FARADAY. 341 



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 rotations, and 

 it planted in him more daring ideas of a similar kind. Mag- 

 netism 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 experi- 

 ments on this subject began. He had been fortified by 

 previous trials, which, though failures, had begotten in- 

 stincjts directing him toward the truth. He, like every 

 strong worker, might at times miss the outward object, but 

 he always gained the inner light education and expansion. 

 Of this Faraday's life was a constant illustration. By No- 

 vember he had discovered and colligated a multitude of 

 the most wonderful and unexpected phenomena. He had 

 generated currents by currents ; currents by magnets, per- 

 manent and transitory; and he afterward generated cur- 

 rents by the earth itself. Arago's " Magnetism of Rota- 

 tion," 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 illustra- 

 tion of the great principle of magneto-electric induction. 

 Nothing equal to this, 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 pro- 

 fessional work, from which at this time he might have de- 

 rived an income of many thousands a year, he poured his 

 whole momentum into his researches. He was long en- 



