292 Mary Somerville. 



successor, Professor Tyndall, an experimental phi- 

 losopher of the very highest genius. 



[The following letter was the last my mother received 

 from Faraday : 



FROM PROFESSOR FARADAY TO MRS. SOMERVILLE. 



ROYAL INSTITUTION, 17th January, 1859. 

 MY DEAR MRS. SOMERVILLE, 



So you have remembered me again, and I 

 have the delight of receiving from you a new copy of 

 that work which has so often instructed me; and 

 I may well say, cheered me in my simple homely course 

 through life in this house. It was most kind to think 

 of me ; but ah ! how sweet it is to believe that I have 

 your approval in matters where kindness would be 

 nothing, where judgment alone must rule. I almost 

 doubt myself when I think I have your approbation, 

 to some degree at least, in what I may have thought 

 or said about gravitation, the forces of nature, their 

 conservation, &c. As it is, I cannot go back from these 

 thoughts; on the contrary, I feel encouraged to go on 

 by way of experiment, but am not so able as I was 

 formerly; for when I try to hold the necessary group 

 of thoughts in mind at one time, with the judgment 

 suspended on almost all of them, then my head becomes 

 giddy, and I am obliged to lay all aside for u while. 

 I am trying for time in magnetic action, and do not 

 despair of reaching it, even though it may be only that 

 of light. NOILS verrons. 



I have been putting into one volume various papers 





