LIFE A AT/) L ETTERS OF FARADAY. 3 1 1 



Here a name of noble intellectual associations is sur- 

 rounded by injurious rumors which I would willingly scatter 

 forever. The pupil's magnitude, and the splendor of his 

 position, are too great and absolute to need as a foil the 

 humiliation of his master. Brothers in intellect, Davy and 

 Furuday, however, could never have become brothers in 

 feeling; their characters were too unlike. Davy loved the 

 pomp and circumstance of fame; Faraday the inner con- 

 sciousness that he had fairly won renown. They were both 

 proud men. But with Davy pride projected itself into the 

 outer world; while with Faraday it became a steadying and 

 dignifying inward force. In one great particular they 

 agreed. Each of them could have turned his science to 

 immense commercial profit, but neither of them did so. 

 The noble excitement of research, and the delight of dis- 

 covery, constituted their reward. I commend them to the 

 reverence which great gifts greatly exercised ought to in- 

 spire. They were both ours; and through the coming cen- 

 turies England will be able to point with just pride to the 

 possession of such men. 



The first volume of the " Life and Letters " reveals to 

 us the youth who was to be father to the man. Skillful, 

 aspiring, resolute, he grew steadily in knowledge and in 

 power. Consciously or unconsciously, the relation of 

 Action to Reaction was ever present to Faraday's mind. It 

 had been fostered by his discovery of Magnetic Rotations, 

 and it planted in him more daring ideas of a similar kind. 

 Magnetism he knew could be evoked by electricity, arid he 

 thought that electricity, in its turn, ought to be capable of 

 evolution by magnetism. On August 29, 1831, his experi- 

 ments on this subject began. He had been fortified by 

 previous trials, which, though failures, had begotten 

 instincts directing him toward the truth. He, like every 

 strong worker, might at times miss the outward object, but 

 he always gained the inner light, education, and expansion. 

 Of this" Faraday's life was a constant illustration. By 

 November he had discovered and colligated a multitude of 

 the most wonderful and unexpected phenomena. He had 

 generated currents by currents; currents by magnets, per- 

 manent and transitory; and he afterward generated cur- 

 rents by the earth itself. Arago's "Magnetism of Rotation," 



