312 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 
which had for years offered itself as a challenge to the best 
scientific intellects of Europe, now fell into his hands. It 
proved to be a beautiful, but still special, illustration of the 
great principle of Magneto-electric Induction. Nothing 
equal to this latter, in the way of pure experimental in- 
quiry, had previously been achieved. 
Electricities from various sources were next examined, 
and their differences and resemblances revealed. He thus 
assured himself of their substantial identity. He then took 
up Conduction, and gave many striking illustrations of the 
influence of Fusion on Conducting Power. Renouncing 
professional work, from which at this time he might have 
derived an income of many thousands a year, he poured 
his whole momentum into his researches. He was long 
entangled in Electro-chemistry. The light of law was for 
a time obscured by the thick umbrage of novel facts; but 
he finally energed from his researches with the great prin- 
ciple of Definite Electro-chemical Decomposition in his 
hands. If his discovery of Magneto-electricity may be 
ranked with that of the pile by Volta, this new discoverv 
may almost stand beside that of Definite Combining Pro- 
portions in Chemistry. He passed on to Static Electricity 
its Conduction, Induction, and mode of Propagation. 
He discovered and illustrated the principle of Inductive 
Capacity; and, turning to theory, he asked himself how 
electrical attractions and repulsions are transmitted. Are 
they, like gravity, actions at a distance, or do they require 
a medium? If the former, then, like gravity, they will act 
in straight lines; if the latter, then, like sound or light, 
they may turn a corner. Faraday held and his views are 
gaining ground that his experiments proved the fact of 
curvilinear propagation, and hence the operation of a 
medium. Others denied this; but none can deny the pro- 
found and philosophic character of his leading thought. * 
The first volume of the Researches contains all the papers 
here referred to. 
Faraday had heard it stated that henceforth physical 
discoveries would be made solely by the aid of mathematics; 
that we had our data, and needed only to work deductively. 
Statements of a similar character crop out from time to time 
* In a very remarkable paper published in Poggendorff's "An- 
nalen" for 1857, Werner Siemens accepts and develops Faraday's 
theory of Molecular Induction. 
