicular to their planes of
cleavage than in any direction parallel to those planes. Hence when a
crystalline fragment was hung in a uniform magnetic field (where the
diamagnetic tendency to move from a strong to a weak region of the field
was eliminated), it tended to point in a determinate direction. Faraday
expressed it that the structure of the crystal showed a certain “axiality,” and
he regarded these effects as presenting evidence of a “magnecrystallic”
force, the law of action being that the line or axis of magnecrystallic force
tended to place itself parallel to the lines of the magnetic field in which the
crystal was placed. Arsenic, antimony, and other crystalline metals were
similarly examined. The subject was an intricate one, and there are frequent
obscurities in the phraseology tentatively adopted for explaining the
phenomena. In one place Faraday rather pathetically laments his imperfect
mathematical knowledge. This seems like an echo of his inability to follow
the analytical reasoning of Poisson, who, starting from a hypothesis about
the supposed “magnetic fluids” being movable within the particles of a
body, supposing that these particles were non-spherical and were
symmetrically arranged, had predicted (in 1827) that a portion of such a
substance would, when brought into the neighbourhood of a magnet, act
differently, according to the different positions in which it might be turned
about its centre. But this very inability to follow Poisson’s refined analysis
gave a new direction to Faraday’s thoughts, and caused him to conceive the
idea of magnetic permeabilities differing in different directions, an idea
which, as Sir William Thomson (the present Lord Kelvin) showed in
53
1851, is equally susceptible of mathematical treatment by appropriate
symbols. Lord Kelvin has also spoken (op. cit., p. 484) of the matter as
follows: “The singular combination of mathematical acuteness with
experimental research and profound physical speculation which Faraday,
though not a ‘mathematician,’ presented is remarkably illustrated by his use
of the expression ‘conducting power of a magnetic medium for lines of
force.’” Tyndall has given a succinct summary of these researches—in
which also he took a part—from which the following extract must
suffice:—

And here follows one of those expressions which characterise
the conceptions of Faraday in regard to force generally: “It appears
to me impossible to conceive of the results in any other way than by
a mutual reaction of the magnetic force, and the force of the
particles of the crystal upon each other.” He proves that the action of
the force, though thus molecular, is an action at a distance. He
shows that a bismuth crystal can cause a freely-suspended magnetic
needle to set parallel to its magnecrystallic axis. Few living men are
aware of the difficulty of obtaining results like this, or of the
delicacy necessary to their attainment. “But though it thus takes up
the character of a force acting at a distance, still it is due to that
power of the particles which makes them cohere in regular order
and gives the mass its crystalline aggregation, and so often spoken
of as acting at insensible distances.” Thus he broods over this new
force, and looks at it from all points of inspection. Experiment
follows experiment, as thought follows thought. He will not
relinquish the subject as long as a hope exists of throwing more
light upon it. He knows full well the anomalous nature of the
conclusion to which his experiments lead him. But experiment to
him is final, and he will not shrink from the conclusion. “This
force,” he says, “appears to me to be very strange and striking in its
character. It is not polar, for there is no attraction or repulsion.” And
then, as if startled by his own utterance, he asks: “What is the nature
of the mechanical force which turns the crystal round and makes it
affect a magnet?”... “I do not remember,” he continues, “heretofore
such a case of force as the present one—where a body is brought
into position only without attraction or repulsion.”
Plücker, the celebrated geometer already mentioned, who
pursued experimental physics for many years of his life with
singular devotion and success, visited Faraday in those days, and
repeated before him his beautiful experiments on magneto-optic
action. Faraday repeated and verified Plücker’s observations, and
concluded, what he at first seemed to doubt, that Plücker’s results
and magnecrystallic action had the same origin.

MAGNETISM AND CRYSTALLISATION.

At the end of his papers, when he takes a last look along the
line of research, and then turns his eyes to the future, utterances
quite as much emotional as scientific escape from Faraday. “I
cannot,” he says at the end of his first paper on magnecrystallic
action, “conclude this series of researches without remarking how
rapidly the knowledge of molecular forces grows upon us, and how
strikingly every investigation tends to develop more and more their
importance and their extreme attraction as an object of study. A few
years ago magnetism was to us an occult power, affecting only a
few bodies. Now it is found to influence all bodies, and to possess
the most intimate relations with electricity, heat, chemical action,
light, crystallisation, and through it with the forces concerned in
cohesion. And we may, in the present state of things, well feel urged
to continue in our labours, encouraged by the hope of bringing it
into a bond of union with gravity itself.”

In 1848 Faraday gave five Friday night discourses, three of them on the
“Diamagnetic Condition of Flame and Gases.” In 1849 he gave two, one of
them on Plücker’s researches. In 1850 he gave two, one of them being on
the electricity of the air, the other on certain conditions of freezing water.
He had meanwhile continued to work at magnetism. The twenty-third series
dealt with the supposed diamagnetic polarity. It incidentally discussed the
distortion produced in a magnetic field by a mass of copper in motion
across it. The twenty-fourth series was on the possible relation of gravity to
electricity. The paper concludes with the words: “Here end my trials for the
present. The results are negative. They do not shake my strong feeling of
the existence of a relation between gravity and electricity, though they give
no proof that such a relation exists.” The next series (the twenty-fifth) was
on the “Non-expansion of Gases by Magnetic Force” and on the “Magnetic
Characters of Oxygen [which he had found to be highly magnetic],
Nitrogen, and Space.” He had found that magnetically substances must be
classed either along with iron and the materials that point axially, or else
with bismuth and those that point equatorially, in the magnetic field. The
best vacuum he could procure he regarded as the zero of these tests; but
before adopting it as such, he verified by experiment that even in a vacuum

a magnetic body still tends from weaker to stronger places in the magnetic
field; while diamagnetic bodies tend from stronger to weaker. He then says
we must consider the magnetic character and relation of space free from
any material substance. “Mere space cannot act as matter acts, even though
the utmost latitude be allowed to the hypothesis of an ether.” He then
proceeds as follows:—
MORE NEW WORDS.

Now that the true zero is obtained, and the great variety of
material substances satisfactorily divided into two general classes, it
appears to me that we want another name for the magnetic class,
that we may avoid confusion. The word magnetic ought to be
general, and include all the phenomena and effects produced by that
power. But then a word for the subdivision opposed to the
diamagnetic class is necessary. As the language of this branch of
science may soon require general and careful changes, I, assisted by
a kind friend, have thought that a word—not selected with particular
care—might be provisionally useful; and as the magnetism of iron,
nickel, and cobalt when in the magnetic field is like that of the earth
as a whole, so that when rendered active they place themselves
parallel to its axes or lines of magnetic force, I have supposed that
they and their similars (including oxygen now) might be called
paramagnetic bodies, giving the following division:—
{ paramagnetic
Magnetic {
{ diamagnetic.

The “kind friend” alluded to was Whewell, as the following letter
shows:—

[Rev. W. Whewell to M. Faraday.]
July, 1850.
I am always glad to hear of your wanting new words, because
the want shows that you are pursuing new thoughts—and your new

thoughts are worth something—but I always feel also how difficult
it is for one who has not pursued the train of thought to suggest the
right word. There are so many relations involved in a new
discovery, and the word ought not glaringly to violate any of them.
The purists would certainly object to the opposition, or co-
ordination, of ferromagnetic and diamagnetic, not only on account
of the want of symmetry in the relation of ferro and dia, but also
because the one is Latin and the other Greek.... Hence it would
appear that the two classes of magnetic bodies are those which place
their length parallel, or according, to the terrestrial magnetic lines,
and those which place their length transverse to such lines. Keeping
the preposition dia for the latter, the preposition para, or ana, might
be used for the former. Perhaps para would be best, as the word
parallel, in which it is involved, would be a technical memory for
it.... I rejoice to hear that you have new views of discovery opening
to you. I always rejoice to hail the light of such when they dawn
upon you.

The twenty-sixth series of researches opened with a consideration of
magnetic “conducting power,” or permeability as we should now term it,
and then branched off into a lengthy discussion of atmospheric magnetism.
The subject was continued through the twenty-seventh series, which was
completed in November, 1850. The gist of this is summed up in one of his
letters to Schönbein:—

Royal Institution, November 19, 1850.
My Dear Schönbein,—I wish I could talk with you, instead of
being obliged to use pen and paper. I have fifty matters to speak
about, but either they are too trifling for writing, or too important,
for what can one discuss or say in a letter?... By the bye, I have been
working with the oxygen of the air also. You remember that three
years ago I distinguished it as a magnetic gas in my paper on the
diamagnetism of flame and gases founded on Bancalari’s
experiment. Now I find in it the cause of all the annual and diurnal,
and many of the irregular, variations in the terrestrial magnetism.
The observations made at Hobarton, Toronto, Greenwich, St.

Petersburg, Washington, St. Helena, the Cape of Good Hope, and
Singapore, all appear to me to accord with and support my
hypothesis. I will not pretend to give you an account of it here, for it
would require some detail, and I really am weary of the subject. I
have sent in three long papers to the Royal Society, and you shall
have copies of them in due time....
Ever, my dear Schönbein, most truly yours,
M. Faraday.

PAPERS TO BE LET LOOSE.

While writing out these researches for the Royal Society, he had been
staying in Upper Norwood. He wrote thus of himself to Miss Moore at the
end of August:—

We have taken a little house here on the hill-top, where I have a
small room to myself, and have, ever since we came here, been
deeply immersed in magnetic cogitations. I write, and write, and
write, until three papers for the Royal Society are nearly completed,
and I hope that two of them will be good if they justify my hopes,
for I have to criticise them again and again before I let them loose.
You shall hear of them at some of the Friday evenings. At present I
must not say more. After writing, I walk out in the evening, hand-in-
hand with my dear wife, to enjoy the sunset; for to me, who love
scenery, of all that I have seen or can see there is none surpasses that
of Heaven. A glorious sunset brings with it a thousand thoughts that
delight me.

To De la Rive he wrote later as follows:—

[M. Faraday to A. de la Rive.]
Royal Institution, February 4, 1851.
My Dear de la Rive,—My wife and I were exceedingly sorry
to hear of your sad loss. It brought vividly to our remembrance the
time when we were at your house, and you, and others with you,

made us so welcome. What can we say to these changes but that
they show by comparison the vanity of all things under the sun? I
am very glad that you have spirits to return to work again, for that is
a healthy and proper employment of the mind under such
circumstances.
With respect to my views and experiments, I do not think that
anything shorter than the papers (and they will run to a hundred
pages in the “Transactions”) will give you possession of the subject,
because a great deal depends upon the comparison of observations
in different parts of the world with the facts obtained by experiment,
and with the deductions drawn from them; but I will try to give you
an idea of the root of the matter. You are aware that I use the phrase
line of magnetic force, to represent the presence of magnetic force,
and the direction (of polarity) in which it is exerted; and by the idea
which it conveys one obtains very well, and I believe without error,
a notion of the distribution of the forces about a bar magnet, or
between near flat poles presenting a field of equal force, or in any
other case. Now, if circumstances be arranged so as to present a
field of equal force, which is easily done, as I have shown by the
electro-magnet, then if a sphere of iron or nickel be placed in the
field, it immediately disturbs the direction of the lines of force, for
they are concentrated within the sphere. They are, however, not
merely concentrated, but contorted, for the sum of forces in any one
section across the field is always equal to the sum of forces in any
other section, and therefore their condensation in the iron or nickel
cannot occur without this contortion. Moreover, the contortion is
easily shown by using a small needle (one-tenth of an inch long) to
examine the field, for, as before the introduction of the sphere of
iron or nickel, it would always take up a position parallel to itself.
Afterwards it varies in position in different places near the sphere.
This being understood, let us then suppose the sphere to be raised in
temperature. At a certain temperature it begins to lose its power of
affecting the lines of magnetic force, and ends by retaining scarcely
any. So that as regards the little needle mentioned above, it now
stands everywhere parallel to itself within the field of force. This
change occurs with iron at a very high temperature, and is passed
through within the compass, apparently, of a small number of

degrees. With nickel it occurs at much lower temperatures, being
affected by the heat of boiling oil.
Now take another step. Oxygen, as I showed above, three years
ago in the Philosophical Magazine for 1847, vol. xxxi., pp. 410,
415, 416, is magnetic in relation to nitrogen and other gases. E.
Becquerel, without knowing of my results, has confirmed and
extended them in his paper of last year, and given certain excellent
measures. In my paper of 1847 I showed also that oxygen (like iron
and nickel) lost its magnetic power and its ability of being attracted
by the magnet when heated (p. 417). And I further showed that the
temperatures at which this took place were within the range of
common temperature, for the oxygen of the air—i.e. the air
altogether—is increased in magnetic power when cooled to 0° F. (p.
406). Now I must refer you to the papers themselves for the (to me)
strange results of the incompressibility (magnetically speaking) of
oxygen and the inexpansibility of nitrogen and other gases; for the
description of a differential balance by which I can compare gas
with gas, or the same gas at different degrees of rarefaction; for the
determination of the true zero, or point between magnetic and
diamagnetic bodies; and for certain views of magnetic conduction
and polarity. You will there find described certain very delicate
experiments upon diamagnetic and very weak magnetic bodies
concerning their action on each other in a magnetic field of equal
force. The magnetic bodies repel each other, and the diamagnetic
bodies repel each other; but a magnetic and a diamagnetic body
attract each other. And these results, combined with the qualities of
oxygen as just described, convince me that it is able to deflect the
lines of magnetic force passing through it just as iron or nickel is,
but to an infinitely smaller amount, and that its power of deflecting
the lines varies with its temperature and degree of rarefaction.
ATMOSPHERIC MAGNETISM.

Then comes in the consideration of the atmosphere, and the
manner in which it rises and falls in temperature by the presence
and absence of the sun. The place of the great warm region nearly in
his neighbourhood; of the two colder regions which grow up and
diminish in the northern and southern hemispheres as the sun travels

between the tropics; the effect of the extra warmth of the northern
hemisphere over the southern; the effect of accumulation from the
action of preceding months; the effect of dip and mean declination
at each particular station; the effects that follow from the non-
coincidence of magnetic and astronomical conditions of polarity,
meridians, and so forth; the results of the distribution of land and
water for any given place—for all these and many other things I
must refer you to the papers. I could not do them justice in any
account that a letter could contain, and should run the risk of leading
you into error regarding them. But I may say that, deducing from
the experiments and the theory what are the deviations of the
magnetic needle at any given station, which may be expected as the
mean result of the heating and cooling of the atmosphere for a given
season and hour, I find such a general accordance with the results of
observations, especially in the direction and generally in the amount
for different seasons of the declination variation, as to give me the
strongest hopes that I have assigned the true physical cause of those
variations, and shown the modus operandi of their production.
And now, my dear de la Rive, I must leave you and run to other
matters. As soon as I can send you a copy of the papers I will do so,
and can only say I hope that they will meet with your approbation.
With the kindest remembrances to your son,
Believe me to be, my dear friend, ever truly yours,
M. Faraday.

This hope of explaining the variations of terrestrial magnetism by the
magnetic properties of the oxygen of the air was destined to be illusory. At
that time the cosmical nature of magnetic storms was unknown and
unsuspected. To this matter we may well apply Faraday’s own words
addressed to Tyndall respecting the alleged diamagnetic polarity, and the
conflict of views between himself on the one hand and Weber and Tyndall
on the other:—“It is not wonderful that views differ at first. Time will
gradually sift and shape them. And I believe that we have little idea at
present of the importance they may have ten or twenty years hence.”

LINES OF MAGNETIC FORCE.

In 1851, from July to December, Faraday was actively at work in the
laboratory. The results constitute the material for the twenty-eighth and
twenty-ninth (the last) series of the “Experimental Researches.” In these he
returned to the subject with which the first series had opened in 1831: the
induction of electric currents by the relative motion of magnets and
conducting wires. These two memoirs, together with his Royal Institution
lecture of January, 1852, “On the Lines of Magnetic Force,” and the paper
“On the Physical Character of the Lines of Magnetic Force” (which he sent
to the Philosophical Magazine, as containing “so much of a speculative and
hypothetical nature”), should be read, and re-read, and read again, by every
student of physics. They are reprinted at the end of the third volume of the
“Experimental Researches.”
In the opening of the twenty-eighth memoir he says:—

From my earliest experiments on the relation of electricity and
magnetism, I have had to think and speak of lines of magnetic force
as representations of the magnetic power—not merely in the points
of quality and direction, but also in quantity.... The direction of these
lines about and amongst magnets and electric currents is easily
represented and understood in a general manner by the ordinary use
of iron filings.
A point equally important to the definition of these lines is, that
they represent a determinate and unchanging amount of force.
Though, therefore, their forms, as they exist between two or more
centres or sources of power, may vary very greatly, and also the
space through which they may be traced, yet the sum of power
contained in any one section of a given portion of the lines is
54
exactly equal to the sum of power in any other section of the same
lines, however altered in form or however convergent or divergent
they may be at the second place.... Now, it appears to me that these
lines may be employed with great advantage to represent the nature,
condition, and comparative amount of the magnetic forces, and that
in many cases they have, to the physical reasoner, at least, a
superiority over that method which represents the forces as

concentrated in centres of action, such as the poles of magnets or
needles; or some other methods, as, for instance, that which
considers north or south magnetisms as fluids diffused over the end,
or amongst the particles, of a bar. No doubt any of these methods
which does not assume too much will, with a faithful application,
give true results. And so they all ought to give the same results, as
far as they can respectively be applied. But some may, by their very
nature, be applicable to a far greater extent, and give far more varied
results, than others. For, just as either geometry or analysis may be
employed to solve correctly a particular problem, though one has far
more power and capability, generally speaking, than the other; or,
just as either the idea of the reflexion of images or that of the
reverberation of sounds may be used to represent certain physical
forces and conditions, so may the idea of the attractions and
repulsions of centres, or that of the disposition of magnetic fluids, or
that of lines of force, be applied in the consideration of magnetic
phenomena. It is the occasional and more frequent use of the latter
which I at present wish to advocate.... When the natural truth, and
the conventional representation of it, most closely agree, then are
we most advanced in our knowledge. The emission and æther
theories present such cases in relation to light. The idea of a fluid or
of two fluids is the same for electricity; and there the further idea of
a current has been raised, which, indeed, has such hold on the mind
as occasionally to embarrass the science as respects the true
character of the physical agencies, and may be doing so even now to
a degree which we at present little suspect. The same is the case
with the idea of a magnetic fluid or fluids, or with the assumption of
magnetic centres of action of which the resultants are at the poles.
THE FUNCTIONS OF THE ÆTHER.

How the magnetic force is transferred through bodies or
through space we know not—whether the result is merely action at a
distance, as in the case of gravity, or by some intermediate agency,
as in the cases of light, heat, the electric current, and, as I believe,
static electric action. The idea of magnetic fluids, as applied by
some, or of magnetic centres of action, does not include that of the
latter kind of transmission, but the idea of lines of force does.

Nevertheless, because a particular method of representing the forces
does not include such a mode of transmission, the latter is not
disproved, and that method of representation which harmonises with
it may be the most true to nature. The general conclusion of
philosophers seems to be that such cases are by far the most
numerous. And for my own part, considering the relation of a
vacuum to the magnetic force, and the general character of magnetic
phenomena external to the magnet, I am more inclined to the notion
that in the transmission of the force there is such an action, external
to the magnet, than that the effects are merely attraction and
repulsion at a distance. Such an action may be a function of the
æther, for it is not at all unlikely that if there be an æther, it should
55
have other uses than simply the conveyance of radiations.

He then proceeds to recount the experimental evidence of revolving
magnets and loops of wire. Following out the old lines of so moving the
parts of the system that the magnetic lines were “cut” by the copper
conductors, and connecting the latter with a slow-period galvanometer, to
test the resultant induction, he found that “the amount of magnetic force”
[or flux, as we should nowadays call it] “is determinate for the same lines of
force, whatever the distance of the point or plane at which their power is
exerted is from the magnet.” The convergence or divergence of the lines of
force caused, per se, no difference in their amount. Obliquity of intersection
caused no difference, provided the same lines of force were cut. If a wire
was moving in a field of equal intensity, and with a uniform motion, then
the current produced was proportional to the velocity of motion. The
“quantity of electricity thrown into a current” was, ceteris paribus, “directly
as the amount of curves intersected.” Within the magnet, running through
its substance, existed lines of force of the same nature as those without,
exactly equal in amount to those without, and were, indeed, continuous with
them. The conclusion must logically be that every line of force is a closed
circuit.
Having thus established the exact quantitative laws of magneto-electric
induction, he then advanced to make use of the induced current as a means
of investigating the presence, direction, and amount of magnetic forces—in
other words, to explore and measure magnetic fields. He constructed

revolving rectangles and rings furnished with a simple commutator, to
measure inductively the magnetic forces of the earth. Then he employed the
induced current to test the constancy of magnets when placed near to other
magnets in ways that might affect their power. Next he considers the fields
of magnetic force of two or more associated magnets, and notes how their
magnetic lines may coalesce when they are so placed as to constitute parts
of a common magnetic circuit. The twenty-ninth series is brought to a close
by a discussion of the experimental way of delineating lines of magnetic
force by means of iron filings.
THE ELECTROTONIC STATE.

The paper on the “Physical Character of the Lines of Magnetic Force”
recapitulated the points established in the twenty-ninth series of
“Researches,” and emphasis is laid upon the logical necessity that time
must be required for their propagation. The physical effects in a magnetic
field, as equivalent to a tendency for the magnetic lines to shorten
themselves, and to repel one another laterally, are considered, and are
contrasted with the effects of parallel electric currents. Commenting on the
mutual relation between the directions of an electric current and of its
surrounding magnetic lines, he raises the question whether or not they
consist in a state of tension of the æther. “Again and again,” he says, “the
idea of an electrotonic state has been forced on my mind. Such a state
would coincide and become identified with that which would then
constitute the physical lines of magnetic force.” Then he traces out the
analogy between a magnet, with its “sphondyloid” (or spindle-form field) of
magnetic lines, and a voltaic battery immersed in water, with its re-entrant
lines of flow of circulating current. Incidentally, while discussing the
principle of the magnetic circuit, he points out that when a magnet is
furnished at its poles with masses of soft iron, it can both receive and retain
a higher magnetic charge than it does without them, “for these masses carry
on the physical lines of force, and deliver them to a body of surrounding
space, which is either widened, and therefore increased, in the direction
across the lines of force, or shortened in that direction parallel to them, or
both; and both are circumstances which facilitate the conduction from pole
to pole.”

NOVELTY OF FARADAY’S VIEWS.

Thus closed, with the exception of two fragmentary papers, one on
“Physical Lines of Force,” and the other on “Some Points in Magnetic
Philosophy,” in the years 1853 and 1854 respectively, the main life-work of
Faraday, his “Experimental Researches.” Their effect in revolutionising
electric science, if slow, was yet sure. Though the principle of the dynamo
was discovered and published in 1831, nearly forty years elapsed before
electric-lighting machinery became a commercial product. Though the
dependence of inductive actions, both electromagnetic and electrostatic,
upon the properties of the intervening medium was demonstrated and
elaborated in these “Researches,” electricians for many years continued to
propound theories which ignored this fundamental fact. French and German
writers continued to publish treatises based on the ancient doctrines of
action at a distance, and of imaginary electric and magnetic fluids. Von
Boltzmann, a typical German of the first rank in science, says that until
there came straight from England the counter-doctrines amidst which
Faraday had lived, “we (in Germany and France) had all more or less
imbibed with our mothers’ milk the ideas of magnetic and electric fluids
acting direct at a distance.” And again, “The theory of Maxwell”—that is,
Faraday’s theory thrown by Maxwell into mathematical shape—“is so
diametrically opposed to the ideas which have become customary to us, that
we must first cast behind us all our previous views of the nature and
operation of electric forces before we can enter into its portals.” The
divergence of view between Faraday and the Continental electricians is
nowhere more clearly stated than by Faraday’s great interpreter, Maxwell,
in the apologia which he prefixed in 1873 to his “Treatise on Electricity and
Magnetism,” wherein, speaking of the differences between this work and
those recently published in Germany, he wrote:—

One reason of this is that before I began the study of electricity
I resolved to read no mathematics on the subject till I had first read
through Faraday’s “Experimental Researches on Electricity.” I was
aware that there was supposed to be a difference between Faraday’s
way of conceiving phenomena and that of the mathematicians. So
that neither he nor they were satisfied with each other’s language. I
had also the conviction that this discrepancy did not arise from

either party being wrong. I was first convinced of this by Sir
William Thomson [Lord Kelvin], to whose advice and assistance, as
well as to his published papers, I owe most of what I have learned
on this subject.
As I proceeded with the study of Faraday, I perceived that his
method of conceiving the phenomena was also a mathematical one,
though not exhibited in the conventional form of mathematical
symbols. I also found that these methods were capable of being
expressed in the ordinary mathematical forms, and thus compared
with those of the professed mathematicians.
For instance, Faraday, in his mind’s eye, saw lines of force
traversing all space where the mathematicians saw centres of force
attracting at a distance. Faraday saw a medium where they saw
nothing but distance. Faraday sought the seat of the phenomena in
real actions going on in the medium; they were satisfied that they
had found it in a power of action at a distance impressed on electric
fluids.
When I had translated what I considered to be Faraday’s ideas
into a mathematical form, I found that in general the results of the
two methods coincided, so that the same phenomena were
accounted for and the same laws of action deduced by both
methods, but that Faraday’s methods resembled those in which we
begin with the whole and arrive at the parts by analysis, while the
ordinary mathematical methods were founded on the principle of
beginning with the parts and building up the whole by synthesis.
I found, also, that several of the most fertile methods of
research discovered by the mathematicians could be expressed
much better in terms of ideas derived from Faraday than in their
original form.
The whole theory, for instance, of potential, considered as a
quantity which satisfies a certain partial differential equation,
belongs essentially to the method which I have called of Faraday....
If by anything I have here written I may assist any student in
understanding Faraday’s modes of thought and expression, I shall

regard it as the accomplishment of one of my principal aims: to
communicate to others the same delight which I have found myself
in reading Faraday’s “Researches.”

Clerk Maxwell may also be credited with the remark that Faraday’s
work had had the result of banishing the term “the electric fluid” into the
limbo of newspaper science.
ELECTRIC LIGHT IN LIGHTHOUSES.

Faraday’s work for Trinity House continued during these last years of
research work. He reported on such subjects as adulteration of white lead,
impure oils, Chance’s lenses, lighthouse ventilation, and fog signals. Two
systems of electric arc lighting for lighthouses—one by Watson, using
batteries, the other by Holmes, using a magneto-electric machine—were
examined in 1853 and 1854, but his report on them was adverse. He “could
not put up in a lighthouse what has not been established beforehand, and is
only experimental.” In 1856 he made five reports, in 1857 six, and in 1858
twelve reports to Trinity House, one of these being on the electric light at
the South Foreland. In 1859 he reported on further trials in which
Duboscq’s lamps were used. In 1860 he gave a final report on the
practicability and utility of magneto-electric lighting, and expressed the
hope it would be applied, as there was now no difficulty. In 1861 he
inspected the machinery as established at the Dungeness lighthouse. In
1862 he gave no fewer than seventeen reports, visiting Dungeness, Grisnez,
and the South Foreland. In 1863 he again visited Dungeness. In 1864 he
made twelve reports, and examined the drawings and estimates for
establishing the electric light at Portland. His last report was in 1865, upon
the St. Bees’ light, and he then retired from this service.
His Friday night discourses were still continued during these years. In
1855 he gave one on “Ruhmkorff’s Induction-coil.” In 1856 he gave one on
a process for silvering glass, and on finely divided gold. This latter subject,
the optical properties of precipitated gold, formed the topic of the Bakerian
lecture of that year—his last contribution to the Royal Society. He gave
another discourse on the same subject in 1857, and also one on the
conservation of force. In 1856, when investigating the crystallisation of
water, he discovered the phenomenon of regelation of ice. In virtue of this

property two pieces of ice will freeze solidly together under pressure, even
when the temperature of the surrounding atmosphere is above the freezing
point. This discovery led on the one hand to the explanation of glacier
motions; on the other to important results in thermodynamic theory. In 1859
he gave two discourses, one on ozone, the other on phosphorescence and
fluorescence. He also gave two in 1860, on lighthouse illumination by
electric light, and on the electric silk-loom. In 1861 he discoursed on
platinum and on De la Rue’s eclipse photographs. The last of his Friday
night discourses was given on June 20th, 1862. It was on Siemens’s gas
furnaces. He had been down at Swansea watching the furnaces in operation,
and now proposed to describe their principle. It was rather a sad occasion,
for it was but too evident that his powers were fast waning. Early in the
evening he had the misfortune to burn the notes he had prepared, and
became confused. He concluded with a touching personal explanation how
with advancing years his memory had failed, and that in justice to others he
felt it his duty to retire.
At intervals he still attempted to work at research. In 1860 he sent a
paper to the Royal Society on the relations of electricity to gravity, but, on
the advice of Professor (afterwards Sir George) Stokes, it was withdrawn.
He had also in contemplation some experiments upon the time required in
the propagation of magnetism, and began the construction of a complicated
instrument, which was never finished.
HYPOTHESIS AND EXPERIMENT.

His very last experiment, as recorded in his laboratory notebook, is of
extraordinary interest, as showing how his mind was still at work inquiring
into the borderland of possible phenomena. It was on March 12th, 1862. He
was inquiring into the effect of a magnetic field upon a beam of light, which
he was observing with a spectroscope to ascertain whether there was any
change produced in the refrangibility of the light. The entry concludes: “Not
the slightest effect on the polarised or unpolarised ray was observed.” The
experiment is of the highest interest in magneto-optics. The effect for which
Faraday looked in vain in 1862 was discovered in 1897 by Zeeman. That
Faraday should have conceived the existence of this obscure relation
between magnetism and light is a striking illustration of the acuteness of
mental vision which he brought to bear. Living and working amongst the
appliances of his laboratory, letting his thoughts play freely around the

phenomena, incessantly framing hypotheses to account for the facts, and as
incessantly testing his hypotheses by the touchstone of experiment, never
hesitating to push to their logical conclusion the ideas suggested by
experiment, however widely they might seem to lead from the accepted
modes of thought, he worked on with a scientific prevision little short of
miraculous. His experiments, even those which at the time seemed
unsuccessful, in that they yielded no positive result, have proved to be a
mine of amazing richness. The volumes of his “Experimental Researches”
are a veritable treasure-house of science.

CHAPTER VI.

MIDDLE AND LATER LIFE.
Although to avoid discontinuity the account of Faraday’s researches has in the
previous chapter been followed to their close in 1862, we must now return to
his middle period of life, when his activities at the Royal Institution were at
their zenith.
BREAKDOWN OF HEALTH.

Mention has been made of the serious breakdown of Faraday’s health at
the close of 1839. Dr. Latham, whom he consulted as to his attacks of
giddiness, wrote to Brande:—

Grosvenor Street,
December 1, 1839.
Dear Brande,—I have been seeing our friend Faraday these two
or three days, and been looking after his health. I trust he has no
ailment more than rest of body and mind will get rid of. But rest is
absolutely necessary for him. Indeed, I think it would be hardly
prudent for him to lecture again for the present. He looks up to his
work; but, in truth, he is not fit, and if he is pressed he will suddenly
break down. When we meet, I will talk the matter over with you.
Yours most sincerely,
P. M. Latham.

The advice was taken. He gave up nearly all research work, but tried to go
on with Friday night discourses and afternoon lectures in 1840. Then came a
more serious breakdown, and he rested for nearly four years, with the
exception of the Christmas lectures in 1841 and a few Friday discourses in
1842 and 1843. This illness caused him great distress of mind, mainly due to
an idea that the physicians did not understand his condition. When in this state

he sometimes set down pencil notes on scraps of paper to relieve his feelings.
One such is the following:—

Whereas, according to the declaration of that true man of the
world Talleyrand, the use of language is to conceal the thoughts; this is
to declare in the present instance, when I say I am not able to bear
much talking, it means really, and without any mistake, or
equivocation, or oblique meaning, or implication, or subterfuge, or
omission, that I am not able; being at present rather weak in the head,
and able to work no more.

During these times of enforced idleness he used to amuse himself with
games of skill, with paperwork, and with visits to the theatre and to the
Zoological Gardens. Mrs. Faraday left the following note:—

Michael was one of the earliest members of the Zoological
Society, and the Gardens were a great resource to him when
overwrought and distressed in the head. The animals were a continual
source of interest, and we, or rather I, used to talk of the time when we
should be able to afford a house within my walking distance of the
entrance; for I much feared he could not continue to live in the
Institution with the continual calls upon his time and thought; but he
always shrank from the notion of living away from the R. I.

His niece, Miss Reid, told how fond he was of seeing acrobats, tumblers,
dwarfs and giants; even a Punch and Judy show was an unfailing source of
delight. When travelling in Switzerland, as he did on several occasions,
accompanied by Mrs. Faraday and her brother, George Barnard, the artist, he
kept a journal, which reveals his simple pleasures and enthusiasms. He is
delighted with waterfalls and avalanches, watches the cowherd collecting his
cows and the shepherd calling the sheep, which followed him, leaving the
goats to straggle. On one such visit (in 1841), in order that he might not be
absent on Sunday from his wife, he walked the whole distance from Leukerbad
to Thun, over the Gemmi—a distance of 45 miles—in one day. At Interlaken,
observing that clout-nail-making was practised as a local industry, he wrote: “I
love a smith’s shop and everything relating to smithery. My father was a
smith.”

IMPRESSIONS OF LIEBIG.

In 1844 he was well enough to attend the British Association meeting at
York. Liebig, who had also been there, wrote to him three months later with
some reminiscences. What had struck him most was the tendency in England
to ignore the more purely scientific works and to value only those with a
“practical” bearing. “In Germany it is quite the contrary. Here, in the eyes of
scientific men, no value, or at least but a trifling one, is placed on the practical
results. The enrichment of science is alone considered worthy of attention.”
Liebig further expressed himself dissatisfied with the meeting at York. He had
been interested to make the acquaintance of so many celebrated men, but it
was, strictly, “a feast given to the geologists, the other sciences serving only to
decorate the table.” Then came a more personal note:—

Often do my thoughts wander back to the period which I spent in
England, among the many pleasant hours of which the remembrance of
those passed with you and your amiable wife is to me always the
dearest and most agreeable. With the purest pleasure I bring to mind
my walk with her, in the botanical garden at York, when I was afforded
a glance of the richness of her mind; what a rare treasure you possess
in her! The breakfast in the little house with Snow Harris, and Graham,
and our being together at Bishopthorpe, are still fresh in my memory.

If Liebig was disposed to underrate the useful applications of science,
Faraday certainly was not. Though his own research work was carried on with
the single aim of scientific progress; though he himself never swerved aside
into any branch research that might have yielded money; yet he was ever ready
to examine, and even to lecture upon, the inventions of others. He accepted for
the subjects of his Friday night discourses all sorts of topics—artificial stone,
machinery for pen-making, lithography, Ruhmkorff’s induction coil, a process
for silvering mirrors, and lighthouse illumination by electric light. His very last
lecture was on Siemens’s gas-furnaces. He could be just as enthusiastic over
the invention of another as over some discovery of his own. With respect to his
lecture on the Ruhmkorff coil, Tyndall describes him in a passage which is
interesting, as containing an epithet since adopted for another great man for
whom Tyndall had less respect than for Faraday:—

I well remember the ecstasy and surprise of the grand old man,
evoked by effects which we should now deem utterly insignificant.

Bence Jones says:—

When he brought the discoveries of others before his hearers, one
object, and one alone, seemed to determine all he said and did, and that
was, “without commendation and without censure,” to do the utmost
that could be done for the discoverer.

In so perfect a character it would be marvellous if there were not some
flaw. His persistent ignoring of Sturgeon, and his attribution of the invention of
the electromagnet to Moll and Henry, whose work was frankly based on
Sturgeon’s, is simply inexplicable. He failed to appreciate the greatness of
Dalton, and thought him an overrated man.
PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS.

Amid all his overflowing kindliness of heart, Faraday preserved other less
obvious traits of character. Any act of injustice or meanness called forth an
almost volcanic burst of indignation. Hot flashes of temper, fierce moments of
wrath were by no means unknown. But he exercised a most admirable self-
control, and a habitual discipline of soul that kept his temper under. Grim and
forbidding, and even exacting he could show himself to an idle or unfaithful
servant. There were those who feared as well as those who loved and admired
him. Dr. Gladstone says of him that he was no “model of all the virtues,”
dreadfully uninteresting, and discouraging to those who feel calm perfection
out of their reach. “His inner life was a battle, with its wounds as well as its
victory.” “It is true also,” he adds, “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.”
For thirty years Faraday was the foremost of lecturers on science in
London. From the first occasion when, in 1823, as Sir Roderick Murchison
narrates, he was called upon unexpectedly to act as substitute for Professor
Brande at one of his morning lectures at the Royal Institution (then held in the
subterranean laboratory), down to the time of his latest appearance as a
lecturer in 1862, he was without a rival as the exponent of natural science.

As no man could achieve and retain such a position without possessing
both natural gifts and appropriate training, it is fitting to inquire what were
those gifts and what the training which were so happily united in him.

I was (he said) 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.

From the very first Faraday had an appreciation of the way in which
public lectures should be given. In his notes of Davy’s fourth lecture of April,
1812, he wrote:—

During the whole of these observations his delivery was easy, his
diction elegant, his tone good, and his sentiments sublime.

His own first lecture was given in the kitchen of Abbott’s house, with
home-made apparatus placed on the kitchen table. To Abbott, after only a few
weeks of experience at the Royal Institution, he wrote the letters upon lectures
and lecturers, to which allusion was made on p. 15. These show a most
remarkably sound perception of the material and mental furniture requisite for
success. From the third and fourth of them are culled the following excerpts:—
QUALIFICATIONS OF A LECTURER.

The most prominent requisite to a lecturer, though perhaps not
really the most important, is a good delivery; 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.
In order, therefore, to gain the attention of an audience (and what can
be more disagreeable to a lecturer than the want of it?), it is necessary
to pay some attention to the manner of expression. The utterance
should not be rapid and hurried, and consequently unintelligible, but
slow and deliberate, conveying ideas with ease from the lecturer, and
infusing them with clearness and readiness into the minds of the
audience. A lecturer should endeavour by all means to obtain a facility

of utterance, and the power of clothing his thoughts and ideas in
language smooth and harmonious, and at the same time simple and
easy.
With respect to the action of the lecturer, it is requisite that he
should have some, though it does not here bear the importance that it
does in other branches of oratory; for though I know of no species of
delivery (divinity excepted) that requires less motion, yet I would by
no means have a lecturer glued to the table or screwed on the floor. He
must by all means appear as a body distinct and separate from the
things around him, and must have some motion apart from that which
they possess.
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. No accident that does not
interfere with their convenience should disturb his serenity, or cause
variation in his behaviour; he should never, if possible, turn his back
on them, but should give them full reason to believe that all his powers
have been exerted for their pleasure and instruction.
Some lecturers choose to express their thoughts extemporaneously
immediately as they occur to the mind, whilst others previously
arrange them and draw them forth on paper. But although I allow a
lecturer to write out his matter, I do not approve of his reading it—at
least, not as he would a quotation or extract.
A lecturer should exert his utmost effort to gain completely the
mind and attention of his audience, and irresistibly to make them join
in his ideas to the end of the subject. He should endeavour 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. A flame should be lighted at the
commencement, and kept alive with unremitting splendour to the end.
For this reason I very much disapprove of breaks in a lecture, and
where they can by any means be avoided they should on no account

find place.... For the same reason—namely, that the audience should
not grow tired—I disapprove of long lectures; one hour is long enough
for anyone. Nor should they be allowed to exceed that time.
A lecturer falls deeply beneath the dignity of his character when he
descends so low as to angle for claps and asks for commendation. Yet
have I seen a lecturer even at this point. I have heard him causelessly
condemn his own powers. I have heard him dwell for a length of time
on the extreme care and niceness that the experiment he will make
requires. I have heard him hope for indulgence when no indulgence
was wanted, and I have even heard him declare that the experiment
now made cannot fail, from its beauty, its correctness, and its
application, to gain the approbation of all.... I would wish apologies to
be made as seldom as possible, and generally only when the
inconvenience extends to the company. I have several times seen the
attention of by far the greater part of the audience called to an error by
the apology that followed it.
’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. Any particular circumstance that has become table-talk for the
town, any local advantages or disadvantages, any trivial circumstance
that may arise in company, give great force to illustrations aptly drawn
from them, and please the audience highly, as they conceive they
perfectly understand them.
Apt experiments (to which I have before referred) ought to be
explained by satisfactory theory, or otherwise we merely patch an old
coat with new cloth, and the whole [hole] becomes worse. If a
satisfactory theory can be given, it ought to be given. If we doubt a
received opinion, let us not leave the doubt unnoticed and affirm our
own ideas, but state it clearly, and lay down also our objections. If the
scientific world is divided in opinion, state both sides of the question,
and let each one judge for himself by noticing the most striking and
forcible circumstances on each side. Then, and then only, shall we do
justice to the subject, please the audience, and satisfy our honour, the
honour of a philosopher.

USE OF CRITICISM.

One who already had set before himself such high ideals could not fail at
least to attempt to fulfil them. Accordingly, when in 1816 he began to lecture
to the City Philosophical Society, he began to attend an evening class on
elocution conducted by Mr. B. H. Smart, though the pinch of poverty made it
difficult to him to afford the needful fees. Again, in 1823, previous to taking
part in Brande’s laboratory lectures, he took private lessons in elocution from
Smart, at the rate of half-a-guinea a lesson. After 1827, when he was beginning
his regular courses of lectures in the theatre, he often used to get Mr. Smart to
attend in order to criticise his delivery.
Amongst the rules found in his manuscript notes were the following:—

Never to repeat a phrase.
Never to go back to amend.
If at a loss for a word, not to ch-ch-ch or eh-eh-eh, but to stop and
wait for it. It soon comes, and the bad habits are broken and fluency
soon acquired.
Never doubt a correction given to me by another.

His niece, Miss Reid, who lived from 1830 to 1840 at the Institution with
the Faradays, gave the following amongst her recollections:—

Mr. Magrath used to come regularly to the morning lectures, for
the sole purpose of noting down for him any faults of delivery or
defective pronunciation that could be detected. The list was always
received with thanks; although his corrections were not uniformly
adopted, he was encouraged to continue his remarks with perfect
freedom. In early days he always lectured with a card before him with
Slow written upon it in distinct characters. Sometimes he would
overlook it and become too rapid; in this case, Anderson had orders to
place the card before him. Sometimes he had the word Time on a card
brought forward when the hour was nearly expired.

AS LECTURER.

In spite of his recourse to aids in acquiring elocutionary excellence, his
own style remained simple and unspoiled. “His manner,” says Bence Jones,
“was so natural, that the thought of any art in his lecturing never occurred to
anyone. For his Friday discourses, and for his other set lectures in the theatre,
he always made ample preparation beforehand. His matter was always over-
abundant. And, if his experiments were always successful, this was not solely
attributable to his exceeding skill of hand. For, unrivalled as he was as a
manipulator, in the cases in which he attempted to show complicated or
difficult experiments, that which was to be shown was always well rehearsed
beforehand in the laboratory. He was exceedingly particular about small and
simple illustrations. He never merely told his hearers about an experiment, but
showed it to them, however simple and well known it might be. To a young
lecturer he once remarked: ‘If 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.’
He always endeavoured at the outset to put himself en rapport with his
audience by introducing his subject on its most familiar side, and then leading
on to that which was less familiar. Before the audience became aware of any
transition, they were already assimilating new facts which were thus brought
within their range. Nor did he stay his discourse upon the enunciation of facts
merely. Almost invariably, as his allotted hour drew towards its close, he gave
rein to his imagination. Those who had begun with him on the lower plane of
simple facts and their correlations were bidden to consider the wider bearings
of scientific principles and their relations to philosophy, to life, or to ethics.
While he never forced a peroration, nor dragged in a quotation from the poets,
his own scientific inspiration, as he outlined some wide-sweeping speculation
or suggestion for future discoveries, amply supplied the fitting finale. If the
rush of his ideas might sometimes be compared to tearing through a jungle, it
at least never degenerated into sermonising; and never, save when he was
physically ill, failed to arouse an enthusiastic glow of response in his hearers.
‘No attentive listener,’ says Mrs. Crosse, ‘ever came away from one of
Faraday’s lectures without having the limits of his spiritual vision enlarged, or
without feeling that his imagination had been stimulated to something beyond
the mere expression of physical facts.’”
He was not one who let himself dwell in illusions. When he did well he
was perfectly conscious of the fact, and enjoyed a modest satisfaction. If he

had failed of his best, he was conscious too of that. His deliberate act in giving
up all other lectures at the time when his brain-troubles were gaining upon
him, while retaining the Christmas lectures to juveniles, was thoroughly
characteristic. Of one of his earlier courses of lectures he himself made—about
1832—the following note:—

The eight lectures on the operations of the laboratory at the Royal
Institution, April, 1828, were not to my mind. There does not appear to
be that opportunity of fixing the attention of the audience by a single
clear, consistent, and connected chain of reasoning which occurs when
a principle (sic) or one particular application is made.... I do not think
the operations of the laboratory can be rendered useful and popular in
lectures....

The matter of these same lectures was, however, the basis of his book on
Chemical Manipulation published in 1827. It went through three editions, and
was reprinted in America. But in 1838 he declined to let a new edition be
issued, as he considered the work out of date.
Besides the note quoted above from the Faraday MS. occurs the
following:—

The six juvenile lectures given Christmas, 1827, 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.

Nineteen times did Faraday give the Christmas lectures. Those on the
Chemistry of a Candle were given more than once; and were the last he gave,
in 1860. They have been published, as were those on the Forces of Nature. The
lectures on Metals he was urged to publish, but declined in the following
terms:—

Royal Institution, January 3, 1859.
Dear Sir,—Many thanks to both you and Mr. Bentley. Mr. Murray
made me an unlimited offer like that of Mr. Bentley’s many years ago,
but for the reasons I am about to give you I had to refuse his kindness.
He proposed to take them by shorthand, and so save me trouble, but I

knew that would be a thorough failure; even if I cared to give time to
the revision of the MS., still the lectures without the experiments and
the vivacity of speaking would fall far behind those in the lecture-room
as to effect. And then I do not desire to give time to them, for money is
no temptation to me. In fact, I have always loved science more than
money; and because my occupation is almost entirely personal I cannot
afford to get rich. Again thanking you and Mr. Bentley, I remain,
Very truly yours,
M. Faraday.

AN INSPIRED CHILD.

Of his lectures Lady Pollock wrote:—

He would play with his subject now and then, but very delicately;
his sport was only just enough to enliven the attention. He never
suffered an experiment to allure him away from his theme. Every
touch of his hand was a true illustration of his argument.... But his
meaning was sometimes beyond the conception of those whom he
addressed. When, however, he lectured to children he was careful to be
perfectly distinct, and never allowed his ideas to outrun their
intelligence. He took great delight in talking to them, and easily won
their confidence. The vivacity of his manner and of his countenance,
and his pleasant laugh, the frankness of his whole bearing, attracted
them to him. They felt as if he belonged to them; and indeed he
sometimes, in his joyous enthusiasm, appeared like an inspired child.
... His quick sympathies put him so closely in relation with the
child that he saw with the boy’s new wonder, and looked, and most
likely felt for the moment, as if he had never seen the thing before.
Quick feelings, quick movement, quick thought, vividness of
expression and of perception, belonged to him. He came across you
like a flash of light, and he seemed to leave some of his light with you.
His presence was always stimulating.—St. Paul’s Magazine, June,
1870.

A writer in the British Quarterly Review says:—

He had the art of making philosophy charming, and this was due
in no little measure to the fact that to grey-headed wisdom he united
wonderful juvenility of spirit.... Hilariously boyish upon occasion he
could be, and those who knew him best knew he was never more at
home, that he never seemed so pleased, as when making an old boy of
himself, as he was wont to say, lecturing before a juvenile audience at
Christmas.

Caroline Fox (in “Memories of Old Friends”), under date June 13th, 1851,
wrote in her journal:—

We went to Faraday’s lecture on “Ozone.” He tried the various
methods of making ozone which Schönbein had already performed in
our kitchen, and he did them brilliantly. He was entirely at his ease,
both with his audience and his chemical apparatus.

In the diary of H. Crabb Robinson is an appreciation of Faraday of some
interest:—

May 8th, 1840.... Attended Carlyle’s second lecture. It gave great
satisfaction, for it had uncommon thoughts and was delivered with
unusual animation.... In the evening heard a lecture by Faraday. What a
contrast to Carlyle! A perfect experimentalist with an intellect so clear.
Within his sphere un uomo compito.

Many references to Faraday’s lectures occur in the life of Sir Richard
Owen (published 1894), chiefly extracted from Mrs. Owen’s diary. Two or
three extracts must suffice:—

1839, Jan. 8th. At eight o’clock with R. to the Royal Institution to
hear Faraday lecture on electricity, galvanism, and the electric eel.
Faraday is the beau idéal of a popular lecturer.
1845, Jan. 31. To Faraday’s lecture at the Royal Institution. The
largest crowd I have ever seen there. Many gentlemen were obliged to
come into the ladies’ gallery, as they could not get seats elsewhere.
After an exceedingly interesting lecture, Faraday said he had a few

remarks to make on some new reform laws for the Institution. These
remarks were admirably made, and no one could feel offended,
although it was a direct attack on those gentlemen who helped to
render the ladies very uncomfortable, sometimes by filling seats, and
often front seats, in the part intended only for ladies. Wearing a hat in
the library was one of the delinquencies, likewise sitting in the seats
reserved for the directors, who were obliged by their office and duties
to be last in. Mr. Faraday also remarked that the formation of two
currents caused by certain gentlemen rushing upstairs the instant the
lecture was over to fetch their lady friends was not conducive to the
comfort of those coming downstairs. Everything taken very well.
ROYAL INSTITUTION LECTURES.

1849, May 28th. With R. to Royal Institution. We got there just
before three, and there was a crowded audience as usual to hear
Faraday’s lecture. The poor man entered and attempted to speak, but he
was suffering from inflammation or excessive irritation of the larynx,
and after some painful efforts to speak, a general cry arose of
“Postpone,” and someone, apparently in authority, made a short speech
from the gallery. Mr. Faraday still wished to try and force his voice,
saying he was well aware of the difficulty of getting back the carriages,
etc., before the time for the lecture had elapsed, to say nothing of the
disappointment to some; but every moment the cry increased. “No, no;
you are too valuable to be allowed to injure yourself. Postpone,
postpone.” Poor Faraday was quite overcome.

The interrupted lecture was resumed after a fortnight’s interval; and he
made up the full number of lectures by giving two extra discourses, at one of
which the Prince Consort was present.

At another lecture [in 1856] Faraday explained the magnet and
strength of attraction. He made us all laugh heartily; and when he
threw a coalscuttle full of coals, a poker, and a pair of tongs at the
great magnet, and they stuck there, the theatre echoed with shouts of
laughter.

His friend De la Rive testified in striking terms to Faraday’s power as a
speaker.

Nothing can give a notion of the charm which he imparted to these
improvised lectures, in which he knew how to combine animated, and
often eloquent, language with a judgment and art in his experiments
which added to the clearness and elegance of his exposition. He
exerted an actual fascination upon his auditors; and when, after having
initiated them into the mysteries of science, he terminated his lecture,
as he was in the habit of doing, by rising into regions far above matter,
space, and time, the emotion which he experienced did not fail to
communicate itself to those who listened to him, and their enthusiasm
had no longer any bounds.

Faraday remained all his life a keen observer of other lecturers. Visiting
France in 1845, he went to hear Arago give an astronomical lecture. “He
delivered it in an admirable manner to a crowded audience,” was his comment.
To the Secretary of the Institution, who in 1846 consulted him regarding
evening lectures, he said:

I see no objection to evening lectures if you can find a fit man to
give them. As to popular lectures (which at the same time are to be
respectable and sound), none are more difficult to find. Lectures which
really teach will never be popular; lectures which are popular will
never really teach. They know little of the matter who think science is
more easily to be taught or learned than A B C; and yet who ever
learned his A B C without pain and trouble? Still, lectures can
(generally) inform the mind, and show forth to the attentive man what
he really has to learn, and in their way are very useful, especially to the
public. I think they might be useful to us now, even if they only gave
an answer to those who, judging by their own earnest desire to learn,
think much of them. As to agricultural chemistry, it is no doubt an
excellent and a popular subject, but I rather suspect that those who
know least of it think that most is known about it.

USE OF MODELS AND CARDS.

His fondness for illustrating obscure points in his lectures by models has
been more than once alluded to. He would improvise these out of wood, paper,
wire, or even out of turnips or potatoes, with much dexterity of hand. In one of

his unpublished manuscripts, dating about 1826, dealing with the then recently
discovered phenomena of electromagnetism, occurs the following note:—

It is best for illustration to have a model of the constant position
which the needle takes across the wire: le voila (Fig. 21).

Fig. 21.

Many such simple models were used in his lectures. He leaned upon them
to aid his defective memory; but they helped his audience quite as much as
they aided him. Reference was made on p. 7 to his use of cards, on which to jot
down notes of thoughts that occurred to him. One such runs as follows:—

Remember to do one thing at once.
Also to finish a thing.
Also to do a little if I could not do much.
Pique about mathematics in chemists, and resolution to support the
character of experiment—as better for the mass. Hence origin of the
title Exp. researches.
Influence of authority. Davy and difficulty of steering between
self-sufficiency and dependance (sic) on others.
Aim at high things, but not presumptuously.
Endeavour to succeed—expect not to succeed.
Criticise one’s own view in every way by experiment—if possible,
leave no objection to be put by others.

Faraday’s enthusiasm about experimental researches was at times
unrestrained, and always contagious. Dumas describes how Faraday repeated
for him the experimental demonstration of the action of magnetism on light.
Having come to the final experiment, Faraday rubbed his hands excitedly,
while his eyes lit up with fire, and his animated countenance told the
passionate feelings which he brought to the discovery of scientific truth. On
another occasion Plücker, of Bonn, then on a visit to London, showed Faraday
in his own laboratory the action of a magnet upon the luminous electric
discharge in vacuum tubes. “Faraday danced round them; and as he saw the
moving arches of light, he cried: ‘Oh, to live always in it!’” Once a friend met
him at Eastbourne in the midst of a tremendous storm, rubbing his hands
together gleefully because he had been fortunate enough to see the lightning
strike the church tower. To the Baroness Burdett-Coutts he once wrote inviting
her to see some experiments upon spectrum analysis in his private room. The
experiments, he wrote, will not be beautiful except to the intelligent.
Yet another reminiscence is to be found in the Memorials of Joseph Henry.
It relates, probably, to the date of 1837, when Henry visited Europe.

Henry loved to dwell on the hours that he and Bache had spent in
Faraday’s society. I shall never forget Henry’s account of his visit to
King’s College, London, where Faraday, Wheatstone, Daniell, and he
had met to try and evolve the electric spark from the thermopile. Each
in turn attempted it and failed. Then came Henry’s turn. He succeeded,
calling in the aid of his discovery of the effect of a long interpolar wire
wrapped around a piece of soft iron. Faraday became as wild as a boy,
and, jumping up, shouted: “Hurrah for the Yankee experiment!”

The following memorandum was found on a slip of paper in Faraday’s
“research drawer”:—

THE FOUR DEGREES.
The discoverer of a fact.
The reconciling of it to known principles.
Discovery of a fact not reconcilable.
He who refers all to still more general principles.

M.F.

FREEDOM OF SPECULATION.

Faraday’s mind was of a very individual turn; he could not walk along the
beaten tracks, but must pursue truth wherever it led him. His dogged tenacity
for exact fact was accompanied by a perfect fearlessness of speculation. He
would throw overboard without hesitation the most deeply-rooted notions if
experimental evidence pointed to newer ideas. He had learned to doubt the
idea of poles; so he outgrew the idea of atoms, which he considered an
arbitrary conception. Many who heard his bold speculations and his free
coinage of new terms deemed him vague and loose in thought. Nothing could
be more untrue. He let his mind play freely about the facts; he framed
thousands of hypotheses, only to let them go by if they were not supported by
facts. “He is the wisest philosopher,” he said in a lecture on the nature of
matter, “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.”
In one of his later experimental researches he wrote:—

As an experimentalist, I feel bound to let experiment guide me
into any train of thought which it may justify; being satisfied that
experiment, like analysis, must lead to strict truth if rightly interpreted;
and believing also that it is in its nature far more suggestive of new
trains of thought and new conditions of natural power.

WHY NO SUCCESSOR.

Perhaps it was this very freedom of thought which debarred him from
enlisting other men as collaborators in his researches. His one assistant for
thirty years, Sergeant Anderson, was indeed invaluable to him for his quality
of implicit obedience. Other helpers in the laboratory he had none. Apparently
he found his researches to be of too individual a character to permit him to
deputise any part of his work. He was never satisfied when told about
another’s experiment; he must perform it for himself. Often a discovery arose
from some chance or trivial incident of an otherwise unsuccessful experiment.

The power of “lateral vision,” which Tyndall has so strongly emphasised, was
a prime factor in his successes. That power could not be delegated to any mere
assistant. Many times did outsiders approach him, thinking to bring new facts
to his notice; never, save on the solitary occasion when a Mr. William Jenkin
drew his attention to the “extra-current” spark seen on the breaking of an
electric circuit, did such novelties turn out to be really new. Alleged
discoveries thus brought to him merely plagued him. He thought that anyone
who had the wit to observe any really new phenomenon would be the person
best qualified to work it out. His method was to work on alone, dwelling
amidst his experiments until the mind, familiarising itself with the facts, was
ready to suggest their correlations. It was sometimes urged against him as a
complaint that he never took up any younger man to train him as his successor,
even as Davy had taken up himself and trained him in scientific work. One of
the miscellaneous notes, found after his death, throws some light on this:—

It puzzles me greatly to know what makes the successful
philosopher. Is it industry and perseverance with a moderate proportion
of good sense and intelligence? Is not a modest assurance or
earnestness a requisite? Do not many fail because they look rather to
the renown to be acquired than to the pure acquisition of knowledge,
and the delight which the contented mind has in acquiring it for its
own sake? I am sure I have seen many who would have been good and
successful pursuers of science, and have gained themselves a high
name, but that it was the name and the reward they were always
looking forward to—the reward of the world’s praise. In such there is
always a shade of envy or regret over their minds, and I cannot
imagine a man making discoveries in science under these feelings. As
to Genius and its power, there may be cases; I suppose there are. I have
looked long and often for a genius for our Laboratory, but have never
found one. But I have seen many who would, I think, if they had
submitted themselves to a sound self-applied discipline of mind, have
become successful experimental Philosophers.

To Dr. Becker he wrote:

I was never able to make a fact my own without seeing it; and the
descriptions of the best works altogether failed to convey to my mind
such a knowledge of things as to allow myself to form a judgment

upon them. It was so with new things. If Grove, or Wheatstone, or
Gassiot, or any other told me a new fact, and wanted my opinion either
of its value, or the cause, or the evidence it could give on any subject, I
never could say anything until I had seen the fact. For the same reason
I never could work, as some Professors do most extensively, by
students or pupils. All the work had to be my own.

INCOME AND EXPENDITURE.

Of Faraday’s social life and surroundings during his meridional and later
period much might be written. After his great researches of 1831 to 1836
scientific honours flowed in freely upon him, especially from foreign
academies and universities; and the fame he won at home would have brought
him, had he been so minded, an ample professional fortune and all the artificial
amenities of Society which follow the successful money-maker. From all such
mundane “success” he cut himself off when in 1831 he decided to abandon
professional fee-earning, and to devote himself to the advancement of science.
Probably the tenets of the religious body to which he belonged were a leading
factor in compelling this decision. Not having laid upon him the necessity of
providing for a family, and accustomed to live in an unostentatious style, he
could contemplate the future without anxiety. With his pension, his Woolwich
lectures, and his Trinity House appointment, Faraday was in no sense poor,
though his Royal Institution professorship never brought him so much as £300
a year until after he was over sixty years of age; but on the other hand, his
private charities were very numerous. How much of his income was spent in
that way can never be known; for the very privacy of his deeds of kindness
prevented any record from being kept. Certain it is that his gifts to the aged
poor and sick must have amounted to several hundreds of pounds a year; for
while his income for many years must have averaged at least £1,000 or £1,100,
and his domestic expenditure could not have much exceeded half that sum, he
does not seem to have attempted to save anything. Nor did he grudge time or
strength to do kindly charitable acts in visiting the sick.
From about the year 1834 he resolutely declined invitations to dinners and
such social gaieties; not, as some averred, from any religious asceticism, but
that he might the more unrestrainedly devote himself to his researches. “If,”
says Mrs. Crosse, “Babbage, Wheatstone, Grove, Owen, Tyndall, and a host of
other distinguished scientists, were to be met very generally in the society of
the day, there was one man who was very conspicuous by his absence—this

was Faraday! His biographers say that in earlier years he occasionally accepted
Lady Davy’s invitations to dinner; but I never heard of his going anywhere,
except in obedience to the commands of royalty.” He did indeed occasionally
dine quietly with Sir Robert Peel or Earl Russell; and of the few public dinners
he attended, he enjoyed most the annual banquet of the Royal Academy of
Arts.
Faraday does not, however, appear to have had any very direct relations
with the world of art. Once he was consulted by Lord John Russell as to the
removal of Raphael’s cartoons from Hampton Court to the National Gallery.
His advice was adverse, on account of the penetrating power of dust. Though a
sufficiently good draughtsman to prepare his own drawings, he had little or no
knowledge of the technicalities of painting. Yet his sensitive and enthusiastic
temperament had much in common with that of the artist, and he enjoyed
music, especially good music, greatly. In early life he played the flute and
knew many songs by heart. He took bass parts in concerted singing, and is said
to have sung correctly in time and tune. In his circle of acquaintanceship were
numbered several painters of eminence—Turner, Landseer, and Stanfield. His
brother-in-law, Mr. George Barnard, the late well-known water-colour artist,
has written the following note:—

My first and many following sketching trips were made with
Faraday and his wife. Storms excited his admiration at all times, and
he was never tired of looking into the heavens. He said to me once, “I
wonder you artists don’t study the light and colour in the sky more,
and try more for effect.” I think this quality in Turner’s drawings made
him admire them so much. He made Turner’s acquaintance at
Hullmandel’s, and afterwards often had applications from him for
chemical information about pigments. Faraday always impressed upon
Turner and other artists the great necessity there was to experiment for
themselves, putting washes and tints of all their pigments in the bright
sunlight, covering up one half, and noticing the effect of light and
gases on the other....
Faraday did not fish at all during these country trips, but just
rambled about geologising or botanising.

SCIENCE, LITERATURE, AND ART.

Earlier in his career, Faraday and his brother-in-law used to enjoy
conversaziones of artists, actors, and musicians at Hullmandel’s. Sometimes
they went up the river in Hullmandel’s eight-oar boat, camping gipsy-wise on
the banks for dinner, and enjoying the singing of Signor Garcia and his wife
and of his daughter, afterwards Madame Malibran. From these things, too, he
withdrew very largely when he ceased to dine out, though he still liked to hear
the opera and to visit the theatre. Curiously enough, he seems to have had very
little in common with literary men. In the last half of the previous century
there had been many intimate relations between the leaders of literature and
those of science. The circle which included Watt, Boulton, and Wedgwood
included also Priestley and Erasmus Darwin. In our own time the names of
Darwin, Huxley, Hooker, and Tyndall are to be found in conjunction with those
of Tennyson, Browning, and Jowett. But the biographies of literary men and
artists of the period from 1830 to 1850 bear few references to Faraday. He
moved in his own world, and that a world very much apart from literature or
art. In his method of working he was indeed an artist, often feeling his way
rather than calculating it, and arriving at his conclusions by what seemed
insight rather than by any direct process of reasoning. The discovery of truth
comes about in many ways; and if Faraday’s method in science was artistic
rather than scientific, it was amply justified by the brilliant harvest of
discoveries which it enabled him to reap.
As is well known, Faraday never took out any patents for his discoveries;
indeed, whenever in his investigations he seemed to come near to the point
where they began to possess a marketable value from their application to the
industries, he left them, to pursue his pioneering inquiries in other branches.
He sought, indeed, for principles rather than for processes, for facts new to
science rather than for merchantable inventions. When he had made the
discovery of magneto-electric induction—the basis of all modern electric
engineering—he carried the research to the point of constructing several
experimental machines, and then abruptly turned away with these memorable
words:—

I have rather, however, been desirous of discovering new facts and
new relations dependent on magneto-electric induction than of exalting
the force of those already obtained; being assured that the latter would
find their full development hereafter.

PRACTICAL UTILITIES.

Several times was Faraday known, when asked about the possible utility
of some new scientific discovery, to quote Franklin’s rejoinder: “What is the
use of a baby?”
It is narrated of him that on one occasion, at a Trinity House dinner, he and
the Duke of Wellington had a little friendly chat, in the course of which the
Duke advised Faraday to give his speculations “a practical turn as far as
possible”—“a suggestion,” said Faraday, who always spoke of the veteran with
pleasure, “full of weight, coming from such a man.” Faraday was, however,
the last to despise the importance of industrial applications of science. In his
unpublished manuscripts at the Royal Institution there are some curious
references to trials which he made of a meat-canning process, invented about
1848 by a Mr. Goldner, of Finsbury. He also had fancies for other domestic
applications, including wine-making. He used himself to bind his own note-
books. To a Mr. Woolnough, who had written a book on the marbling of paper,
he wrote a letter saying how much interest he felt in the subject, “because of its
associations with my early occupation of bookbinding; and also because of the
very beautiful principles of natural philosophy which it involves.” He even, on
one occasion, produced a home-made pair of boots. His devotion to the
practical applications of science is attested by his untiring work for improving
the lighthouses of our coast. It is believed that his death was accelerated by a
severe cold caught when on a visit of lighthouse inspection during stormy
weather.
Faraday was never ashamed of the circumstance of his having risen from a
humble origin. In his letters he not unfrequently alludes to things that remind
him of his bookbinding experiences, or of boyish episodes in his father’s
smithy. Yet he had none of the vulgar pride of ascent which too often dogs the
path of the self-made man. Severe self-discipline and genuine humility
prevented either undue proclamation or awkward reticence respecting his early
life. His elder brother Robert was a gasfitter. Faraday was not ashamed to help
him to secure work in his trade, nor to give him the benefit of his scientific aid
in perfecting appliances for ventilating by gas-burners. The following
characteristic story was told by Frank Barnard:—

Robert was throughout life a warm friend and admirer of his
younger brother, and not a whit envious at seeing himself passed in the
social scale by him. One day he was sitting in the Royal Institution just

previous to a lecture by the young and rising philosopher, when he
heard a couple of gentlemen behind him descanting on the natural gifts
and rapid rise of the lecturer. The brother—perhaps not fully
apprehending the purport of their talk—listened with growing
indignation while one of them dilated on the lowness of Faraday’s
origin. “Why,” said the speaker, “I believe he was a mere shoeblack at
one time.” Robert could endure this no longer; but turning sharply
round he demanded: “Pray, sir, did he ever black your shoes?” “Oh!
dear no, certainly not,” replied the gentleman, much abashed at the
sudden inquisition into the facts of the case.

SPIRIT MEDIUMS EXPOSED.

In 1853 Faraday came before the public in a novel manner—as the
exposer of the then rampant charlatanry of table-turning and spirit-rapping.
The Athenæum for July 2nd contains a long letter from him on table-turning.
He experimentally investigated the alleged phenomena as produced by three
skilful mediums in séances at the house of a friend. His mechanical skill was
more than a match, however, for that of the supposed spirits. When the
observers assembled around the table placed their hands in the orthodox way
upon the table-top, the table turned, apparently without any effort on the part
of any one of the party. This was eminently satisfactory for the spirits. But
when Faraday interposed between each hand and the table-top a simple roller-
mechanism which, if any individual in the circle applied muscular forces
tending to turn it, instantly indicated the fact, the table remained immovable.
Faraday wrote merely describing the facts, and saying that the test apparatus
was now on public view at 122, Regent Street. He ends thus:—

I must bring this long description to a close. I am a little ashamed
of it, for I think, in the present age, and in this part of the world, it
ought not to have been required. Nevertheless, I hope it may be useful.
There are many whom I do not expect to convince; but I may be
allowed to say that I cannot undertake to answer such objections as
may be made. I state my own convictions as an experimental
philosopher, and find it no more necessary to enter into controversy on
this point than on any other in science, as the nature of matter, or
inertia, or the magnetisation of light, on which I may differ from

others. The world will decide sooner or later in all such cases, and I
have no doubt very soon and correctly in the present instance.

This exposure excited great interest at the time, and there was an active
correspondence in The Times. The spiritualists, instead of appreciating the
services to truth rendered by the man of science, railed bitterly at him. Even
the refined and noble spirit of Mrs. Browning was so dominated by the
superstition of the moment that, as shown by her recently published letters, she
denounced Faraday in singularly acrimonious terms, and taunted him for
shallow materialism! What Faraday thought of the hubbub evoked by his
action is best learned from a letter which he addressed three weeks later 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. I declare that, taking the average of many minds that have recently
come before me (and apart from that spirit which God has placed in
each), and accepting for a moment that average as a standard, I should
far prefer the obedience, affections, and instinct of a dog before it. Do
not whisper this, however, to others. 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.

He declined an invitation in 1855 to see manifestations by the medium
Home, saying that he had “lost too much time about such matters already.”
Nine years later the Brothers Davenport invited him to witness their cabinet
“manifestations.” Again he declined, and added: “I will leave the spirits to find
out for themselves how they can move my attention. I am tired of them.”
In this year he wrote to The Times respecting the disgraceful and
insanitary condition of the river Thames. In Punch of the following week
appeared a cartoon representing Faraday presenting his card to old Father
Thames, who rises holding his nose to avoid the stench.

FAILURE OF MEMORY.

With increasing age the infirmity of loss of memory made itself
increasingly felt. He alludes frequently to this in his letters. To one friend who
upbraided him gently for not having replied to a letter he says: “Do you
remember that I forget?” To another he says he is forgetting how to spell such
words as “withhold” and “successful.” To Matteucci, in 1849, he bemoans
how, after working for six weeks at certain experiments, he found, on looking
back to his notes, he had ascertained all the same results eight or nine months
before, and had entirely forgotten them! In the same year he wrote to Dr.
Percy:—

I cannot be on the Committee; I avoid everything of that kind, that
I may keep my stupid head a little clear. As to being on a Committee
and not working, that is worse still.

In 1859, in a letter to his niece, Mrs. Deacon, filled mainly with religious
thoughts, he says: “My worldly faculties are slipping away day by day. Happy
is it for all of us that the true good lies not in them.”
From the journals of Walter White comes the following anecdote under
date December 22nd, 1858:—

Mr. Faraday called to enquire on the part of Sir Walter Trevelyan
whether a MS. of meteorological observations made in Greenland
would be acceptable. The question answered, I expressed my pleasure
at seeing him looking so well, and asked him if he were writing a
paper for the Royal. He shook his head. “No: I am too old.” “Too old?
Why, age brings wisdom.” “Yes, but one may overshoot the wisdom.”
“You cannot mean that you have outlived your wisdom?” “Something
like it, for my memory is gone. If I make an experiment, I forget before
twelve hours are over whether the result was positive or negative; and
how can I write a paper while that is the case? No, I must content
myself with giving my lectures to children.”

From another source we learn of a hitherto unrecorded incident which
happened to Mr. Joseph Newton, for some time an assistant in the Royal Mint.
While arranging some precious material on the Royal Institution theatre

lecture-table, previous to a lecture on the Mint and minting operations by
Professor Brande, Mr. Newton noticed an elderly, spare, and very plainly-
dressed individual watching his movements. Imagining that this person was a
superior messenger of the Institution, Mr. Newton volunteered some
information as to the coinage of gold. “I suppose,” said the Mint employee,
“you have been some years at the Royal Institution?” “Well, yes, I have, a
good many,” responded the dilapidated one. “I hope they treat you pretty
liberally—I mean, that they give you a respectable ‘screw,’ for that is the main
point.” “Ah! I agree with you there. I think that the labourer is worthy of his
hire, and I shouldn’t mind being paid a little better.” Mr. Newton’s surprise, on
returning to the Royal Institution in the evening, to find that the man whom he
had so recently patronised was none other than the illustrious but modest
Michael Faraday can better be imagined than described.
A pretty instance, given on the authority of Lady Pollock, may be recorded
of the feeling aroused by Faraday’s presence when he returned to his
accustomed seat in the lecture-room of the Royal Institution, after a protracted
absence occasioned by illness:—

As soon as his presence was recognised, the whole audience rose
simultaneously and burst into a spontaneous utterance of welcome,
loud and long. Faraday stood in acknowledgment of this enthusiastic
greeting, with his fine head slightly bent; and then a certain
resemblance to the pictures and busts of Lord Nelson, which was
always observable in his countenance, was very apparent. His hair had
grown white and long, his face had lengthened, and the agility of his
movement was gone. The eyes no longer flashed with the fire of the
soul, but they still radiated kindly thought; and ineffaceable lines of
intellectual force and energy were stamped upon his face.

HONOURS OFFERED AND DECLINED.

In 1857 he was offered the Presidency of the Royal Society. A painting
preserved in the rooms of the Royal Society records the scene when Lord
Wrottesley, Grove, and Gassiot waited upon him as a deputation from the
Council, to press on him his acceptance of the highest place which science has
to offer. He hesitated and finally declined, even as he had declined the
suggestion of knighthood years before. “Tyndall,” he said in private to his
successor, “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 to confer
upon me, I could not answer for the integrity of my intellect for a single year.”
He also declined the Presidency of the Royal Institution, which he had served
for fifty years. His one desire was for rest. “The reverent affection of his
friends was,” said Tyndall, “to him infinitely more precious than all the
honours of official life.”
Allusion has been made to Faraday’s tender and chivalrous regard for his
wife. Extracts from two letters, written in 1849 and 1863 respectively, must
here suffice to complete the story:—

Birmingham, Dr. Percy’s:
Thursday evening, September 13, 1849.
My Dearest Wife,—I have just left Dr. Percy’s hospitable table to
write to you, my beloved, telling you how I have been getting on. I am
very well, excepting a little faceache; and very kindly treated here.
They all long most earnestly for your presence, for both Mrs. and Dr.
Percy are anxious you should come; and this I know, that the things we
have seen would delight you, but then I doubt your powers of running
about as we do; and though I know that if time were given you could
enjoy them, yet to press the matter into a day or two would be a
failure. Besides this, 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. I mean to be at home on Saturday night, but it may
be late first, so do not be surprised at that; for if I can, I should like to
go on an excursion to the Dudley caverns, and that would take the
day....
Write to me, dearest. I shall get your letter on Saturday morning,
or perhaps before.
Love to father, Margery, and Jenny, and a thousand loves to
yourself, dearest,
From your affectionate husband,
M. Faraday.

* * * * *

5, Claremont Gardens, Glasgow:
Monday, August 14, 1863.
Dearest,—Here is the fortnight complete since I left you and the
thoughts of my return to our home crowd in strongly upon my mind.
Not that we are in any way uncared for, or left by our dear friends,
save as I may desire for our own retirement. Everybody has
overflowed with kindness, but you know their manner, and their desire,
by your own experience with me. I long to see you, dearest, and to talk
over things together, and call to mind all the kindness I have received.
My head is full, and my heart also, but my recollection rapidly fails,
even as regards the friends that are in the room with me. You will have
to resume your old function of being a pillow to my mind, and a rest, a
happy-making wife.
My love to my dear Mary. I expect to find you together, but do not
assume to know how things may be.
Jeannie’s love with mine, and also Charlotte’s, and a great many
others which I cannot call to mind.
Dearest, I long to see and be with you, whether together or
separate.
Your husband, very affectionate,
M. Faraday

THE WIFE AND THE QUEEN.

In 1858 the Queen, at the suggestion of Prince Albert, who much esteemed
and valued Faraday’s genius, placed at his disposal for life a comfortable
house on the green near Hampton Court. Faraday’s only hesitation in accepting
the offer was a doubt whether he could afford the needful repairs. On a hint of
this reaching the Queen, she at once directed that it should be put into
thorough repair inside and out. He still kept his rooms at the Royal Institution,
and continued to live there occasionally.
With the increasing infirmities of age, his anxieties for his wife seemed to
be the only trouble that marred the serenity of his thought. Lady Pollock’s

narrative gives the following particulars:—

Sometimes he was depressed by the idea of his wife left without
kin—of the partner of his hopes and cares deprived of him. She had
been the first love of his ardent soul; she was the last; she had been the
brightest dream of his youth, and she was the dearest comfort of his
age; he never ceased for an instant to feel himself happy with her; and
he never for one hour ceased to care for her happiness. It was no
wonder, then, that he felt anxiety about her. But he would rally from
such a trouble with his great religious trust, and looking at her with
moist eyes, he would say, “I must not be afraid; you will be cared for,
my wife; you will be cared for.”
There are some who remember how tenderly he used to lead her to
her seat at the Royal Institution when she was suffering from lameness;
how carefully he used to support her; how watchfully he used to attend
all her steps. It did the heart good to see his devotion, and to think
what the man was and what he had been.

Fig. 22.—faraday’s home at hampton court.

CLOSE OF SCIENTIFIC CAREER.

Gradually his powers waned. He gave his last juvenile lectures at
Christmas, 1860; and in October, 1861, being now seventy years of age, he
resigned his Professorship, while retaining the superintendence of the
laboratory. “Nothing,” he wrote to the managers, “would make me happier in
the things of this life than to make some scientific discovery or development,
and by that to justify the Board in their desire to retain me in my position
here.” His last research in the laboratory was made on March 12, 1862. On
June 20th he gave his last Friday night discourse—on Siemens’s gas furnaces.
He had, as his notes show, already made up his mind to announce his
retirement, and the lecture was a sad and touching occasion, for the failure of
his powers was painfully evident. He continued for two years longer, and with
surprising activity, to work for Trinity House on the subject of lighthouse
illumination by the electric light. In 1865 he resigned these duties to Dr.

Tyndall. In 1864 he resigned his eldership in the Sandemanian church. In
March, 1865, he resigned the position of superintendent of the house and
laboratories of the Royal Institution. He continued to attend the Friday evening
meetings; but his tottering condition of frame and mind was apparent to all. All
through the winter of 1865 and 1866 he became very feeble. Yet he took an
interest in Mr. Wilde’s description of his new magneto-electric machine.
Almost the last pleasure he showed on any scientific matter was when viewing
the long spark of a Holtz’s influence machine. He still enjoyed looking at
sunsets and storms. All through the summer and autumn of 1866 and the spring
of 1867 his physical powers waned. He was faithfully and lovingly tended by
his wife and his devoted niece, Jane Barnard. He was scarcely able to move,
but his mind “overflowed” with the consciousness of the affectionate regard of
those around him. He gradually sank into torpor, saying nothing and taking
little notice of anything. Sitting in his chair in his study, he died peacefully and
painlessly on the 26th of August, 1867. On the 30th of August he was quietly
buried in Highgate Cemetery, his remains being committed to the earth, in
accordance with the custom of the religious body to which he belonged, in
perfect silence. None but personal friends were present, the funeral being by
his own verbal and written wishes strictly simple and private. A simple
unadorned tombstone marks the last resting-place of Michael Faraday.

CHAPTER VII.

VIEWS ON THE PURSUIT OF SCIENCE AND
ON EDUCATION.
Between Faraday and the scientific men of his time there subsisted many
various relations. The influence which he exerted as a lecturer and as an
experimental investigator was unique; but, apart from such influences, those
relations were mainly confined to individual friendships. With the
organisation of science he had relatively very little to do. We have seen how
highly he prized the honour of admission to the Fellowship of the Royal
Society; and it remains to be told of the gratification with which he
accepted the scientific honours which he received from almost every
academy and university in Europe. Yet he took little part in the work of
scientific societies as such. Four years after his election as F.R.S. he served
on the Council, and he remained on till 1831. He served again in 1833 and
1835. He was not, however, satisfied with the management of the Royal
Society, nor with the way in which its Fellowship was at that time bestowed
on men who had no real claims on science, but were nominated through
influence. Echoes of this discontent are to be found in various pamphlets of
the day by Moll, Babbage, South, and others. Faraday, who edited Moll’s
pamphlet on the “Decline of Science,” is believed to have had an even
larger share in its production. In 1830 the really scientific men amongst the
Fellows desired to place Sir John Herschel as President; the less scientific
preferred the Duke of Sussex. Faraday took the unusual step of speaking on
the question, advocating the principle that eminence in science should be
the sole qualification for the Presidency. At the same meeting Herschel
moved, and Faraday seconded, a plan for reforming the Council by
nominating a list of fifty Fellows from whose number the Council should be
chosen. They carried their plan, and Faraday’s name was amongst those so
selected to serve. But the presidential election went in favour of the Duke of

Sussex by 119 to 110 votes. After 1835 Faraday never served again on the
Council. In 1843 he wrote to Matteucci:—

I think you are aware that I have not attended at the Royal
Society, either meetings or council, for some years. Ill health is one
reason, and another that I do not like the present constitution of it,
and want to restrict it to scientific men. As these my opinions are
not acceptable, I have withdrawn from any management in it (still
sending scientific communications if I discover anything I think
worthy). This, of course, deprives me of power there.

REFORM IN THE ROYAL SOCIETY.

Two months earlier he wrote to Grove, who at that time was carrying
out the long-needed reforms, sympathising, but declining to co-operate:—

Royal Institution,
December 21, 1842.
My dear Grove,—... As to the Royal Society, you know my
feeling towards it is for what it has been, and I hope may be. Its
present state is not wholesome. You are aware that I am not on the
council, and have not been for years, and have been to no meeting
there for years; but I do hope for better times. I do not wonder at
your feeling—all I meant to express was a wish that its
circumstances and character should improve, and that it should
again become a desirable reunion of all really scientific men. It has
done much, is now doing much, in some parts of science, as its
magnetic observations show, and I hope will some day become
altogether healthy.
Ever, my dear Grove, yours sincerely,
M. Faraday.

Though he continued down to 1860 to send researches for publication
56
to the Royal Society, he seldom attended its meetings. He was not even
present in November, 1845, on the occasion of the reading of his paper on

the action of the magnet on light. In 1857 he declined the Presidency,
though urged by the unanimous wish of the Council, as narrated on p. 225.
Though in the meridian of his active life, he took no part in the
founding of the British Association in 1831, but was at the Oxford meeting
in 1832, being one of the four scientific men (p. 65) selected to receive the
honorary degree of D.C.L. on that occasion. He also communicated a paper
on Electro-chemical Decomposition to the B.A. meeting at Cambridge in
1833. He acted as president of the Chemical Section of the Association in
1837 at Liverpool, and in 1846 at Southampton; and he was chosen as vice-
president of the Association itself in the years 1844, at York (p. 224); 1849,
at Birmingham (p. 256); and 1853, at Hull. He delivered evening discourses
in 1847, at Oxford, on Magnetic and Diamagnetic Phenomena; and in 1849,
at Birmingham, on Mr. Gassiot’s Battery. He also contributed to the
proceedings at the meetings at Ipswich in 1851 and at Liverpool in 1854.
His comparative aloofness from scientific organisations arose probably
from the exceedingly individual nature of his own researches—to which
allusion was made on p. 242—rather than from any lack of sympathy. He
had no jealousy of co-operation in science. To Tyndall, then at Marburg, he
wrote in 1850 rejoicing at the circumstance that the work on the magnetic
properties of crystals was being taken up by others. “It is wonderful,” he
says, “how much good results from different persons working at the same
matter. Each one gives views and ideas new to the rest. When science is a
republic, then it gains; and though I am no republican in other matters, I am
in that.” Other causes there were, doubtless, tending to his isolation,
amongst them an old jealousy, now long dead, against the Royal Institution
on the part of some of the Fellows of the Royal Society. Above all,
probably, was his detestation of controversy.
PRIORITY IN SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

PRIORITY IN PUBLICATION.

Priority in scientific discovery was a matter which deeply concerned
one whose life was devoted to scientific pioneering. To any question as to
scientific priority between himself and other workers he was keenly
sensitive. This was, indeed, natural in one who had voluntarily relinquished
fortune, and retired from lucrative professional work, in the sole and single
aim of advancing natural knowledge. His single-minded and sensitive

nature made him particularly scrupulous in all such matters, and his early
experiences must have added to the almost excessive keenness of his
perceptions. Having had in 1823, when still merely assistant to Davy, to
bear the double burden of a serious misunderstanding with Dr. Wollaston as
to the originality of his discovery of the electro-magnetic rotations, and of a
serious estrangement from his master arising out of the liquid chlorine
discovery—an estrangement which threatened to cause his election to the
Royal Society to be indefinitely postponed—he was in later life especially
precise in dating and publishing his own researches. In 1831 there arose,
concerning his great discovery of magneto-electric induction, a curious
misunderstanding. His discovery was, as we have seen, made in September
and October. He collected his results and arranged them in the splendid
memoir—the first in the series of “Experimental Researches in
Electricity”—which was read at the Royal Society on November 24th. The
résumé of his work, which he wrote five days later to Phillips, is given on
pages 114–117. A fortnight later he wrote a shorter and hasty letter in the
same way to his friend, M. Hachette of Paris—a letter which Faraday
subsequently well termed “unfortunate,” in view of the consequences that
followed. M. Hachette, a week later, communicated Faraday’s letter to the
Académie des Sciences on December 26th. It was published in Le Temps of
December 28th. At that date the complete memoir read to the Royal Society
was not yet printed or circulated. The consequence was that two Italian
physicists, MM. Nobili and Antinori, seeing the brief letter, and
“considering that the subject was given to the philosophical world for
general pursuit,” immediately began researches on magneto-electric
induction in ignorance of Faraday’s full work. Their results they embodied
in a paper, in which they claimed to have “verified, extended, and, perhaps,
rectified the results of the English philosopher,” accusing him of errors both
in experiment and theory, and even of a breach of good faith as to what he
had said about Arago’s rotations. This paper they dated January 31st, 1832;
but it was published in the belated number of the Antologia for November,
1831, where its appearance at an apparently earlier date than Faraday’s
original paper in the Philosophical Transactions made many Continental
readers suppose that the researches of Nobili and Antinori preceded those of
Faraday. In June, 1832, Faraday published in the Philosophical Magazine a
translation of Nobili’s memoir, with his own annotations; and later in the
year he wrote to Gay Lussac a long letter on the errors of Nobili and

Antinori. He showed how, in spite of his efforts to clear up the
misunderstanding, in spite of his having sent several months previously to
MM. Nobili and Antinori copies of his original papers, no correction or
retractation had been made by them; and he concluded by a dignified
protest that none might say he had been too hasty to write that which might
have been avoided. It may be taken that the rule now recognised as to
priority of scientific publication—namely, that it dates from the day when
the discoverer communicates it formally to any of the recognised learned
societies—was virtually established by Faraday’s example. It will be
remembered that writing to De la Rive in 1845, to tell him of his
diamagnetic discoveries, he begged him to keep the matter secret, adding:
“I ought (in order to preserve the respect due to the Royal Society) not to
write a description to any one until the paper has been received or even read
there.” To younger men he inculcated the necessity of proper and prompt
publication of their researches if they would reap the benefit of their work.
To Sir William Crookes, then a rising young chemist, he said: “Work,
Finish, Publish.” Writing in 1853 to Professor Matteucci, who had been
annoyed with him for allowing Du Bois Reymond, with whom Matteucci
had had some controversy about priority, to dedicate his book to him,
Faraday says: “Who has not to put up in his day with insinuations and
misrepresentations in the accounts of his proceedings given by others,
bearing for the time the present injustice, which is often unintentional, and
often originates in hasty temper, and committing his fame and character to
the judgment of the men of his own and future time?”... “I see that that
moves you which would move me most—namely, the imputation of a want
of good faith—and I cordially sympathise with any one who is so charged
unjustly. Such cases have seemed to me almost the only ones for which it is
worth while entering into controversy.”... “These polemics of the scientific
world are very unfortunate things; they form the great stain to which the
beautiful edifice of scientific truth is subject. Are they inevitable?”
Controversy whether in religion or science was to him alike detestable.
He took no part in politics. A letter to Tyndall (see “Faraday as a
Discoverer,” p. 39), written after the latter had told him of a rather heated
discussion at the British Association meeting in 1855, speaks of his own
efforts at forbearance. He says:—

These great meetings, of which I think very well altogether,
advance science chiefly by bringing scientific men together and
making them to know and be friends with each other; and I am sorry
when that is not the effect in every part of their course.... The real
truth never fails ultimately to appear.... It is better to be blind to the
results of partisanship, and quick to see good will. One has more
happiness in oneself in endeavouring to follow the things that make
for peace. You can hardly imagine how often I have been heated in
private when opposed, as I have thought unjustly and superciliously,
and yet I have striven, and succeeded I hope, in keeping down
replies of the like kind. And I know I have never lost by it.

HATRED OF CONTROVERSY.

During the years when he was examining the apparatus of rival
inventors for lighthouse illumination, he could calmly hear them described
as Mr. So-and-So’s electric lights, all the while knowing that it was his own
discovery of magneto-electric induction which had made the mechanical
production of electric light possible. Yet he fired up if anyone dared to
revive the priority dispute between Davy and Stephenson as to the invention
of the safety lamp. “Disgraceful subject,” was his own comment. In his
dispute with Snow Harris as to the design of lightning rods, in which, as it
is now known, Snow Harris was right; in his dispute with Airy over the
curved lines of force; in his minor difficulties over Hare’s pile and
Becquerel’s magnetic observations, none could either assert his own
position with more simple dignity, nor admit with greater frankness the
rights of his rival.
To Hare he wrote:—

You must excuse me, however, for several reasons from
answering it [Hare’s letter] at any length; the first is my distaste for
controversy, which is so great that I would on no account our
correspondence should acquire that character. I have often seen it do
great harm, and yet remember few cases in natural knowledge
where it has helped much either to pull down error or advance truth.
Criticism, on the other hand, is of much value.

When we reflect how large a part of his experimental researches was
devoted to establishing the relations between the various forces of nature,
we cannot but think that Faraday must have regarded with somewhat mixed
feelings the publication in 1846 of Sir William Grove’s volume on the
Correlation of Forces. He had, in June, 1834, given a course of lectures on
the mutual relation of chemical and electrical phenomena, and had dealt
therein with the conversion of chemical and electrical power into heat, and
had speculated on the inclusion of gravitation in these mutual relations. In
1853 Faraday marked the old lecture notes of these lectures with his initials,
and endorsed them with the words “Correlation of Physical Forces.”
Probably none rejoiced more than he that Grove had undertaken the work of
popularising the notion which for a score of years had been familiar to
himself. Yet he was keen to resent an unjust reflection, as is shown by his
letter to Richard Phillips, republished in Vol. II. of the “Experimental
Researches,” p. 229, respecting Dr. John Davy’s Life of Sir Humphry.
Faraday has himself left on record (p. 10) that when he wrote to Davy
asking to be taken into his employment, his motive was his 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.” Davy had smiled at this boyish notion, and had told him that the
experience of a few years would correct his ideas. Years afterwards he
spoke of this matter to Mrs. Andrew Crosse in an interview which she has
recorded:—

After viewing the ample appliances for experimental research,
and feeling much 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, and 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.

HONOURS AND TITLES.

Probably few men have ever been recipients of so many scientific
honours as Faraday. Beginning in the year 1823 with his election as a
corresponding member of the Académie des Sciences of Paris, and as an
honorary member of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, the list of his
diplomas and distinctions—some ninety-seven in number—ended in 1864
with his election as Associate of the Royal Academy of Sciences of Naples.
It included honours from almost every academy and university of Europe.
These honours Faraday valued very highly; and whilst he consigned his
various gold medals to a mere wooden box, his diplomas were kept with the
utmost care in a special diploma book, in which they were mounted and
indexed. To Mr. Spring Rice, who in 1838 asked him for a list of his titles,
he replied, enclosing the list, and adding this remark: “One title, namely
that of F.R.S., was sought and paid for; all the rest are spontaneous offerings
of kindness and goodwill from the bodies named.” Years afterwards he was
asked by Lord Wrottesley to advise the Government as to how the position
of science or of the cultivators of science in England might be improved.
The letter is so characteristic that it cannot be spared:—

Royal Institution: March 10, 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....
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
commonplace of society. An intelligent country ought to recognise
the scientific men amongst 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
recognise it or not....
I have the honour to be, my lord, your very faithful servant,
M. Faraday.