578 HISTORY OF SCIENCE. 



illumination of magnetic lines of force, new magnetic actions and the 

 magnetic condition of all matter, the crystalline polarity of bismuth, 

 the possible relation of gravity to electricity, the magnetic and dia- 

 magnetic conditions of bodies, including gases, atmospheric magnetism, 

 the lines of magnetic force, etc., etc. " The record of this work," says 

 Dr. Jones, " which he has left in his manuscripts, and republished in 

 his three volumes of ' Electrical Researches ; from the papers in the 

 ' Philosophical Transactions,' will ever remain as his noblest monu- 

 ment, full of genius in the conception ; full of finished and most ac- 

 curate work in execution ; in quantity so vast that it seems impossible 

 one man could have done so much." 



The laboratory investigations at the Royal Institution ceased after the 

 close of the series on electricity. But after 1855 Faraday's powers began 

 to show signs of decline. His last experimental investigation was made 

 in 1862, to determine whether the spectroscopic lines were affected by 

 polarized light under magnetic influence. On the 20th of June, 1862, 

 he gave his last lecture at the Royal Institution, of which for thirty- 

 eight years his discourses had formed the animating principle. Fara- 

 day quietly passed from this life while seated in a chair in his study 

 at Hampton, where the Queen had placed at his disposal one of the 

 houses on the Green. The plain stone which marks his resting-place 

 in Highgate Cemetery has this simple inscription : 



MICHAEL FARADAY. 



BORN 2 2ND SEPTEMBER, 1791. 

 DIED 25TH AUGUST, 1867. 



The singular nobleness of Faraday's character was as striking as his 

 extraordinary genius for scientific research. Those who knew him 

 personally all speak of his kindness, his simple-mindedness, his intense 

 love of truth. Some sentences from the eloge of Faraday pronounced 

 by H. Dumas, the distinguished French chemist, before the Academic 

 des Sciences, may here be transcribed (as quoted in Dr. Gladstone's 

 "Michael Faraday"), for they well express the sentiments of all who 

 knew the man. " I am certain that all those who have known him 

 would wish to approach that moral perfection which he attained to 

 without effort. In him it appeared to be a natural grace, which made 

 him a professor full of ardour for the diffusion of truth ; an indefatig- 

 able worker, full of enthusiasm and sprightliness in his laboratory ; 

 the best and most amiable of men in the bosom of his family ; and 

 the most enlightened preacher amongst the humble flock whose faith 

 he followed. The simplicity of his heart, his candour, his ardent love 

 of truth, his fellow-interest in all the successes and his ingenuous ad- 

 miration of all the discoveries of others ; his natural modesty in regard 

 to what he himself discovered ; his noble soul, independent and bold, 

 all these combined gave an incomparable charm to the features of 

 the illustrious physicist. I have never known a man more worthy of 



