344 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



point to that wonderful and mysterious medium which is 

 the vehicle of light and radiant heat as the probable basis 

 also of magnetic and electric phenomena. The hope of 

 such a combination was first raised by the discovery here 

 referred to. 1 Faraday himself seemed to cling with partic- 

 ular affection to this discovery. He felt that there was 

 more in it than he was able to unfold. He predicted that 

 it would grow in meaning with the growth of science. This 

 it has done ; this it is doing now. Its right interpretation 

 will probably mark an epoch in scientific history. 



Rapidly following it is the discovery of Diamagnetism, 

 or the Repulsion of Matter by a magnet. Brugmans had 

 shown that bismuth repelled a magnetic needle. Here he 

 stopped.. Le Bailliff proved that antimony did the same. 

 Here he stopped. Seebeck, Becquerel, and others, also 

 touched the discovery. These fragmentary gleams excited 

 a momentary curiosity, and were almost forgotten, when 

 Faraday, independently, alighted on the same facts ; and, 

 instead of stopping, made them the inlets to a new and 

 vast region of research. The value of a discovery is to be 

 measured by the intellectual action it calls forth ; and it 

 was Faraday's good fortune to strike such lodes of scientific 

 truth as give some of the best intellects of the age occupa- 

 tion. 



The salient quality of Faraday's scientific character re- 

 veals itself from beginning to end of these volumes : a union 



1 A letter addressed to me by Professor Weber, on the 18th of last 

 March, contains the following reference to the connection here mentioned : 

 " Die Hoffnung einer solchen Combination ist durch Faraday's Entdeckung 

 dor Drehung der Polarisationsebene durch magnetische Directionskraft 

 zuerst, und sodann durch die Uebereinstimmung derjenigen Geschwindig- 

 keit, welche das Verhaltniss der electro-dynamischen Einheit zur electro- 

 statischen ausdriickt, mit der Geschwindigkeit des Lichts angeregt 

 worden ; und mir scheint von alien Versuchen, welche zur Verwirklichung 

 dieser Hoffnung gemacht worden sind, das von Efernn Maxwell gemachte 

 am erfolgreichsten." 



