CHARACTER OF THE EXPERIMENTALIST. 237 



and in such things as these, experiment is the best test 

 of such consistency/ 



He executed many difficult and tedious experiments, 

 which are described in the 24th Series of Experimental 

 Researches ; but the result was nil. And yet he con- 

 cludes, ' Here end my trials for the present. The results 

 are negative ; they do not shake my strong feeling 

 of the existence of a relation between gravity and elec- 

 tricity, though they give no proof that such a relation 

 exists/ 



He returned to the work when he was ten years older, 

 and in 1858-9 recorded many remarkable reflections and 

 experiments. He was much struck by the fact that elec- 

 tricity is essentially a dual force, and it had always been 

 a peculiar conviction of Faraday that no body could be 

 electrified positively without some other body becoming 

 electrified negatively ; some of his researches had been 

 simple developments of this necessary relation. But ob- 

 serving that between two mutually gravitating bodies 

 there was no apparent circumstance to determine which 

 shall be positive and which negative, he does not hesitate 

 to call in question an old opinion. ' The evolution of one 

 electricity would be a new and very remarkable thing. 

 The idea throws a doubt on the whole ; but still try, for 

 who knows what is possible in dealing with gravity/ 

 We cannot but notice the candour with which he thus 

 in his laboratory book acknowledges the doubtfulness 

 of the whole thing, and is yet prepared as a forlorn 

 hope to frame experiments in opposition to all his pre- 

 vious experience of the course of nature. For a time 

 his thoughts flow on as if the strange detection were 

 already made, and he had only to trace out its conse- 

 quences throughout the universe. * Let us encourage our- 

 selves by a little more imagination prior to experiment/ 

 he says, and then he reflects upon the infinity of actions 



