150 Further Statements concerning the History of Calcescence. 



himself. Later, when I myself brought about that immediate 

 communication which he seems to have desired the editor of the 

 ( Saturday Review } to establish between us, he claimed, or rather 

 requested, a share in it. But no sooner was that share (perhaps 

 too readily) granted, than his appetite grew again, and he wanted 

 once more the whole. When I checked him in this desire, in 

 November Prof. Tyndall had a momentary qualm of conscience ; 

 but this appears to have passed off since ; and in the last 

 Number of the Philosophical Magazine Prof. Tyndall 5 s sense of 

 right appears again as obdurate as ever. It would be a blun- 

 der in psychology to suppose that proceedings of this kind 

 arise from conscious motives, or that they are carried on with a 

 full knowledge of their injustice. Greed is too powerful an 

 instinct to allow of much reflection, and Ambition too ingenious 

 a sophist not to be able to represent black as white, foul as fair, 

 if need be. However that may be, Prof. Tyndall has assured 

 me that, when I should have achieved and published " the great 

 experiment - ' 5 I was striving to effect, he would muster sufficient 

 greatness of heart not to envy me. I can say, now that Prof. 

 Tyndall has tried to anticipate me, that, whatever advantage he 

 may derive from that fact, I shall not envy him the means by 

 which he has gained it. For my own part, I shall endeavour 

 to console myself with thinking that it is the destiny of some to 

 sow for others to reap. 

 Paris, January 1865. 



Corrigenda in the January Number. 

 Page 40, line 7 from below, for always read generally. 

 — 42, — 13, for are greater than those read is greater than that. 



[It is with considerable regret we find ourselves called upon to 



i Saturday Review/ actually wrote to the editor to say (as he himself is at 

 the pains to state) that he had "accomplished already " what I "proposed 

 to accomplish." This statement of Prof. Tyndall either shows how little he 

 understood, even so late as January last year, the conditions of the problem 

 to be solved; or else it forms an abuse of language rarely exemplified in 

 the annals of science. I intended to produce calcescence by incident rays ; 

 Prof. Tyndall, ou the other hand, had guessed (or perhaps only remem- 

 bered what I had emitted before him) that the common phenomena of in- 

 candescence exhibited by solids in contact with flames were owing to an 

 effect of a similar, but far from identical, nature to that which I intended 

 to realize ; and relying upon this fact, he considered himself justified in 

 saying that he had " already accomplished " what I intended to accomplish. 

 Really 1 am wanting in words strong enough to characterize a statement of 

 this nature. It is as if somebody, having heard that Newton intended to verify 

 the idea of universal gravitation by applying it to the motion of the moon, had 

 asserted himself to have "accomplished" that already, because it had occurred 

 to him that the fall of an apple might be due to the attraction of the earth. 

 Prof. Tyndall invited the editor of the ' Saturday Review ' to communi- 

 cate to me his letter, with what view he does not state. Prof. Tyndall 

 might have learnt from the editor of the * Saturday Review,' whom he 

 cites as a witness, that he never communicated with me on the subject. 



