LIFE AND LETTERS OF FARADAY 431 



great particular they agreed. Each of them could have 

 turned his science to immense commercial profit, but 

 neither of them did so. The noble excitement of research, 

 and the delight of discovery, constituted their reward. I 

 commend them to the reverence which great gifts greatly 

 exercised ought to inspire. They were both ours; and 

 through the coming centuries England will be able to 

 point with just pride to the possession of such men. 



The first volume of the "Life and Letters" reveals to 

 us the youth who was to be father to the man. Skilful, 

 aspiring, resolute, he grew steadily in knowledge and 

 in power. Consciously or unconsciously, the relation of 

 Action to Reaction was ever present to Faraday's mind. 

 It had been fostered by his discovery of Magnetic Rota- 

 tions, and it planted in him more daring ideas of a similar 

 kind. Magnetism he knew could be evoked by electricity, 

 and he thought that electricity, in its turn, ought to be 

 capable of evolution by magnetism. On August 29, 1831, 

 his experiments on this subject began. He had been for- 

 tified by previous trials, which, though failures, had be- 

 gotten instincts directing him toward the truth. He, like 

 every strong worker, might at times miss the outward ob- 

 ject, but he always gained the 1 inner light, education, and 

 expansion. Of this Faraday's life was a constant illustra- 

 tion. By November he had discovered and colligated a 

 multitude of the most wonderful and unexpected phe- 

 nomena. He had generated currents by currents; cur- 

 rents by magnets, permanent and transitory; and he after- 

 ward generated currents by the earth itself. Arago's 

 "Magnetism of Rotation," which had for years offered 



