[ 465 ] 



LXXIV. Second Letter to Prof. Faraday, from Robert 

 Haue, M.Z)., Professor of Chemistry in the University of 

 Pennsylvania-^. 



My dear Sir, 

 39t. I N the month of July last I had the pleasure to read, in 

 -*- the American Journal of Science, your letter in reply 

 to one which I had addressed to you through the same chan- 

 nel. I should sooner have noticed this letter, but that mean- 

 while I have had to republish two of my text books, and, 

 besides, could not command, until lately, a complete copy 

 of all those numbers of your researches to which you have 

 referred. 



40. The tenor of the language with which your letter com- 

 mences, realizes the hope which I cherished, that my stric- 

 tures would call forth an amicable reply. Under these cir- 

 cumstances, it would grieve me that you should consider any 

 part of my language as charging you with inconsistency or 

 self-contradiction, as if it could be my object to put you in 

 the wrong, further than might be necesstiry to establish my 

 conception of the truth. Certainly it has been my wish never 

 to go beyond the sentiment " amicus Plato, sed magis amica 

 Veritas." I attach high importance to the facts established by 

 your '« Researches," which can only be appreciated sufficiently 

 by those who have experienced the labour, corporeal and 

 mental, which experimental investigations require. I am, 

 moreover, grateful for the disposition to do me justice, mani- 

 fested in those researches ; yet it may not always be possible 

 for me to display the deference, which I nevertheless entertain. 

 I am aware that when, in a discussion, which due attention to 

 brevity must render unceremonious, diversities of opinion are 

 exhibited, much magnanimity is requisite in the party whose 

 opinions are assailed ; but I trust that both of us have truth 

 in view above all odier objects, and that so much of your new 

 doctrine as tends to promote that end, will not be invalidated 

 by a criticism, which, though free, is intended to be perfectly 

 fair. 



41. In paragraph 11 your language is as follows: — '■^ My 

 theory of induction makes no assertion as to the nature of elec- 



• Communicated l)y tlie Author. 



t As originally printed for the American Journal of Science, the para- 

 graphs of my first letter to Prof. Faraday were not numbered; but as 

 numbers were attached to the paragraphs in the republication of it in the 

 Loudon and Kdinburgh Philosophical Magazine and Journal [vol. xvii. 

 p. 44] , I have directed them to be attached to this, my second letter, in 

 (hie succession. 



Phil. Mag. S. 3. Vol. 18. No. 1 1 9. June 1841. 2 H 



