1868. | Faraday. 55 
This gave to one mind that Poetry, without which there can be 
no Deductive Philosophy, which was denied to the other. 
Faraday’s powers as a lecturer were surpassingly great. The 
secret of his power was earnestness, an intense desire to be the 
Minister of Truth, and a determination to make every one familiar 
with her mysteries, so far as he was permitted to be their interpreter. 
He spared no labour to ensure a correct understanding of each fact. 
He never supposed anything to be known. When the writer of 
these remarks was preparing to deliver his first lecture in the 
Theatre of the Royal Institution, “ Do not,” said Faraday to him, 
“suppose that your audience will know anything of the subject you 
are about to bring before them,” and taking a stone from the table, 
“was I about to tell them that this stone when set free from my hand 
will fall to the ground, I should let it fall.” This was a brief lesson, 
but one of incalculable value. 
Faraday was great as an Experimental Philosopher, he was 
even greater in all the relations of life. He might have been proud 
of the position which he occupied as an investigator of Nature ; 
but, to the end of his days he was all humility as a man. We may 
be allowed to apply to Michael Faraday those lines addressed by 
Dr. Johnson to the Electrician, Grey :— 
“ Long hast thou borne the burden of the day 
Thy task is ended, rever’d Faraday ! 
No more shall Art thy dextrous hand require, 
To break the sleep of elemental fire ! 
To rouse the power that actuates Nature’s frame 
The momentanous shock, the Electric flame. 
** Now, hoary sage! pursue thy happy flight, 
With swifter motion, haste to purer light, 
Where Bacon waits with Newton and with Boyle, 
‘To hail thy genius and applaud thy toil ; 
Where intuition breathes through time and space, 
And mocks experiment’s successive race ; 
Sees tardy science toil at Nature’s laws, 
And wonders how the effect obscures the cause. 
“ Yet not to deep research or happy guess, 
Is show’d the life of hope, the death of peace ; 
Unbless’d the man whom philosophic rage 
Shall tempt to lose the Christian in the sage : 
- Not Art, but Goodness, poured the sacred ray 
That cheer’d the parting hours of Farapay.” 
