CHAP. VI.] SCHOLAR OF TRINITY. 191 



Faraday's experiments on Table-turning, and the answers 

 of provoked believers and the state of opinion generally, show 

 what the state of the public mind is with respect to the 

 principles of natural science. The law of gravitation and 

 the wonderful effects of the electric fluid are things which 

 you can ascertain by asking any man or woman not deprived 

 by penury or exclusiveness of ordinary information. But 

 they believe them just as they believe history, because it is 

 in books and is not doubted. So that facts in natural science 

 are believed on account of the number of witnesses, as they 

 ought ! I believe that tables are turned ; yea ! and by an 

 unknown force called, if you please, the vital force, acting, as 

 believers say, thro' the fingers. But how does it affect the 

 table ? By the mechanical action of the sideward pressure 

 of the fingers in the direction the table ought to go, as 

 Faraday has shown. At this last statement the Turners 

 recoil. 



To R B. LITCHFIELD, Esq. 



Coniston, 23d August 1858. 



I came here with Campbell of Trin. Hall to meet his 

 brother and another Oxford man called Christie. 1 We are 

 all in a house 2 just above the lake, recreating ourselves and 

 reading a little. Pomeroy is off to Ireland. I have seen a 

 good deal of him, and we have read " at the same time suc- 

 cessively " Vestiges of Creation and Maurice's Theological 

 Essays. Both have excited thought and talk. ... I was 

 down after the Mug 3 with Tayler's uncle in Suffolk, and was 

 taken in there. I was there made acquainted with the 

 peculiar constitution of a well-regulated family, consisting 

 entirely of nephews and nieces, and educated entirely by 

 the uncle and aunt. There was plenty of willing obedi- 

 ence, but little diligence : much mutual trust, and little self- 

 reliance. They did not strike out for themselves in different 

 lines, according to age, sex, and disposition, but each so 

 excessively sympathised (bond fide, of course) with the rest, 



1 W. Christie, Esq., advocate. 2 Bank-ground. 



3 Trinity College Examination. 



