314 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



point to that wonderful and mysterious medium, which is 

 the vehicle of light and radiant heat, as the probable basis 

 also of magnetic and electric phenomena. The hope of 

 such a connection was first raised by the discovery here 

 referred to.* Faraday himself seemed to cling with par- 

 ticular affection to this discovery. He felt that there was 

 more in it than he was able to unfold. He predicted that 

 it would grow in meaning with the growth of science. 

 This it has done; this it is doing now. Its right inter- 

 pretation will probably mark an epoch in scientific history. 



Rapidly following it is the discovery of Dia magnetism, 

 or the repulsion of matter by a magnet. Brugrnans had 

 shown that bismuth repelled a magnetic needle. Here he 

 stopped. Le Bailliff proved that antimony did the same. 

 Here he stopped. Seebeck, Becquerel, and others, also 

 touched the discovery. These fragmentary gleams excited 

 a momentary curiosity and were almost forgotten, when 

 Faraday independently alighted on the same facts: and, 

 instead of stopping, made them the inlets to a new and 

 vast region of research. The value of a discovery is to be 

 measured by the intellectual action it calls forth; and it 

 was Faraday's good fortune to strike such lodes of scientific 

 truth as give occupation to some of the best intellects of 

 our age. 



The salient quality of Faraday's scientific character 

 reveals itself from beginning to end of these volumes; a 

 union of ardor and patience the one prompting the attack, 

 the other holding him on to it, till defeat was final or vic- 

 tory assured. Certainty in one sense or the other was 

 necessary to his peace of mind. ' The right method of in- 

 vestigation is perhaps incommunicable; it depends on the 

 individual rather than on the system, and the mark is 

 missed when Faraday's researches are pointed to as merely 



* A letter addressed to me by Professor Weber on March 18th last 

 contains the following reference to the connection here mentioned: 

 " Die Hoffnung einer solchen Combination ist durch Faraday's 

 Entdeckung der Drehuug der Polarisationsebene durch magnetische 

 Directionskraft zuerst, und sodann durch die Uebereinstiminung der- 

 jenigen Geschwindigkeit, welche das Verhaltniss der electro- 

 dynamischen Einheit zur electro-statischen ausdriickt, mit der 

 Geschwindigkeit des Lichts angeregt worden; und mir scheint von 

 alien Versuchen, welche zur Verwirklichung dieser Hoffnung ge- 

 uiacht worden sind, das von Herrn Maxwell gemachte ain erfol- 

 greichsten." 



