LIFE AND LETTERS OF FARADAY 425 



kindness of the friend who saw his merit when he was a 

 mere gargon de labor atoire. 1 



He returned, in 1815, to the Royal Institution. Here 

 he helped Davy for years; he worked also for himself, 

 and lectured frequently at the City Philosophical Society. 

 He took lessons in elocution, happily without damage to 

 his natural force, earnestness, and grace of delivery. He 

 was never pledged to theory, and he changed in opinion 

 as knowledge advanced. With him life was growth. In 

 those early lectures we hear him say, "In knowledge, that 

 man only is to be contemned and despised who is not in 

 a state of transition." And again: "Nothing is more dif- 

 ficult and requires more caution than philosophical deduc- 

 tion, nor is there anything more adverse to its accuracy 

 than fixity of opinion." Not that he was wafted about 

 by every wind of doctrine; but that he united flexibility 

 with his strength. In striking contrast with this intel- 

 lectual expansiveness was his fixity in religion, but this 

 is a subject which cannot be discussed here. 



Of all the letters published in these volumes none pos- 

 sess a greater charm than those of Faraday to his wife. 

 Here, as Dr. Bence Jones truly remarks, "he laid open all 

 his mind and the whole of his character, and what can be 

 made known can scarcely fail to charm every one by ita 

 loveliness, its truthfulness, and its earnestness." Abbott 



1 While confined last autumn at Geneva by the effects of a fall in the Alps, 

 my friends, with a kindness I can never forget, did all that friendship could 

 suggest to render my captivity pleasant to me. M. de la Rive then wrote out 

 for me the full account, of which the foregoing is a condensed abstract. It 

 was at the desire of Dr. Bence Jones that I asked him to do so. The rumor 

 of a banquet at Geneva illustrates the tendency to substitute for the youth of 

 1814 the Faraday of later years. 



