1868. | Faraday. 53 
“On some new Electro-Magnetical Motions, and on the Theory of 
Magnetism,” in which was announced the brilliant discovery of the 
rotation of a wire under electrical excitation round a magnetic pole. 
This paper is in every way remarkable; but it is especially so in 
being the precursor of a series of Memoirs which certainly stand as 
the finest exemplification of the value of inductive science which the 
world has received since it had birth from the mind of Bacon. 
It is impossible to give even a sketch of the remarkable series of 
experiments which stand recorded in the “ Experimental Researches 
in Electricity,” or to record the chain of discoveries which, link being 
added to link, led us from the most simple phenomena of electricity 
up to the very threshold of what we may, without presumption, be- 
lieve man is permitted to know of its connection with animal life. 
Without these “Experimental Researches,” we should not now 
be employing Electro-Metallurgy as a practical art. The Electric- 
Light,—especially as evolved from magnetic arrangements,—would 
never have been brought to that degree of certainty and steadiness, 
as well as brilliancy, which has recommended its adoption in the 
light-house economy of England and of France ; and, beyond all, the 
electric current, with even the extraordinary mechanical powers of 
Wheatstone to promote its application to the purposes of telegraphy, 
would never have been brought under control; and neither the 
wires which now girdle the world, nor the cables which, lying 
hidden in the ocean, bind Europe and America together, would 
have had existence. 
But none of these applications were made by the discoverer of 
most of the truths upon which they depend. The mind of Faraday 
was of that order which could not bend itself to the labour of 
making science a stepping-stone to commercial enterprise. The 
feelings shadowed out in his letter to Davy, which has been quoted, 
followed him to the end. If ever any man pursued Truth for its 
own exceeding great reward, with an entire abandonment of all 
selfish feeling, that man was Faraday. Not that he disregarded 
the value of science in its practical applications—he rejoiced to see 
those discoveries which appeared abstract brought to the test of 
usefulness—but he worked earnestly in the elucidation of the great 
mysteries of Nature, feeling certain that no truth could be born 
into the world which would not sooner or later become of value 
to mankind as an ameliorating or a refining agency. 
Faraday was an Inductive Philosopher—nothing can be more 
beautifully precise than the method of his Experimental Researches. 
Step by step he advanced, making sure of each fact by testing it 
under all conditions, before he allowed it to support him in his 
attempt to reach another. Nothing can show this more satis- 
factorily than his paper on “ Definite Electro-chemical Action,” in 
which he arrives at his remarkable conclusions “On the absolute 
