404 FKAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



and lectured frequently at the City Philosophical So- 

 ciety. 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 difficult and requires more 

 caution than philosophical deduction, nor is there any- 

 thing more adverse to its accuracy than fixity of opin- 

 ion/ Not that he was wafted about by every wind of 

 doctrine; but that he united flexibility with his 

 strength. In striking contrast with this intellectual 

 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 

 possess 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 its loveliness, its truthfulness, and its ear- 

 nestness.' Abbott and he sometimes swerved into word- 

 play about love; but up to 1820, or thereabouts, the 

 passion was potential merely. Faraday's journal indeed 

 contains entries which show that he took pleasure in 

 the assertion of his contempt for love; but these very 

 entries became links in his destiny. It was through 

 them that he became acquainted with one who inspired 

 him with a feeling which only ended with his life. His 

 biographer has given us the means of tracing the vary- 

 ing moods which preceded his acceptance. They re- 

 veal more than the common alternations of light and 

 gloom; at one moment he wishes that his flesh might 

 melt and that he might become nothing; at another he 



