OF ARTS AND SCIENCES : JUNE 9, 1868. 35 



Nor should we forget how much Faraday did to establish the iden- 

 tity of electricity, from whatever source it is derived, to prove the defi- 

 niteuess of its action, to unveil the process of electrolysis, to bring under 

 one general law conduction and insulation, to assert the dependence 

 of electrical and magnetic induction on the molecular agency of inter- 

 vening media, and to deal a vigorous and mortal blow to the contact- 

 theory of galvanism. Faraday was not destined, either by early asso- 

 ciations, education, or mental constitution, to discuss successfully high 

 themes of speculative philosophy or mathematical science, such as the 

 nature and conservation of force, or the essence of matter, though he 

 has written a few papers upon these subjects. Nevertheless, he con- 

 tributed more largely, perhaps, than any of his contemporaries to that 

 vast scientific capital, from which Grove has freely borrowed in the es- 

 tablishment of his theory of the Correlation of the Physical Forces, 

 and the convertibility of one manifestation of force into another, as so 

 many varieties of motion. 



In 1854, as Faraday was approaching the close of his long period 

 of active service, he delivered a lecture at the Royal Institution, under 

 extraordinary circumstances, on Mental Education. This lecture de- 

 serves special commemoration, inasmuch as Faraday regarded the 

 views expressed in it both as cause and consequence of his own experi- 

 mental life. We here see that faith, humility, patience, labor of 

 thought, mental discipline, well-educated senses, had all conspired to 

 make him a fit high-priest of science. But he says that " this educa. 

 tion has, for its first and its last step, humility." 



After Faraday returned from his tour with Davy upon the Conti- 

 nent, he pursued the even tenor of his way at the laboratory of the 

 Royal Institution with little interruption ; not allowing himself to be 

 distracted from the chosen work of his life by pleasure or profit or 

 applause. Though by following out his researches to their practical 

 application he might have amassed a large fortune, Faraday rejected 

 the glittering bribe when it was already within his grasp, saying : " I 

 felt I was not sent into the world for this purpose." If Faraday was 

 sent into the world for the discovery of truth, then most certainly he 

 accomplished his destiny. For was he not what Tyndall calls him, 

 " the greatest experimental philosopher the world has ever 'seen " ? 

 Though Faraday would not desert his high vocation for emolument, he 

 often did it at the call of his government, of humanity, of civilization, 

 of science. Nothing could have been more distasteful to him than to 



