at the Royal Institution, 1 900-1 907. 405 



draws u parallel between the inertia of the mind and the inertia of 

 matter :* the dual state of mind which he pictures is still with us 

 and doubtless will ever remain : it is at bottom both the cause of 

 our difficulty and our hope. In fact, in saying that — 



" the man who has once turned his mind to an art goes on more and 

 more improving in it ; the man wlio once begins to observe rapidly im- 

 proves in the faculty . . . every little delay illustrates more or less the 

 inertia of the passive mind; every new observation, every great dis- 

 covery, that of the active mind," 



Faraday has himself pointed the way of improvement. 



In 1854, when lecturing on Mental Education before His Royal 



Highness the Prince Consort, he drew attention to what appeared to 



him to be the great deficiency in the exercise of the mental powers in 



every direction. These A^'ords he said would express it, " deficiency of 



judgment.'''' 



"I know,"' he added, " that multitudes are ready to draw conclusions 

 who have little or no power of judgment in the cases ; that the same is 

 true of other departments of knowledge; and that generally mankind is 

 willing to leave the faculties which relate to judgment almost entirely 

 uneducated and their decisions at the mercy of ignorance, preposses- 

 sions, the passions or even accident." 



He laid down what a man may and ought to do for himself in 

 the following words : — 



"It is necessary that a man e.aiiirinc liiuseJ/ and that not carelessly. 

 On the contrary, as he advances, he should become more and more strict, 

 till he ultimately prove a sharper critic to himself than anyone else can 

 be; and he ought to iut-^nd this, for so far as he consciously falls short 

 of it he acknowledges that others may have reason on their side 

 when they criticise him. A tirst result of this habit of mind will be 

 an internal conviction of iunoranre in many f]iin(/s respect i/t;/ ivhich his 

 neiyhhourn are taught and that his o])inions and conclusions on such 

 matters ought to be advanced with reservation. A mind so disciplined 

 will be ojjen to i-orredion upon (jood (/roiiinh in all fki/ajs — even to those 

 it is best acquainted with and should familiarise itselt with the idea of 

 such being the case : for though it sees no reason to suppose itself in 

 error, yet the possibility exists. The mind is not enfeebled by this 

 internal admission but strengthened: for if it caunot distiuiiuish jn-o- 

 portionately between the probable right and wrong of things known 

 imfierfectly, it will tend either to be rash or hesitate; whilst that which 

 admits the due amount of probability is likely to be justided in the end. 

 It is right that we should stand by and act on our principles l)ut not 

 right to hold them in obstinate blindness or retain them when proved to 

 be erroneous." 



It is a sad reflection that so little attention has been paid to the 

 lament to which he gave utterance at the conclusion of his address : — 



* Life of Faraday, by Bence Jones, vol. i. p. 261. 



