! 78 
REVIEWS. 
FARADAY ;AS A MAN AND AS A PHILOSOPHER.* 
I NHERE are very few men, even of the philosopher class, who would 
- like to have the story of their lives told by the publication of their 
own private correspondence. For it happens, that not many, even of the 
wise, are devoid of pettiness of character, and the smaller and less 
creditable traits of their mind and disposition would be sure to unfold 
themselves in their common-place letters to their friends and relations. But 
Faraday was not made of “ such stuff.” Those who knew him felt that 
there was a character of constancy, so to speak, about the man, so that he 
■was as much the philosopher at his own fireside as when he fascinated the 
crowded audiences in the Institution by the grandeur, and yet simplicity, of 
the laws which he had revealed. Some of our philosophers are, we are 
sorry to say, savants in the lecture theatre, and the veriest prigs in common 
life ; men full of meanness, jealous of their successful brethren, exacting 
a stern submission from those who have not yet earned a reputation as 
great as theirs ; men, in fact, who pursue the study of Nature not for itself, 
but for their own honour or glory, and for the mere gratification of a par- 
ticular kind of vanity. But Faraday was a man as little to be compared 
with men of that stamp as Hyperion to a Satyr. All gentleness, kindness, 
and consideration in his dealings with his fellows, he loved his pursuits from 
the sheer pleasure which he found in solving the many puzzles which he 
saw around him. lie felt himself in rivalry with none, he encouraged all 
to work in the vast field he cultivated so well, and, so far as he could, he 
as isted and protected the efforts of those whom he knew to be honest in 
their researches ; and if his indignation was ever roused, it was when his 
aid was sought by some one who wished to obtain his name in support of 
charlatanism. 
Need we be surprised, then, that the task wdnch Dr. Bence Jones has so well 
and lovingly discharged in the two fine volumes bofore us, is one which shows 
us in Faradav an almost god-like nature, which his mere physical researches 
* The “ Life and Letters of Faraday,” by Dr. Bence Jones, Secretary to 
the Royal Institution. 2 vols. Longmans, 1870. 
“Faraday, as a Discoverer,” by John Tyndall. New edition. Long- 
mans, 1870. 
