JOSEPH HENEY. 359 



former enlarge the area of human knowledge, the latter contribute to 

 the civilization of the race. If there are individuals in one class who 

 think only of their pecuniary success, the other class is not without 

 examples of those who mean to achieve, even if they do not deserve, 

 a high scientific reputation. It is not incumbent on every scientific 

 man to think, with Cuvier, that he must abandon a discovery the mo- 

 ment it enters the market, — that its practical application is of no con- 

 cern to him. No one certainly has a better right to the fruits of this 

 application than the discoverer himself. Inventors may sometimes 

 stumble on good fortune; but the rich prizes are comparatively few, 

 and, on the average, they are dearly earned by years of severe thought 

 and anxious waiting. No graveyard holds so many buried hopes as 

 the Patent Office at Washington. Since the first introduction of the 

 telegraph, discovery and invention have advanced, hand in hand, over 

 continents and through the ocean, leaving the world in doubt which to 

 admire the most, — the conceptions of pure science, or the exquisite 

 mechanism in which they are embodied. If on one occasion this 

 harmony was disturbed by the repudiation of an indebtedness which 

 had often before been freely acknowledged, the ingratitude was re- 

 buked by the indignant voice of science, and the just claims of Mr. 

 Henry were established on an impregnable foundation. 



It does not detract from the merit or the originality of Professor 

 Henry's early discoveries that the same ground had been covered by 

 Fechner, in a work published in 1831, and that both had been antici- 

 pated by Ohm's experimental and mathematical analysis of the gal- 

 vanic circuit, which dates back to 1827. For Ohm's little book of 

 that date, which now shines as a foreland light for the guidance of 

 all who explore in that direction, was known only to a few in Ger- 

 many, and was unknown in France, England, and America at a time 

 when, if known, it might have illuminated Professor Henry's re- 

 searches. At a later period, Pouillet published the results of his own 

 experiments, without knowing that he himself had been anticipated by 

 Ohm. The father of Ohm had intended his son for a locksmith ; 

 but, unlike Henry, he did not even begin his apprenticeship. He pur- 

 sued his studies to the verge of starvation ; his heated brain worked 

 while his body shivered before a tireless stove, often covered with ice. 

 His book, which placed him before his death, in 1854, among the 

 greatest of German physicists, was coldly received by his colleagues in 

 the College of Jesuits, at Cologne. On the contrary, Professor Henry's 

 recognition was prompt and sympathetic, at home and abroad ; at a 

 single bound he came to the front, and there he always remained. 



