312 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



which hud for years offered itself as a challenge to the 

 scientific intellects of Europe, now fell into his hands. Jt 

 proved to be a beautiful, but still special, illustration of tho 

 great principle of Magneto-electric Induction. Nothing 

 equal to this latter, 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 

 professional work, from which at this time he might have 

 derived an income of many thousands a year, he poured 

 his whole momentum into his researches. He was long 

 entangled in Electro-chemistry. The light of law was for 

 a time obscured by the thick umbrage of novel facts; but 

 he finally energed from his researches with the great prin- 

 ciple of Definite Electro-chemical Decomposition in his 

 hands. If his discovery of Magneto-electricity may be 

 ranked with that of the pile by Volta, this new discovery 

 may almost stand beside that of Definite Combining Pro- 

 portions in Chemistry. He passed on to Static Electricity 

 its Conduction, Induction, and mode of Propagation. 

 He discovered and illustrated the principle of Inductive 

 Capacity; and, turning to theory, he asked himself how 

 electrical attractions and repulsions are transmitted. Are 

 they, like gravity, actions at a distance, or do they require 

 a medium? If the former, then, like gravity, they will act 

 in straight lines; if the latter, then, like sound or light, 

 they may turn a corner. Faraday held and his views are 

 gaining ground that his experiments proved the fact of 

 curvilinear propagation, and hence the operation of a 

 medium. Others denied this; but none can deny the pro- 

 found and philosophic character of his leading thought. * 

 The first volume of the Researches contains all the papers 

 here referred to. 



Faraday had heard it stated that henceforth physical 

 discoveries would be made solely by the aid of mathematics; 

 that we had our data, and needed only to work deductively. 

 Statements of a similar character crop out from time to time 



* In a very remarkable paper published in Poggendorff'8 " An- 

 nalen" for 1857, Werner Siemens accepts and develops Faraday's 

 theory of Molecular Induction. 



