VOLTA THE FOUNDER OF ELECTRICAL SCIENCE.
Up to the end of the eighteenth century, discoverers in electrical
science had usually been students of science in other departments, whose
attention to electricity had been attracted in passing as it were.
Occasionally, indeed, they had been only interested amateurs,
inquisitive as to the curious phenomena of magnetism. It is surprising
how many of these pioneers in electricity were clergymen, though that
fact is seldom realized. It can be seen very readily in my chapter on
Clergymen Pioneers in Electricity, in Catholic Churchmen in Science
(Second Series, Dolphin Press, Phila., 1909). With Volta's career,
however, was initiated the story of the electrical scientists who
devoted themselves almost exclusively to this department of physics,
though more or less necessarily paying some attention to related
subjects. Volta's discovery of a practical instrument for measuring
electricity, as well as of comparatively simple apparatus producing a
continuous current, changed the whole face of the science of
electricity. After these inventions, regular work could be readily done
in the investigation of problems in the science of electricity without
discouragement or inadequate instruments, discontinuous electrical
phenomena, disturbances of experiments by the weather, and other
conditions which had been hitherto so unfavorable to electrical
experimentation. Volta's invention of the pile, or battery, so
deservedly called after him, caused electrical science to take on an
entirely new aspect, and the modern development of electricity was
assured. It has been well said that no other invention, not even the
steam-engine, meant so much for the transformation of modern life as
this new apparatus for the production of a continuous electric current.
[Illustration: ALESSANDRO VOLTA]
The man who worked this revolution in electrical science was no mere
inventor who, by a happy chance, brought together practical factors that
had been well known before but had never been combined. He was one of
the greatest scientists of a period particularly rich in examples of
original scientific genius of a high order. Before his death, he came to
be acknowledged by the scientific world of his time as one of the
greatest leaders of thought, not alone in electricity, but in all
departments of the physical sciences. His life forms for this reason an
important chapter in the history of science and scientific development.
Like most of the distinguished scientific discoverers of the last two
centuries, Alessandro Volta was born in very humble circumstances. His
father was a member of the Italian nobility, but had wasted his
patrimony so completely that the family was in extreme poverty when the
distinguished son was born, on the eighteenth of February, 1745. This
poverty was so complete that Volta said of it, later in life: "My father
owned nothing except a small dwelling worth about fourteen thousand
lire; and as he left behind him seventeen thousand lire of debt, I
was actually poorer than poor." A good idea of the circumstances in
which Volta's childhood was passed may be gathered from the fact that he
could not even secure copy-books for his first school exercises except
through the kindness of friends.
Volta had shown signs of genius from early boyhood, and yet had been
discouragingly slow in his intellectual development as a child. In fact,
it was feared that he was congenitally lacking in intelligence to a
great degree. It is said that he was more than four years old before he
ever uttered a word. This does not mean before he learned to talk
connectedly, but before he could utter even such familiar expressions as
"father," "mother," and the like. He was considered to be dumb; and, as
is not infrequently the mistaken notion with regard to children dumb for
any reason, he was thought to be almost an idiot. The first word he ever
uttered is said to have been a vigorous "No!" which was heard when one
of his relatives insisted on his doing something that he did not wish to
do. At the age of seven, however, he had so far overcome all
difficulties of speech as to be looked upon as a very bright child.
Owing to this late, unexpected development, his parents seem to have
regarded him as a sort of living miracle, and felt certain that he was
destined to accomplish great things. His father said of him later, "We
had a jewel in the house and did not know it."
Fortunately for Volta, one of his uncles was archdeacon of the
Cathedral, and another was one of the canons. These relatives helped him
to obtain an education, the way being made especially easy by the fact
that at this time all the Jesuit Colleges subsisted on foundations and
collected no fees from any of their students; so that all that was
necessary for his uncles to do for him was to contribute to his expenses
outside of college. According to tradition, the Jesuits not only helped
Volta in his education, but assisted him in obtaining his books and
even in his living expenses while at their college. At the age of about
sixteen, his education was complete, even including a year of
philosophy. This is probably an indication of his talent as a student;
though it was not an unusual thing in the southern countries for
students to graduate at sixteen, or even younger, after a course
equivalent to that now required for the bachelor's degree in arts.
We have gotten far away from this early graduation, although it is still
sometimes possible in Italian universities; and one of the brightest men
I ever knew was an Italian who had graduated with a degree equivalent to
our A. B. before he was sixteen. When Volta graduated, however, such
early completion of the undergraduate course was not at all unusual in
Italy, and boys of thirteen and fourteen, almost as a rule, entered the
undergraduate department to complete their course for a degree at
seventeen or eighteen. One of our greatest physicians in this country,
Benjamin Rush, was only seventeen when he completed his college course,
and such examples were not at all rare. Indeed, the possibility for
these men to devote themselves much earlier than is possible now to
their serious life-work, yet with the development of mind which comes
from a University course in the arts, was probably a distinct help to
the success of their scientific careers. One is tempted to think that
possibly such justification of earlier graduation, as we find among the
distinguished scientists of a century ago, might make us reflect deeply
before lending ourselves to what Herbert Spencer thought a phase of
evolution, the lengthening of childhood, for it is just possible that
the earlier recognition of manhood may mean more for individual
development. Of course, geniuses are exceptions to rule, and an
argument founded on their careers may mean very little for the
generality of students.
Like many another of the great scientists, Volta was not that constant
source of satisfaction to his teachers while at school that might
possibly be expected. He had little interest in the conventional
elementary education of the time, he was frequently distracted during
school hours, and even as a mere boy often asked questions with regard
to natural phenomena that were puzzlers to his masters, and sometimes
complained of their lack of knowledge. He fortunately outgrew this
priggishness, for in later childhood he seems to have been one of those
talented children who learn rapidly and who are impatient at being kept
back while their slower fellow-pupils are having drilled into them what
came so easy to readier talents.
In his classical studies, however, Volta was deeply interested. He was
especially enthusiastic over poetry, and at school devoted the spare
time that his readiness of acquisition left him to the reading of Virgil
and Tasso. These favorite authors became so familiar to him that he
could repeat much of them by heart, and even in old age could cap verses
from them better than any of his friends, even those all of whose lives
had been devoted exclusively to literary occupations. During his walks,
when an old man, he often entertained himself by repeating long passages
from the classic Latin and Italian poets.
Even at this time, Volta's interest in the physical sciences was very
marked. There is still extant a Latin poem of about five hundred verses,
in which he sets forth the observations of Priestley, the discoverer of
oxygen, whom it used to be the custom to call the Father of Modern
Chemistry. This poem shows his thorough familiarity with the work of the
great English investigator. Volta's model was Lucretius. Lest it should
be a source of surprise that an Italian scientist had recourse to Latin
for even a poetic account of scientific discoveries, it may be well to
recall that Latin was still the universal language of science at that
time, and Volta's great contemporary in electricity, Galvani, wrote his
original monograph on animal electricity in that language, and even the
Father of Pathology wrote his first great treatise, De Causis et Sedibus
Morborum, in that tongue. As to his adoption of verse as a vehicle for
scientific writing, it must not be forgotten that, at the time when
Volta was writing his poem, another distinguished writer on scientific
subjects, Erasmus Darwin, the grandfather of Charles Darwin of the last
generation, was composing his "Zoonomia; or, Animal Biography," in
English verse. Didactic verse was quite the fashion of the time, and
some of it, even when it came from acknowledged poets, had not more
poetry than Volta's effusion.
As if to make up for his lack of linguistic faculty when young, Volta
seems to have had a special gift for languages when he grew older.
Before the age of twenty, he knew French as well as his mother tongue,
read German and English fluently, and Low Dutch and Spanish were not
beyond his comprehension. Besides his verses in Latin he wrote poetry
also in French and Italian, always with cleverness at least, and at
times with true poetic feeling.
While attending the Jesuit school, he expressed, it is said, a desire
to enter the Order. As his father, however, had been with the Jesuits
for eleven years and had then given up his studies, his family feared a
repetition of such an experience; and so his clergymen uncles took him
away from the school and sent him for a while to the Seminary at Benzi.
After a time Volta abandoned the idea of becoming a priest, but would
not consent to follow the wishes of the family council further, at least
not to the extent of becoming a lawyer. Though he studied law for a
time, he constantly wandered away to the reading of books on the natural
sciences and to the study of natural objects. Finally he was allowed to
give up law to devote himself exclusively to science.
Fortunately, one of the canons of the Cathedral of Como, a former
fellow-student of his and a man of considerable means, was also
interested in the natural sciences, and obtained the books and
instruments necessary to enable Volta and himself to continue their
studies. Father Gattoni seems to have realized at once the possibilities
for great advances in science that lay in Volta's wonderful powers of
observation, and encouraged him in every way. As a consequence, some of
the important experiments that laid the foundation of the modern science
of electricity and proved the beginning of Volta's world-wide reputation
were carried on in Gattoni's rooms.
As a young man, Volta was so completely devoted to scientific
investigations that there could be no doubt of the bent of his genius
for original work of a high order. His power of concentration of
attention on a subject was supreme. Biographers emphasize that there was
no time, much less inclination, for the levities that so often appeal to
the growing youth. He was almost too staid and preoccupied with his
work for his own health and the comfort of his friends. When he became
interested in a series of experiments, he often forgot the flight of
time, and was known to miss meals, and inadvertently to put off going to
bed--apparently quite unconscious of his physical necessities. This
intense concentration of mind had its disadvantages. One of his friends
complained playfully that he made a rather disagreeable traveling
companion on account of his tendency to become abstracted; and on
occasions this friend was deeply mortified to see Volta, when in
company, take out a pocket-handkerchief that had been used for some
purpose in the laboratory--which showed unmistakable signs of its
previous employment as a cleansing agent for dirty instruments or hands,
though its possessor was evidently unconscious of its appearance. More
than once, too, his handkerchief proved, when taken out for its natural
uses, to be as preoccupied as its owner: specimens of rocks or natural
curiosities that he had gathered and inadvertently allowed to remain in
his pocket came with it.
All during his life he retained an unusual faculty for concentrating his
attention, which at times amounted to complete abstraction from his
surroundings. It is related that, one cold morning his students at the
University of Pavia found him in his shirt sleeves, so intent on
arranging the experiments that were to illustrate his morning lecture
that he was unconscious of the time, and even did not notice their
coming into the room until they had been for some time in their seats
and he had finally completed the arrangement for the demonstrations. He
was constantly occupied with problems in natural science, looking for
the explanation of phenomena that he did not understand as well as
gathering new data by observation and experiment. He was gifted with
the supremely inquisitive spirit, in the scientific sense of the
epithet, and could not be satisfied with accepting things as he found
them without knowing the reasons for them.
Volta furnishes another excellent illustration of how soon genius gets
at its life-work. We have his own authority for the fact that he had
come to certain conclusions with regard to the explanation of electrical
phenomena, which, when he was only nineteen years of age, he set forth
in a letter to the Abbé Nollet, who was then one of the best known
experimenters and writers on electrical phenomena in Europe. Though so
young, Volta had tried to simplify Franklin's theory of electricity by
assuming that there was an action only between a (supposed) electrical
substance and matter. It is curious to see how much he anticipated what
was to be the thinking for more than a century after his time and
practically down to the present day. He considers that all bodies, in
their normal state, contain electricity in such proportion that
electrical equilibrium is established within them. Electrical phenomena,
then, are due to disturbances of this equilibrium. Such disturbances may
be produced by physical means, as by friction or by chemical means, and
even atmospheric electricity may be explained in the former way.
Volta's first formal paper on electricity, bearing the title _De Vi
Attractiva Ignis Electrici_, was published in 1769, when he was
twenty-four years of age. His second paper, _Novus Ac Simplicissimus,
Electricorum Tentaminum Apparatus_--New and Very Simple. Apparatus for
Electrical Tests, shows that Volta was getting beyond the stage of
theorizing about electricity into the experimental work, which was to
form the foundation of his contributions to electrical science. It is
not surprising, then, that when he was just past thirty, in 1775, he was
able to announce to Priestley his invention of the electrophorus.
Priestley is usually thought of as one of the founders of modern
chemistry, but he was known to his own generation, especially at this
time, as the writer of a very interesting and complete history of
electricity. It is characteristic of Volta's careful ways, that the
reason for his letter to Priestley was in order to obtain information
from him as to what extent this invention, which Volta knew, as far as
he was concerned, to be original with himself, was novel in the domain
of electrical advance.[20]
With the intense interest in his work that we have noted, it is not
surprising to find Volta's investigations proving fruitful. His active
inventive genius stood him in good stead in enabling him to demonstrate
principles by working instruments. The electrophorus is but one of the
instruments that show the very practical character of the man. He was
especially taken with the idea of securing some method of measuring
electricity. Among other things, he invented the condensing
electroscope, in which, instead of the ribbons of gold leaf now
employed, he used straws. With this instrument he was able to
demonstrate the presence of minute quantities of electricity developed
under circumstances in which ordinarily the occurrence of any such
phenomena would be unsuspected. These two instruments, the electroscope
and the electrophorus, lifted the department of electricity out of the
realm of theory into that of accurate scientific demonstration, and
made the electrical departments of the physical laboratories of the time
much more interesting and important than they had been before.
Though so early occupied with electricity, Volta did not confine himself
to this subject, nor even to the wider field of physics, and that he did
not hesitate, in his scientific inquisitiveness, to follow clues even in
chemistry, is well illustrated by his first step in the investigation of
gases. His attention being called to bubbles breaking on the surface of
Lake Maggiore while on a fishing excursion, he set about finding their
source, and noted that whenever the bottom of the lake near the shore
was stirred somewhat a number of bubbles arose, and that the gas thus
set free was inflammable. He constructed an electrical pistol in which
gases thus set free were exploded by a spark from the electrophorus.
About the same time, on the principle of the electrical pistol, he
invented the eudiometer, an apparatus by means of which the oxygen
content of air could be determined.
With regard to these inventions, Arago calls attention to a special
quality that is peculiar to all of Volta's work. "There is not a single
one of the discoveries of Professor Volta," says the distinguished
French scientist, "which can be said to be the result of chance. Every
instrument with which he has enriched science existed in principle in
his imagination before an artisan began to put it into a material
shape."
After these inventions and his previous work, it is not surprising that
in 1774 Volta was offered the professorship of experimental physics in
the College of Como. Here he labored for five years, until he received
a call, in 1779, to the professorship of physics at the University of
Pavia, where he was destined to remain in an active teaching capacity
for a period of forty years.
Volta began his life-work as professor of physics at Pavia by extending
his observations on gases. He was the first to demonstrate the expansion
of gases under heat, especially as regards their increased expansibility
at higher temperatures. Many observers had been at work on this problem
before his time, but there were serious discrepancies in the results
reported. Volta was the first to point out the reasons for the apparent
inconsistencies of previous investigators' findings; and from his
observations alone some valuable data might have been obtained for the
establishment of what has since become known as the "law of Charles."
At this time, his knowledge of English enabled him to follow English
discoveries closely, and he seems to have paid particular attention to
the work of Cavendish and Priestley. Not long after Cavendish's
description of the method of obtaining pure hydrogen, Volta made a
series of observations on the relations of spongy platinum to this gas,
and pointed out the spontaneous ignition that takes place when the two
substances are brought together. This experiment is the basis of what
has since been known as the hydrogen lamp, called, from the German
observer who first made it a practical instrument, Dobereiner's lamp.
After seven years of teaching, Volta was given the opportunity to visit
various parts of Europe, and took advantage of the occasion to meet most
of the celebrated men of science. His linguistic faculty stood him in
good stead during this sabbatical year, and his travel aided him in
completing a thorough acquaintanceship with European languages as well
as with scientists. His practical character led him, during his trip, to
note the growth of the potato and its uses in various European
countries, and he brought the plant home with him to Italy in order to
introduce it among the farmers. He succeeded in making his countrymen
realize its value, and the introduction of the potato is one of the
reasons for which Italians have always looked up to him as a benefactor
of his native land. How modern this makes a vegetable we are inclined to
think of as having been always an important food resource of the race!
About the middle of the third quarter of the eighteenth century, by one
of the fortunate accidents that happen, however, only to genius,
Galvani, at the time Professor of anatomy in Bologna, had been led to
make the observation that if a frog, so prepared that its hind leg is
attached to the trunk only by means of the sciatic nerve, happens to be
touched by a metal instrument in such a way as to put nerve and muscle
in connection with each other through the metal instrument, a very
curious phenomenon is observed, the muscles of the almost severed leg
becoming spasmodically contracted and then relaxed whenever the contacts
were made and broken. Galvani noted the phenomenon first in connection
with an electric machine, and looked for an explanation of it in
electricity, thinking that there was an analogy between it and the
discharge of the Leyden jar. After several years of careful observation,
he published a monograph on the subject, which at once attracted
attention all over Europe.
Volta was very much interested in Galvani's work, and took up the
development of it from the physical side. At first he agreed with the
explanation offered by Galvani, who considered that his experiment
demonstrated the presence of electricity in animal bodies, and who
proposed to introduce the term "animal electricity." After careful
investigation, however, Galvani's assertion that animal electricity
existed in a form entirely independent of any external electricity,
though it had been accepted by most of the distinguished men of science
of the time, seemed to Volta without experimental verification. For many
years his most determined efforts were used to demonstrate that the
muscle twitchings observed were not due to the presence of animal
electricity (galvanism as it had come to be called), but to the fact
that the metals touching the different portions of the moist nerve
muscle preparation really set up minute currents of ordinary
electricity.
Some of the experiments which he devised for this purpose were extremely
ingenious, and show how thoroughly empirical were his methods and how
modern his scientific spirit. In the course of his experiments he found
that a difference in the metals of which the arc was composed, when used
for the purpose of eliciting the so-called animal electricity, made a
great difference in the electrical phenomena observed and in the amount
of muscle twitchings obtained. In one brilliant series of experiments,
moreover, he showed that, even when the metallic portions touching nerve
and muscle were identical, there might still be distinct electrical
phenomena, if only an artificial difference in temperature of the end of
the metallic arc were produced. Volta was even able to demonstrate that
such minute physical differences as the filing of one end of the
metallic arc used might give rise to small currents of electricity.
In the midst of these experiments, he came to the realization that two
portions of metal of different kinds, separated by a moist
non-conducting material, might be made to produce a constant current of
electricity for some time. More than this, however, he found that discs
of metal of different kinds might be piled on top of one another with
intervening discs of moist cloth, and so produce proportionately
stronger currents as more and more of the metal plates were employed.
This was the origin of the voltaic pile, as it has been called--the
first battery for the production at will of regular currents of
electricity of definite strength.[19]
While engaged at this he succeeded in demonstrating what has come to be
known as Volta's basic experiment; namely, that two plates of metal of
different kinds become electrically excited merely by contact. This was
practically the beginning of the great advance in applied electricity
which ushered in our modern electrical era. It seems a simple matter
now, looking back over the century that has elapsed since then, to have
taken the successive steps that Volta did for the construction of his
electrical pile and for the demonstration of the principle of contact
electricity. Groping, as he was, in the dark, however, it took him three
years to make the progress that we have described in a few words. How
great his discoveries appeared, even to the most distinguished of his
scientific contemporaries, can best be judged from an expression of one
of the greatest of French electrical scientists, Arago, who declared
"Volta's pile the most wonderful instrument that has ever come from the
hand of man, not excluding even the telescope or the steam-engine."
An excellent description of just how Volta made his electric pile and
what he was able to accomplish with it experimentally in the laboratory,
is to be found in the numbers for January and February, 1900, of the
Stimmen aus Maria-Laach--a literary and scientific periodical published
by the German Jesuits. This article on Alessandro Volta, by Father
Kneller, S. J., was written shortly after the celebration of the
hundredth anniversary of Volta's invention of the electric pile, when
there had just been a fresh sorting over of Volta's documents, and
contains a very full set of references to the biographical material for
Volta's life. Father Kneller says:
"Before this, no one thought for a moment of any possibility of the
practical application of electricity. But all at once the whole
situation changed. After eight years of observation and experiment,
Volta accomplished one day, at the beginning of 1800, in his laboratory
at Como, the construction of an instrument which was to revolutionize
the study and the practical applications of electricity. He made a pile
composed of a large number of equal-sized copper and zinc discs. On each
copper disc he placed one of zinc, and then on this a moistened piece of
cloth, and continued the series of alternate discs and cloths in this
order until he had a rather high column. This was an apparatus as
simple as possible and from which no one but Volta could possibly have
promised any results. The inventor, however, knew what he was about.
"As soon as he had connected the upper and lower metal plates by means
of a wire, there began to flow from the zinc to the copper a secret
something, which by the application of the ends of the wire to muscles
caused them to twitch; which appeared before the eye as light; applied
to the tongue, gave a sensation of taste; caused a thin wire to glow and
even to burn between carbon points; produced a blinding light;
decomposed water into its constituents; dissolved hitherto unknown
metals out of salts and earth; made iron magnetic; directed the magnetic
needle out of its path; inclosed wire coils caused new electric currents
to be set up; to say nothing of the awful spectacle which occurred when,
under the influence of the electric current, the bodies of executed
criminals again gave movements of the limbs, their thoraxes really
heaved and sank as if they really breathed, and even a dead grasshopper
was caused to spring and apparently to sing again.
"Only now, after the discovery of this new kind of electricity--which
did not work merely by jerks, but flowed in a constant stream from pole
to pole--only now was this mighty natural agent won to the service of
man. Volta is, therefore, above all others, the one who broke ground not
only for an immense amount of new knowledge in physics, chemistry and
physiology, but who also made possible rapid progress in practical
electricity, in telegraphy, in electric motors and power machines, in
electroplating and the marvelous results in electro-galvanism which
constitute our most wonderful mechanical effects at the present time."
Soon after Volta's discovery of the electric pile, or voltaic pile, as
it was called in his honor, his reputation spread throughout Europe. At
the beginning of 1800, he sent a detailed description of the voltaic
pile to the Royal Society of London. During the year 1801 the scientific
journals all over Europe were filled with discussions of his discovery.
The French Academy of Sciences invited him to Paris in order to
demonstrate his discoveries to the members of that body. Volta was now
looking forward to some peaceful years of study, and, so far as he was
personally concerned, would surely have refused the invitation.
Circumstances were such, however, that it became a civic duty for him to
proceed to Paris.
At this time Napoleon was First Consul, and the Italian cities wished to
propitiate his favor as far as possible. It was considered a wise thing
by the city to send a special delegation to Paris, and, as they knew
Napoleon was deeply interested in scientific discoveries that promised
practical results, the name of Volta was suggested as one of the
official delegates. As an associate, Professor Brugnatelli, who had made
some important investigations in chemistry, and who was later to be an
extender of the practical application of Volta's discoveries by the
invention of the first method of electroplating, was the other member of
the delegation. It is a curious reflection on the facilities for travel
at the time, that it took twenty-six days for the delegates to reach
Paris from Pavia.
Shortly after their arrival in Paris, the travelers were formally
introduced to the members of the French Institute, and a number of
sessions of the Academy were held, at which Volta's discoveries were
discussed. Volta read a communication on the identity of electricity and
galvanism. Napoleon, as First Consul, was present at these sessions in
the robe of an Academician, and was not only an interested listener, but
occasionally, by pertinent questions, drew out significant details of
former experiments and Volta's own theories with regard to the nature of
the phenomena observed. At the end of the first meeting, at which Volta
took a prominent part, Napoleon spent several hours with him talking
about the prospects of electricity.
In his letters to his brothers and to his wife at this time, Volta
expressed his pleasure at finding how much attention his discoveries
were attracting all over Europe. As he said himself, Germany, France and
England were full of them, and all the distinguished scientists were
eager to do him honor. In France, he was chosen one of the eight foreign
members of the Institute, and was made Knight Commander of the Legion of
Honor and of the Order of the Iron Crown. Napoleon selected him as one
of the first members of the Italian Academy, which he was then in course
of establishing, and conferred on him the honor of Senator and Count of
the Kingdom of Italy. The French Academy, after having heard Volta's own
description of his experiments and discoveries, contrary to its usual
custom, voted to him by acclamation its gold medal. More important
still, Bonaparte made him a present of 6000 lire, and conferred upon him
an annual income of 3000 lire from the public purse. It is an index of
Volta's feeling as a faithful son of the Church, that as this income was
allotted to him from the revenues of the bishopric of Adria, he would
consent to receive it only after Napoleon's decree had been confirmed
by the Pope.
Volta had been for nearly twenty years in the University of Pavia before
he finally found for himself a wife. He was then past forty-nine years
of age. His wife was the youngest daughter of Count Ludovico Peregrini.
She had six sisters, one of whom became a nun, and all the others were
married before Volta sought the hand of the youngest. Writing to a
friend, he says, "that her sisters had distinguished themselves so much
by piety, prudence, good sense and practical economy in their households
as well as by the most admirable qualities of heart and mind, that he
considered himself very fortunate in obtaining a branch from the family
tree; and he took her in preference to others that had been offered to
him, even though they were possessed of greater physical beauty, more
exalted piety and a larger dowry." The marriage seems to have been a
very happy one, notwithstanding the considerable disparity of ages and
the very matter-of-fact spirit with which it was entered into by one of
the parties at least.
The charming intimacy of his domestic life may be judged from some of
his letters to his wife when he was traveling. She was always his
confidante with regard to new things in science that he saw, and
especially as regards the kindly reception which he met with from
scientists and the readiness with which they accepted his views. At
first, so many of his ideas were new, that it is not surprising that
they were looked at somewhat askance by contemporary scientists. When,
on his journeys through France, he noticed the trend of opinion setting
in favor of his views in electricity, he took pains to tell his wife,
and apparently found his greatest pleasure in having her share the joy
of his triumph.
One of the severest blows that he suffered was the untimely death of his
eldest son, Flaminio, in 1814. "This loss," he wrote to one of his
nephews not long after, "strikes me so much to heart that I do not think
I shall ever have another happy day." The relations between himself and
his children were all of the kindliest nature; and the character of the
man comes out perhaps even more clearly in the traditions that are still
extant with regard to the devotion of his servants to him, and
especially his body-servant, Polonio. Volta was always a simple and
unpretentious person, notwithstanding the fact that scientific and even
political honors had been heaped upon him toward the end of his life. It
was rather difficult, for instance, to get him to change his old clothes
for new ones. This feat was usually accomplished by Polonio, who, when
he thought the time had arrived for his master to put on the newer
clothes, would engage him in some scientific explanation of a morning;
then handing him the new garments, Volta would put them on, and would be
wearing them for some time before he noticed it. The old servant was
then generally able to persuade him that it was time to make the change.
Toward the end of his career, Volta led a retired life in a country
house not far from his native city of Como. Foreigners often came to see
or even have the privilege of a few words with the distinguished
scientist who was regarded as the patriarch of electrical science. To
Volta, the being on exhibition was always an unpleasant function. He did
not care to be lionized, and frequently refused to allow himself even to
be seen unless his visitors had a scientific motive. On such occasions,
the only chance of the visitors was to secure the good will of Polonio.
He would engage his unsuspecting master in a discussion of clouds or
wind, or some appearance in the heavens, or something in the leaves of
the neighboring trees, and would then bring him to the portico, that he
might see the supposed phenomenon. This would give occasion for the
visitors to get at least a glimpse of the scientist, who usually failed
to suspect the real purpose for which he had been tempted out of doors.
While thus living in the country, Volta's piety became a sort of proverb
among the country people. Every morning at an early hour, in company
with his servant, he could be seen with bowed head making his way to the
church. Here he heard mass, and usually the office of the day, in which
all the canons of the cathedral took part. He had a special place on the
epistle side of the altar, not far from the organ. His favorite method
of prayer was the rosary. He was not infrequently held up to the people
by the parish priest as a model of devotion. Whenever he was in the
country, every evening saw him taking his walk towards the church. On
these occasions, he was usually accompanied by members of his family,
and they entered the church for an evening visit to the blessed
sacrament.
His behavior toward those who lived in the vicinity of his country place
endeared him to all the peasantry. He was not only liberal in giving
alms, but made it a point to visit frequently the houses of the poor and
help them as much as possible by counsel and suggestion. His scientific
knowledge was at command for their benefit, and he was often able to
tell them how to avoid many dangers. He gave them definite ideas with
regard to the importance of cleanliness and the necessity of cooking
their food very carefully so as to prevent diseases occasioned by badly
cooked material. He also taught them to distinguish between the
wholesome and the spurred rye, from which their polenta was prepared, in
order to escape the dreaded pellagra, the disease so common in Italy,
which comes from the use of diseased grain.
He endeared himself so much to the people of the countryside that they
invented a special name for him, which proclaimed the tenderness of
their liking for the man. They knew how much he was honored for his
wonderful discoveries in electricity, and many of them had even seen
some of the (to them at least) inexplicable phenomena that he could
produce at will by means of various electrical contrivances. At first
they called him a "magician"; but as this word has, particularly for the
Italian peasantry, a suspicion of evil in it, they added the adjective
"beneficent," and he was generally known as _Il mago benefico_.
His interest in these gentle, kindly people may be appreciated from the
fact that he knew practically all of his country neighbors by name, and,
as a rule, he was familiar also with the conditions of their families
and their household affairs. Not infrequently he would stop and talk to
them about such things, and this favor was always considered as a
precious mark of his neighborly courtesy by the peasantry.
Such was the simplicity of the man whose name is undoubtedly one of the
greatest in the history of science. The great beginnings of the chapter
on applied electricity are all his. There was nothing he touched in his
work that he did not illuminate. His was typically the mind of the
genius, ever reaching out beyond the boundaries of the known--an
abundant source of leading and light for others. Far from being a
doubter in matters religious, his scientific greatness seemed only to
make him readier to submit to what are sometimes spoken of as the
shackles of faith, though to him belief appealed as a completion of
knowledge of things beyond the domain of sense or the ordinary powers of
intellectual acquisition. Like Pasteur, a century later, the more he
knew, the more ready was he to believe and the more satisfying he found
his faith. This is a very different picture of the great scientific mind
from that ordinarily presented as characteristic of scientific thinkers.
But Volta is not an exception; rather does he represent the rule, so far
as the very great scientists are concerned; for it is only the
second-rate minds, those destined to follow but not to lead, in science,
who have so constantly proclaimed the opposition of science to faith.
Volta's well-known confession of faith declares his state of mind with
regard to religion better than any words of a biographer, and it is a
striking commentary on the impression that has in some inexplicable way
gained wide acceptance, that a man cannot be a great scientist and a
firm believer in religion. A distinguished professor of psychology at
one of the large American universities said not long since, that a
scientist must keep his science and religion apart, or there will be
serious consequences for his religion. Volta's opinion in this matter is
worth remembering. Having heard it said that, though he continued to
practice his religion, this was more because he did not want to offend
friends, that he did not care to scandalize his neighbors, and did not
want the poor folk around him to be led by his example into giving up
what he knew to be their most fruitful source of consolation in the
trials of life, while in the full exercise of his intellectual
faculties, Volta deliberately wrote out his confession of faith so that
all the world of his own and the after time might know it.
"If some of my faults and negligences may have by chance given occasion
to some one to suspect me of infidelity, I am ready, as some reparation
for this and for any other good purpose, to declare to such a one and to
every other person and on every occasion and under all circumstances
that I have always held, and hold now, the Holy Catholic Religion as the
only true and infallible one, thanking without end the good God for
having gifted me with such a faith, in which I firmly propose to live
and die, in the lively hope of attaining eternal life. I recognize my
faith as a gift of God, a supernatural faith. I have not, on this
account, however, neglected to use all human means that could confirm me
more and more in it and that might drive away any doubt which could
arise to tempt me in matters of faith. I have studied my faith with
attention as to its foundations, reading for this purpose books of
apologetics as well as those written with a contrary purpose, and trying
to appreciate the arguments pro and contra. I have tried to realize from
what sources spring the strongest arguments which render faith most
credible to natural reason and such as cannot fail to make every
well-balanced mind which has not been perverted by vice or passion
embrace it and love it. May this protest of mine, which I have
deliberately drawn up and which I leave to posterity, subscribed with my
own hand and which shows to all and everyone that I do not blush at the
Gospel--may it, as I have said, produce some good fruit.--Signed at
Milan, Jan. 6th, 1815, Alessandro Volta."
When Volta wrote this, he was just approaching his sixtieth year and was
in the full maturity of his powers. He lived for twelve years after
this, looked up to as one of the great thinkers of Europe and as one of
the most important men of Italy of this time. Far from being in his
dotage, then, he was at the moment surely, if ever, in the best position
to know his own mind with regard to his faith and his relations to the
Creator.
There is a famous picture of Volta, by Magaud, in Marseilles. It
chronicles the fact that Volta had become a Count, a Senator and a
Member of the French Institute, so appointed by Napoleon, and that he is
in some sense therefore a Frenchman. Magaud has painted him standing,
with his electric apparatus on one side and the Scriptures on the other.
Near him is placed his friend Sylvio Pellico, whose little book, "My Ten
Years' Imprisonment," has endeared him to thousands of readers all over
the world. Pellico had doubted the presence of Providence in the world
and the existence of a hereafter. In the midst of his doubts, he turned
to Volta. "In thy old age, O Volta!" said Pellico, "the hand of
Providence placed in thy pathway a young man gone astray. Oh! thou, said
I to the ancient seer, who hast plunged deeper than others into the
secrets of the Creator, teach me the road that will lead me to the
light." And the old man made answer: "I too have doubted, but I have
sought. The great scandal of my youth was to behold the teachers of
those days lay hold of science to combat religion. For me to-day I see
only God everywhere."
FOOTNOTES:
[19] Wilcke, a Swedish investigator of electric phenomena,
constructed in 1762 two machines involving the principle of the
electrophorus.--(BROTHER POTAMIAN.)
[20] Brother Potamian has called my attention to the fact that
Volta's work on the origin of electricity from two different metals
when, though connected, they were yet separated by some moist medium,
was curiously anticipated by an observation described by Sulzer, in a
book called Nouvelle Théorie des Plaisirs, 1767. In this he states that,
if a silver and a lead coin, placed one above and the other under the
tongue, be brought in contact a sour taste develops, which he considers
to be due to vibrations set up by the contact of the two metals. He
seems also to have had a dash of light before the eyes, so that all the
elements necessary for the discovery of the voltaic pile were in his
hands, and indeed he was making what has since become one of the
classical experiments, by which certain physiological effects of the
electric current are demonstrated.