1855.] Professor Faraday o?i Electric Conduction. 123 



how hard it is to be the interpreter of such a mind ; but they will 

 sympathise with the wish to call attention to it. They know, and 

 would wish others also to know, not by hearsay, but by experience, 

 the power of that wonderful poem. They know its austere, yet 

 subduing beauty ; they know what force there is in its free and 

 earnest and solemn verse, to strengthen, to tranquillize, to console. 

 . . . But, besides this, they know how often its seriousness 

 has put to shame their trifling, its magnanimity their fainthearted- 

 ness, its living energy their indolence, its stern and sad grandeur 

 rebuked low thoughts, its thrilling tenderness overcome sullenness 

 and assuaged distress, its strong faith quelled despair and soothed 

 perplexity, its vast grasp imparted the sense of harmony to the 

 view of clashing truths. They know how often they have found, in 

 times of trouble, if not light, at least that deep sense of reality, 

 permanent, though unseen, which is more than light can always 

 give — in the view which it has suggested to them of the judgments 

 and the love of God ! " 



[J. P. L.] 



WEEKLY EVENING MEETING, 



f Friday, May 25. 



Sib Charles Fellows, Vice-President, in the Chair. 



Professor Faraday, D.C.L. F.R.S. 

 On Electric Conduction. 



Since the time when the law of definite electrolytic action was first 

 laid down {Exp, Res. 783-966), it has become a question whether 

 those bodies which form the class of electrolytes, conduct only 

 whilst they are undergoing their proper change under the action of 

 the electric current ; or whether they can conduct also as metals, 

 dry wood, spermaceti, &c. do in different degrees, i. e. without the 

 accompaniment of any chemical change within them. The first 

 kind of conduction is distinguished as the electrolytic ; the trans- 

 ference of the electric force appearing to be essentially associated 

 with the chemical changes which occur : the second kind may be 

 called conduction proper ; and there the act of conduction leaves 

 the body ultimately as it found it. Electrolytic conduction is 

 closely associated with the liquid state, and with the compound 



