FARADAY. 359 



and to invest it with a luxuriant crop of connotative meanings flourishing at 

 the expense of the meaning which the word was intended to denote. He 

 therefore endeavoured to strip all such terms as "electric fluid," "current," and 

 "attraction" of every meaning except that which is warranted by the phenomena 

 themselves, and to invent new terms, such as "electrolysis," "electrode," "di- 

 electric," which suggest no other meaning than that assigned to them by their 

 definitions. 



He thus undertook no less a task than the investigation of the facts, the 

 ideas, and the scientific terms of electro-magnetism, and the result was the 

 remodelling of the whole according to an entirely new method. 



That old and popular phrase, " electric fluid," which is now, we trust, 

 banished for ever into the region of newspaper paragraphs, had done what it 

 could to keep men's minds fixed upon those particular parts of bodies where 

 the "fluid" was supposed to exist. 



Faraday, on the other hand, by inventing the word " dielectric," has 

 encouraged us to examine all that is going on in the air or other medium 

 between the electrified bodies. 



It is needless to multiply instances of this kind. The terms, field of force, 

 lines of force, induction, &c., are sufficient to recall them. They all illustrate 

 the general principles of the growth of science, in the particular form of which 

 Faraday is the exponent. 



We have, first, the careful observation of selected phenomena, then the 

 examination of the received ideas, and the formation, when necessary, of new 

 ideas ; and, lastly, the invention of scientific terms adapted for the discussion 

 of the phenomena in the light of the new ideas. 



The high place which we assign to Faraday in electro-magnetic science may 

 appear to some inconsistent with the fact that electro-magnetic science is an 

 exact science, and that in some of its branches it had already assumed a 

 mathematical form before the tune of Faraday, whereas Faraday was not a 

 professed mathematician, and in his writings we find none of those integrations 

 of differential equations which are supposed to be of the very essence of an 

 exact science. Open Poisson and Ampere, who went before him, or Weber and 

 Neumann, who came after him, and you will find their pages full of symbols, 

 not one of which Faraday would have understood. It is admitted that Faraday 

 made some great discoveries, but if we put these aside, how can we rank his 

 scientific method so high without disparaging the mathematics of these eminent men ? 



