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PROFESSOR TYNBALUS FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE 

 FOR UNSCIENTIFIC PEOPLE/'— in relation with 

 Theology and Religion. — By the Rev. W. J. Irons, D.D., 

 Prebendary of St. Paul's, and late Bampton Lecturer. 



A STORY is told by Professor Tyndall in his review of Dr. 

 Bence Jones's Life ,of Faraday, which few persons of 

 education could read without regret. It seems that gicaisci 

 Faraday was present during a conversation that en 36, and its 

 passed between Sir Humphrey Davy and Wollaston, ampiein WoY- 

 as to the connexion of electricity with magnetism, p^^^^^y*'^** 

 WoUaston had perceived that a wire carrying a 

 current ought to rotate round its own axis under the influence 

 of a magnetic pole. Something similar to this, indeed scarcely 

 distinguishable from it, was noticed and announced by Faraday 

 some months later; but, it seems, without any allusion to Wol- 

 laston, or to the conversation with Davy ; and then there arose 

 some jealousy, suspicion, and resentment. " Wollaston's ideas 

 had been appropriated without acknowledgment \ 



2. This, with another equally unpleasant anecdote about the 

 analysis of hydrate of chlorine by Faraday, and the liquefying 

 of another gas by Davy " in the same way,'' was Another ex- 

 allowed in the scientific world to irritate the mind of ^"J'p;^.^^*^"^ 

 Faraday, one of the best and noblest-hearted of men. *° ^"^^ 

 Outside the coteries, probably no one believed that Sir Hum- 

 phrey Davy was jealous, or Faraday capable of the meanness 

 imputed to him. The narrow-mindedness which belongs to the 

 semi-educated will alone account for the development of the 

 odium scientificum in such instances as these. 



3. It were much to be wished that the tone of mind thus de- 



VOL. VII. L 



