430 MEMORIAL OF JOSEPH HENRY. 



Loyalty to the devotees of scientific research does not demand 

 any disparagement of the usefulness or the genius of inventors. If 

 the former enlarge the area of human knowledge, the latter contrib- 

 ute to the civilization of the race. If there are individuals in one 

 class who think only of their pecuniary success, the other class is 

 not without examples of those who mean to achieve, even if they 

 do not deserve, a high scientific reputation. It is not incumbent on 

 every scientific man to think, with Cuvier, that he must abandon a 

 discovery the moment it enters the market, that its practical 

 application is of no concern to him. No one certainly has a better 

 right to the fruits of this application than the discoverer himself. 

 Inventors may sometimes stumble on good fortune ; but the rich 

 prizes are comparatively few, and, on the average, they are dearly 

 earned by years of severe thought and anxious waiting. No grave- 

 yard holds so many buried hopes as the Patent Office at Washing- 

 ton. Since the first introduction of the telegraph, discovery and 

 invention have advanced, hand in hand, over continents and through 

 the ocean, leaving the world in doubt which to admire the most, 

 the conceptions of pure science, or the exquisite mechanism in which 

 they are embodied. If on one occasion this harmony was disturbed 

 by the repudiation of an indebtedness which had often before been 

 freely acknowledged, the ingratitude was rebuked by the indignant 

 voice of science, and the just claims of Mr. Henry were established 

 on an impregnable foundation. 



It does not detract from the merit or the originality of Professor 

 Henry's early discoveries that the same ground had been covered by 

 Fechner, in a work published in 1831, and that both had been 

 anticipated by Ohm's experimental and mathematical analysis of 

 the galvanic circuit, which dates back to 1827. For Ohm's little 

 book of that date, which now shines as a foreland light for the 

 guidance of all who explore in that direction, was known only to a 

 few in Germany, and was unknown in France, England, and 

 America at a time when, if known, it might have illuminated Pro- 

 fessor Henry's researches. At a later period, Pouillet published 

 the results of his own experiments, without knowing that he him- 

 self had been anticipated by Ohm. The father of Ohm had 

 intended his son for a locksmith ; but, unlike Henry, he did not 



