402 Prof. H. E. Armstrong on Low-Temperature Research 



Within its walls, just a century ago, Davy made the first real use 

 of electricity as an analytical agent and discovered the alkali metals, 

 potassium and sodium — not by any chance act, but as the result of the 

 most careful deductive reasoning. Not content with this cardinal 

 achievement, he subsequently demonstrated the elementary nature of 

 chlorine and later on that of iodine, determining the properties of 

 the latter with incredible swiftness and acumen ; to crown all, he 

 invented the safety-lamp, at the same time making no inconsiderable 

 contribution to the theory of combustion. 



Faraday — who from being a bookbinder's apprentice straightway 

 became chemical assistant to Davy, entering at once on the path 

 of inquiry as though to the manner born — although at first a chemist, 

 in the course of his life, by a marvellous intuitive process, acquired 

 mastery of the cognate subject electricity, and practically created 

 the science. The pioneer systematic worker on the liquefaction of 

 gases, he was also the discoverer of benzene among the products of the 

 decomposition of oil at a red heat — the great lawgiver who defined 

 the conditions which determine electrolytic and chemical change — 

 the originator of new fundamental conceptions in electrical science 

 too numerous to mention, but such that the Institution may claim to 

 be the focus-point of the marvellous developments of pure and applied 

 electricity witnessed during the past few decades. 



That electricity owes much to the Royal Institution is generally 

 admitted, but that the foundations of the coal-tar colour industry, 

 with all its marvellous ramifications, as well as of a dominant section 

 of organic chemistry — that comprising the host of descendants to 

 which benzene has given rise — are sprung from the same Minerva 

 head is less commonly understood ; and it is yet to be recognised 

 that the foundations of chemical belief — the conditions of chemical 

 change — were laid down in the marvellous fifth, sixtli, seventh 

 and eighth series of Faraday's researches in electricity. 



Faraday's was too simple a nature ; modern conditions require 

 more pretentious treatment than that which he inclined to adopt ; 

 his modest presentation of the facts seems no longer to catch the 

 attention : perhaps a new generation will be more sympathetic and 

 exploit the stores of wisdom which still lie untouched in his memoirs, 

 when it has learnt to appreciate the spirit in which he worked — the 

 reverent and philosophical manner in which he conducted his inquiries. 



The birthplace of discoveries and inventions which have revolu- 

 tionised our civilisation, it may be said of the work accomplished in 

 the Institution that it has been the labour of the highest genius — 

 nowhere else, indeed, can the Avorth of genius to the world be so 

 clearly demonstrated. Davy and Faraday shine forth in its history 

 and in the history of science as stars of the first magnitude — yet both 

 came to their work untrained, with minds uninfluenced by dogmatic 

 teaching. At the present day it is worth our while to remember this. 



