xxvi.] CHARACTER OF THE EXPERIMENTALIST. 591 



moment his reveries have the vividness of fact. " I think 

 we have been dull and blind not to have suspected some 

 such results," and he sums up rapidly the consequences of 

 his great but imaginary theory ; an entirely new mode of 

 exciting heat or electricity, an entirely new relation of the 

 natural forces, an analysis of gravitation, and a justification 

 of the conservation of force. 



Such were Faraday's fondest dreams of what might be, 

 and lo many a philosopher they would have been sufficient 

 basis for the writing of a great book. But Faraday's 

 imagination was within his full control ; as he himself 

 says, " Let the imagination go, guarding it by judgment 

 and principle, and holding it in and directing it by experi- 

 ment." His dreams soon took a very practical form, and 

 for many days he laboured with ceaseless energy, on the 

 staircase of the Royal Institution, in the clock tower of the 

 Houses of Parliament, or at the top of the Shot Tower in 

 Southwark, raising and lowering heavy weights, and com- 

 bining electrical helices and wires in every conceivable 

 way. His skill and long experience in experiment were 

 severely taxed to eliminate the effects of the earth's mag- 

 netism, and time after time he saved himself from accepting 

 mistaken indications, which to another man might have 

 seemed conclusive verifications of his theory. "When all 

 was done there remained absolutely no results. "The 

 experiments," he says, "were well made, but the results 

 are negative ; " and yet, he adds, " I cannot accept them as 

 conclusive." In this position the question remains to the 

 present day ; it may be that the effect was too slight to be 

 detected, or it may be that the arrangements adopted were 

 not suited to develop the particular relation which exists, 

 just as Oersted could not detect electro-magnetism, so Jong 

 as his wire was perpendicular to the plane of motion of his 

 needle. But these are not matters which concern us 

 further here. We have only to notice the profound con- 

 viction in the unity of natural laws, the active powers of 

 inference and imagination, the unbounded licence of theo- 

 rising, combined above all with the utmost diligence in 

 experimental verification wnich this remarkable research 

 exhibits. 



