406 FBAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



Magazine.' But the best analysis I can make of the 

 data fails to present Davy in this light to me. The 

 facts, as I regard them, are briefly these. 



In 1820, Oersted of Copenhagen made the cele- 

 brated discovery which connects electricity with mag- 

 netism, and immediately afterwards the acute mind of 

 Wollaston perceived that a wire carrying a current ought 

 to rotate round its own axis under the influence of a 

 magnetic pole. In 1821 he tried, but failed, to realise 

 this result in the laboratory of the Eoyal Institution. 

 Faraday was not present at the moment, but he came 

 in immediately afterwards and heard the conversation 

 of Wollaston and Davy about the experiment. He had 

 also heard a rumour of a wager that Dr. Wollaston 

 would eventually succeed. 



This was in April. In the autumn of the same 

 year Faraday wrote a history of electro-magnetism, and 

 repeated for himself the experiments which he described. 

 It was while thus instructing himself that he succeeded 

 in causing a wire, carrying an electric current, to 

 rotate round a magnetic pole. This was not the result 

 sought by Wollaston, but it was closely related to that 

 result. 



The strong tendency of Faraday's mind to look upon 

 the reciprocal actions of natural forces gave birth to 

 his greatest discoveries ; and we, who know this, should 

 be justified in concluding that, even had Wollaston not 

 preceded him, the result would have been the same. 

 But in judging Davy we ought to transport ourselves 

 to his time, and carefully exclude from our thoughts 

 and feelings that noble subsequent life, which would 

 render simply impossible the ascription to Faraday of 

 anything unfair. It would be unjust to Davy to put 

 our knowledge in the place of his, or to credit him 

 with data which he could not have possessed. Rumour 



