CONDUCTION THROUGH GASES 163 



of which requires the highest powers of mathe- 

 matical analysis, he formed by a kind of intuition, 

 with the security of instinct, without the help of a 

 single mathematical formula. I have no intention 

 of blaming his contemporaries, for I confess that 

 many times I have myself sat hopelessly looking 

 upon some paragraph of Faraday's descriptions 

 of lines of force, or of the galvanic current being 

 an axis of power." 



Such a confession from a man of the com- 

 manding ability of Von Helmholtz shows how far 

 the instinctive genius of Faraday had carried him 

 in advance of his age. " We must also in his 

 case acquiesce in the fact that the greatest bene- 

 factors of mankind usually do not obtain a full 

 reward during their lifetime, and that new ideas 

 need the more time for gaining general assent 

 the more really original they are, and the more 

 power they have to change the broad path of 

 human knowledge." 



