‘THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 1873 
SCIENTIFIC WORTHIES 
I.—FARADAY 
Michael Faraday, born September 22,1791, died 
August 25, 1867. 
ITH this number of NaTURE we present to our 
subscribers the first of what we hope will be a long 
series of Portraits of Eminent Men of Science. 
This first portrait is one of Faraday, engraved on steel, 
by Jeens, from a photograph by Watkins, Those who 
had the happiness of knowing Faraday best will best ap- 
preciate the artist’s skill—he has indeed,surpassed himself, 
for the engraving is more life-like than the photograph. We 
could ill spare such a memorial of such a man, one in 
which all the beautiful simplicity of his life beams upon 
us. There is no posturing here ! 
There is no need that we should accompany the por- 
trait with a memoir of Faraday. Bence Jones, Tyndall, 
and Gladstone have already lovingly told the story of the 
grand and simple life which has shed and will long con- 
tinue to shed such lustre on English Science, and their 
books have carried the story home to millions; nor is 
there any need that we should state why we have chosen 
to commence our series with Faraday ; everybody will 
acknowledge the justice of our choice. 
But there is great need just now that some of the 
lessons to be learnt from Faraday’s life should be insisted 
upon, and we regard it as a fortunate circumstance that 
we have thus the opportunity of insisting upon them 
while our Scientific Congress is in session, and before the 
echoes of the Address of the President of the British 
Association for the Advancement of Science have died 
away. ; 
In the first place, then, we regard Faraday at once as 
the most useful and the most noble type of a scientific 
man. The nation is bigger and stronger in that Faraday 
has lived, and the nation would be bigger and stronger 
still were there more Faradays among us now. Prof. 
Williamson, in his admirable address, acknowledges that 
the present time is “momentous.” In truth the question 
of the present condition of Science and the ways of im- 
proving it, is occupying men’s minds more than it has 
ever done before ; and it is now conceded on all sides 
that this is a national question, and not only so, but one 
of fundamental importance. Now what is the present 
condition of English Science? It is simply this, that 
while the numbers of our professors and their emoluments 
are increasing, while the number of students is increasing, 
while practical instruction is being introduced and text- 
books multiplied, while the number and calibre of popu- 
lar lecturers and popular writers in Science is increasing, 
original research, the fountain-head of a nation’s wealth, 
is decreasing. 
Now a scientific man is useful as such to a nation ac- 
cording to the amount of new knowledge with which he 
endows that nation. This is the test which the nation, as 
a whole, applies, and Faraday’s national reputation rests 
on it. Let the nation know then that the real difficulty 
at present is this ; we want more Faradays ; in other words 
more men working at new knowledge, 
No, 203—VOL, vil. 
397 
It is refreshing to see this want so clearly stated in the 
Presidential Address : 
“The first thing wanted for the work of advancing 
science is a supply of well-qualified workers. The second 
thing is to place and keep them under the conditions 
most favourable to their efficient activity. The most 
suitable men must be found while still young, and trained 
to the work. Now I know only one really effectual way 
of finding the youths who are best endowed by nature for 
the purpose; and that is to systematise and develop the 
natural conditions which accidentally concur in particular 
cases, and enable youths to rise from the crowd, 
“ Investigators, once found, ought to be placed in the 
circumstances most favourable to their efficient activity, 
“The first and most fundamental condition for this is, 
that their desire for the acquisition of knowledge be kepi 
alive and fostered. They must not merely retain the hold 
which they have acquired on the general body of their 
science ; they ought to strengthen and extend that hold, 
by acquiring a more complete and accurate knowledge 
of its doctrines and methods ; in a word, they ought to 
be more thorough students than during their state of pre- 
liminary training. 
“ They must be able to live by their work, without di- 
verting any of their energies to other pursuits ; and they 
must feel security against want, in the event of illness or 
in their old age. 
“They must be supplied with intelligent and trained 
assistants to aid in the conduct of their researches, and 
whatever buildings, apparatus, and materials may be re- 
quired for conducting those researches effectively. 
“The desired system must therefore provide arrange- 
ments favourable to the maintenance and development of 
the true student-spirit in investigators, while providing 
them with permanent means of subsistence, sufficient to 
enable them to feel secure and tranquil in working at 
science alone, yet not sufficient to neutralise their motives 
for exertion ; and at the same time it must give them all 
external aids, in proportion to their wants and powers of 
making good use of them.” 
Whether the scheme proposed by Dr. Williamson to 
bring such a state of things about will have the full success 
he anticipates is a matter of second-rate importance; what 
is of importance is, that the need of some scheme is now 
fully recognised. 
So far the remarks we have made have been suggested 
by Faraday’s usefulness, It is to be hoped that the 
nobleness of his simple, undramatic life, will live as long 
in men’s memories as the discoveries which have immor- 
talised his name. Here was no hunger after popular 
applause, no jealousy of other men’s work, no swerving 
from thelwell-loved, self-imposed task ef “ working, finish- 
ing, publishing.” 
“The simplicity of his heart, his candour, his ardent 
love of the truth, his fellow-interest in all the successes, 
and ingenuous admiration of all the discoveries of others, 
his natural modesty in regard to what he himself dis- 
covered, his noble soul—independent and bold—all these 
combined, gave an incomparable charm to the features of 
the illustrious physicist.” 
Such was his portrait as sketched by Dumas, a man 
cast inthe same mould. All will recognise its truth. Can 
men of science find a nobler exemplar on which to fashion 
their own life? Nay, if it were more widely followed thar 
it is, should we not hear less of men falling away from the 
“hrilliant promise” of their youth, tempted by “ fees,” or 
the “applications of Science,” or the advantages attendant 
upon a popular exposition of other men’s work? Should 
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