228 MICHAEL FARADAY — HIS LIFE AND WORKS. 



sliort absences, never again quitted tlie Royal Institution, where he had his 

 lalioratory and his residence. ]\Iarricd to a Lady worthy of him, and who shared 

 and un<hn'stood all his impressions and all his sentiments, he passed a life 

 e(pial]y pcacefid and ^modest. He refused all the honorary distinctions which 

 the government of his country wished to confer upon him ; he contented him- 

 self with a moderate salary and with a pension of c£300 sterling, which fully 

 sufliced for his wants ; and accepted nothing supplementary to this except the 

 enjoyment, during the summer, in the latter years of his life, of a country house 

 at Hampton Comt, which the Queen of England graciously placed at his dis- 

 posal. 



AVithout children, a complete stranger to politics or to any kind of adminis- 

 trati(»n except that of the Royal Institution, which he directed as he would have 

 directed his own house, having no interest but that of science, and no aml>ition 

 but that of advancing it, Faraday was of all savants the one most completely 

 and exclusiveh' devoted to the investigation of scientific truth of which the 

 present century offers us an example. 



One may easily understand what must be produced under such circumstances 

 by a life thus wholly consecrated to science, when to a strong and vigorous intel- 

 lect is joined a most brilliant imagination. Every morning Faraday went into 

 his laboratory as the man of business goes to his office, and then tried by experi- 

 ment the truth of the ideas which he had conceived overnight, as ready to give 

 them up if experiment said no, as to follow out the consecpiences with rigorous 

 logic if experiment answered yes. His every-day labor ex])erienced no interrup- 

 tion except tlie few hours which he devoted from time to time to the exposition 

 in the theatre of the Royal Institution, before an audience equally numerous 

 and select, of certain parts of physics and chemistry. Nothing can give a 

 notion of the charm which he imparted to these improvised lectures, in which 

 he knew how to combine animated and often eloquent language with a judgment 

 and art in his experiments which added to the clearness and elegance of his 

 exposition. He exerted an actual fascination upon his auditors ; and when, 

 after having initiated them into the mysteries of science, he terminated his lec- 

 ture, as he was in the habit of doing, by rising into regions far above matter, 

 space, and time, the emotion which he experienced did not fail to connnunicate 

 itself to those who listened to him, and their enthusiasm had no longer any 

 bounds. 



Faraday was, in fact, thoroughly religious, and it would be a very imperfect 

 sketch of his life wliich did not insist upon this peculiar feature which charac- 

 terized him. His Christian convictions occupied a great place in the whole of 

 his l)eing ; and he showed their power and sincerity by the confu'mity of his 

 life to his principles. It was not in arguments derived from science that he 

 sought the evidences of his faith ; he found them in the revealed truths at 

 which he saw that the human mind could not arrive by itself alone, even though 

 they are in such great harmony with that which is taught by the study of 

 nature and the marvels of creation. Faraday had long and justly perceived 

 that scientific data, so movable and variable, cannot suffice to give to man a 

 solid and impregnable basis for his religious convictions ; but he at the same 

 iime showed by his example that the best answer which the man of science can 

 give to those who assert that the progress of science is incompatible with these 

 convictions, is to say to them. And yet I am a Christian. 



The sincerity of his Christianity appeared in his actions as much as in his 

 words. The simplicity of his life, the rectitude of his character, the active 

 benevolence which he displayed in his relations with others, gained him general 

 esteem and affection. Always ready to render services, he could quit his labo- 

 ratory when his presence elsewhere was necessary to a friend or useful to 

 humanity. We see him putting his knowledge under contril)ution both for 

 iiiquiries upon questions oi public health or industrial applications, and to give 



