CHARACTER OF THE EXPERIMENTALIST. 223 



many of the thoughts and theories which have passed 

 through the mind of a scientific investigator, have been 

 crushed in silence and secresy by his own severe criticism 

 and adverse examination ; that in the most successful 

 instances not a tenth of the suggestions, the hopes, the 

 wishes, the preliminary conclusions have been realized/ 



Nevertheless, in Faraday's researches published either 

 in the ' Philosophical Transactions ' or in minor papers, in 

 his manuscript note-books, or in various other materials, 

 fortunately made known in his interesting life by Dr. 

 Bence Jones, we find invaluable lessons for the experi- 

 mentalist. These writings are full of speculations which 

 we must not judge by the light of subsequent discovery. 

 It may even be said that Faraday sometimes committed 

 to the printing press crude ideas which a cautious friend 

 would have counselled him to keep back or suppress. There 

 was occasionallv even a wildness and vagueness in his 



w 



notions, which in a less careful experimentalist might have 

 been fatal to the attainment of truth. This is especially 

 apparent in a curious paper concerning Ray-vibrations ; 

 but fortunately Faraday was fully aware of the shadowy 

 character of his speculations, and expressed the feelinor 

 in words which must be quoted. ' I think it likelv,' he 

 says ", ' that I have made many mistakes in the preceding 

 pages, for even to myself my ideas on this point appear 

 only as the shadow of a speculation, or as one of those 

 impressions upon the mind, which are allowable for a time 

 as guides to thought and research. He who labours in 

 experimental inquiries knows how numerous these are, 

 and how often their apparent fitness and beauty vanish 

 before the progress and development of real natural 

 truth/ If, then, the experimentalist has no royal road 

 to the discovery of the truth, it is an interesting matter 



a ' Experimental Researches in Chemistry and Physics,' p. 372. 

 Philosophical Magazine, 3rd Series, May 1846. vol. xxviii. p. 350. 



