der his works seek to realize the object he set before him, a0 
% age of his speculations. We may see the ripples 
Ws ¥ Mann eas ae va re ii  s" 
198 Faraday as a Discoverer. 
of its particles differs from those of an insulator only indegre 
They are charged like the particles of the insulator, but they 
discharge with greater ease and rapidity ; and this rapidityd 
molecular discharge is what we call conduction. Conduction 
then is always preceded by atomic induction ; and when -_ 
some quality of the body, which Faraday does not define, tle 
atomic discharge is rendered slow and difficult, conductio 
passes into insulation. e 
Though they are often obscure, a fine vein of rye 
thought runs through those investigations. The mind of te 
philosopher dwells amid those agencies which underlie 
visible phenomena of Induction and Conduction ; and he trie 
by the strong light of his imagination to see the very molecls 
of his dielectrics. It would, however, be easy to criticize thet — 
researches, easy to show the looseness, and sometimes them — 
accuracy, of the phraseology employed ; but this critical spit 
will get little good out of Faraday. Rather let those 
permitting his occasional vagueness to interfere with a : 
7 
es, and vortices of a flowing stream, without able 
resolve all these motions into their constituent elements; = 
so it sometimes strikes me that Faraday clearly saw hee : 
fluids and ethers and atoms, though his previous trammg® 
not enable him to resolve what he saw into its constituents,” 
describe it in a manner satisfactory to a mind versed in ‘e 
ics. And then again occur, I confess, dark sayings, difficult? 
very boundaries of our knowledge, and that his. mind , i 
ally dwells in the “ boundless contiguity of shade’ by wiih 
In the researches now under review the ratio of sey 
and reasoning to experiment is far higher than m any” | 
day’s previous works. Amid much that is entangled ens 
we have flashes of wondrous insight and utterances yl com 
less the product of reasoning than of revelation. J wer: 
fine myself here to one example of this divining PON ap 
his most ingenious device of a rapidly rotating mut throug! 
stone had proved that electricity required time perry go 
& wire, the current reaching the middle of the wire of the We 
its two ends. “If,” says Faraday, “ the two ends : tely coor 
in Professor Wheatstone’s experiments were immedianty ito : 
nected with two large insulated metallic ng the 
the air, so that the primary act of induction, after Di ite 
contact for discharge, diight = 
