110 MEMORIAL OF JOSEPH HENRY. 



which stood above them all. He forged the viewless vinculum in 

 the chain of causes, which bound the universe of matter and mind 

 in intelligent unity and linked the soul close to the great white 

 throne ! 



Yet he was in his most special sphere a pioneer who blazed his 

 way through the forest. He was more than the Baptist of a new 

 dispensation of science. He was both herald and hero of our age 

 of electro-magnetic wonders. 



In speaking of Professor MORSE in 1872 in this Hall, I under- 

 took to distinguish between those who found principles and those 

 who adapt them to practical ends. I said : " Your NEWTONS and 

 LAPLACES in the celestial mechanism, and your ARAGOS, AMPERES, 

 and HENRYS in electro-magnetism, are not the temporary but the 

 eternal heroes; but the lesser intellect carries off the chaplet and 

 sometimes the lucre." I then gave a history of the electric magnet 

 from its beginning down to Professor HENRY'S discovery; and I 

 asserted what I was proud to say during his life, and what all now 

 confess that MORSE was but the inventor of a machine, HENRY 

 the philosophic discoverer of the principle ! Others had discovered 

 the relations between magnetism and electricity; and others had 

 made divers limited applications of the magnet, but the inventor 

 of only one form of application carried off the reward. 



It may seem to some a little thing to ring a bell at one end of a 

 mile-wire by a current incited at the other end. It may seem to 

 some a little thing to discover the induction of currents, as HENRY 

 did ; or to call in a relay magnet at a distance to help the halting 

 power; or to produce the spark by means of purely magnetic 

 induction. It seemed doubtless to many a foolish thing to talk to 

 members of his family across the Princeton campus by an electric 

 wire, or by a pole from basement to attic in the college have his 

 negro boy play a real fiddle in the cellar whose tune was repeated 

 in a mock fiddle in the garret. But these experiments were the 



