"SCIENCE WHICH I LOVED."
"If I would strive to bring back times, and try
The world's pure gold, and wise simplicity;
If I would virtue set as she was young,
And hear her speak with one, and her first tongue;
If holiest friendship naked to the touch,
I would restore and keep it ever such;
I need no other arts but study thee,
Who prov'st all these were, and again may be."
BEN JONSON.
The year of Faraday's marriage which, as we have seen in the previous
chapter, was also important to him in other ways, was marked by one
unpleasant incident which was talked about for some time afterward;
but although Faraday was then spoken of in no measured terms, it has
been conclusively shown that far from any blame being attached to
him, the facts of the case are much to his credit. To put the matter
shortly it was this. Dr. Wollaston had an idea as to the possibility
of electro-magnetic rotation; he expected, in other words, to be able
to demonstrate that the "wire in the voltaic circuit would revolve on
its own axis." He was at the Institution one day in the early part of
1821, and was making an experiment in the laboratory with Sir Humphry
Davy. Faraday, who was not present during the experiment, came in
in time to hear the conversation that followed. He afterwards made
various experiments on this subject, and was invited by the editor
of the _Annals of Philosophy_ to contribute an historical sketch of
electro-magnetism. This sketch appeared in the _Annals_ of the same
year; Faraday repeating nearly all of the experiments to which he
referred. These experiments of Faraday's led him to the discovery,
early in September, of the "rotation of a wire in voltaic current round
a magnet, and of a magnet round the wire." He could not make the wire
and the magnet revolve on their own axis. "There was not the slightest
indication that such was the case."
Before he published the paper descriptive of these "new
electro-magnetical motions," Faraday essayed to see Dr. Wollaston
that he might get permission to refer to Wollaston's experiments.
The doctor was out of town, and the paper was published "by an error
of judgment" without any reference to his opinions and intentions.
Directly afterwards Faraday was extremely distressed at hearing rumours
which "affected his honour and his honesty." He wrote at once, not
only to Stodart, but directly to Dr. Wollaston, whom he met, and after
mutual explanation the matter dropped. Faraday, however, continued his
electro-magnetic experiments. It is one of these that is referred to
by his brother-in-law, who was with him one Christmas Day when: "All
at once he exclaimed, 'Do you see, do you see, do you see, George?' as
the small wire began to revolve. I shall never forget the enthusiasm
expressed in his face, and the sparkling in his eyes."
In the summer of 1822 Faraday was at Swansea for a fortnight with
Phillips, the editor of the _Philosophical Magazine_. Before starting,
however, he took his wife and her mother down to Ramsgate, whither he
addressed to his wife three letters, in which are evident the deep
feelings which were his in regard to their relations. The first letter
was written on his arrival in town after leaving Ramsgate. After
detailing what he has done, he breaks off, "And now, my dear girl, I
must set business aside. I am tired of the dull detail of things, and
want to talk of love to you; and surely there can be no circumstance
under which I can have more right. The theme was a cheerful and
delightful one before we were married, but it is doubly so now.... Oh,
my dear Sarah, poets may strive to describe and artists to delineate
the happiness which is felt by two hearts truly and mutually loving
each other; but it is beyond their efforts, and beyond the thoughts
and conceptions of anyone who has not felt it. I have felt it and do
feel it, but neither I nor any other man can describe it; nor is it
necessary. We are happy, and our God has blessed us with a thousand
causes why we should be so. Adieu for to-night."
The letters from Swansea give an account of his journey, and of his
host's house, of work at the copper furnaces, and other places; of the
many people there are at Mr. Vivian's (with whom he was staying), and
of the late and long dinner, which he made up his mind to avoid if
possible. He stayed out walking one evening, got back after dinner had
commenced, and so stole up to his own room that he might write a long
letter to his wife, in reply to one which he had received from her. "I
could almost rejoice at my absence from you," he wrote, "if it were
only that it has produced such an earnest and warm mark of affection
from you as that letter. Tears of joy and delight fell from my eyes on
its perusal."
Early in the following year Faraday was experimenting on chlorine, a
subject that had attracted a great deal of Davy's attention. At Davy's
suggestion he enclosed some of the gas in an hermetically sealed glass
tube, that he might "work with it under pressure, and see what would
happen by heat." What "happened" was that on several occasions the tube
exploded, twice doing injury to Faraday's eyes. On one of the occasions
when Faraday was at work, Dr. Paris happened to enter the laboratory,
and seeing an oily liquid in the tube rallied him on his carelessness
in using dirty vessels. When, afterwards, the end of the tube was filed
off, there was an explosion, and the oily matter disappeared. Early on
the following day Dr. Paris received this note:--
"Dear Sir,--The _oil_ you noticed yesterday turns out to be liquid
chlorine.
"Yours faithfully, M. FARADAY."
He had in fact succeeded in converting chlorine gas into a liquid by
means of its own pressure. This was an important discovery which led to
numerous experiments with other gases, and with like results.
On May 1st, 1823, Faraday's certificate as a candidate for fellowship
in the Royal Society was read for the first time. Such a distinction
was no doubt a coveted one in Faraday's eyes, and it must have been
extremely painful to him when he found that Sir Humphry Davy was
opposed to his election. It is interesting to observe, however, that
the very first signature on his certificate is that of Dr. Wollaston.
Such being the case it seems impossible that the old charge against
Faraday in regard to electro-magnetic rotation could have been
revived, and yet so it was. Wollaston himself had expressed perfect
satisfaction, and the matter seemed definitely settled. Much as this
revival of an untrue charge must have distressed a man of Faraday's
uncompromising integrity, to find Davy, of all men, opposing him must
have been yet more distressing. That Davy's opposition was active may
be surmised from the following, which is told by Faraday himself:
"Sir H. Davy told me I must take down my certificate. I replied that
I had not put it up; that I could not take it down, as it was put
up by my proposers. He then said I must get my proposers to take it
down. I answered that I knew they would not do so. Then he said, I, as
President, will take it down. I replied that I was sure Sir H. Davy
would do what he thought was for the good of the Royal Society."
This attitude of Davy's naturally pained Faraday exceedingly; many
years afterwards some allusion by a friend to his early life led up
to a mention of it; Faraday rose abruptly from his seat, and took a
rapid walk up and down the room, saying, "Talk of something else,
and never let me speak of this again. I wish to remember nothing but
Davy's kindness." There were tears in his eyes as he spoke, showing
how deeply the man was moved. Faraday also said that Davy had walked
for an hour about the courtyard of Somerset House, arguing with one of
his proposers that Faraday should not be elected. We know none of the
reasons for Davy's opposition, and his attitude in this affair must
ever remain a cloud on his fair fame; that he, a self-made man, who had
risen to the first position among modern chemists, should oppose at
this stage of his career a man somewhat similarly circumstanced, who
was also moving upwards step by step to one of the highest positions
among modern philosophers, as he loved always to be called, is indeed
as strange as it is regrettable. The fact, sad as it is, has to be
noted; but we will not dwell upon it; more gratifying is it to learn
how, when the ballot was taken, Michael Faraday was almost unanimously
elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, there being but one black ball.
This, in after years, he proudly mentioned, was the only one among
his innumerable honours that he had sought for. Scarce a year passed
afterwards but some fresh distinction was conferred upon him.
Early in 1824 John Wilson Croker, with Sir Thomas Lawrence, Sir F.
Chantrey, and Sir H. Davy founded the Athenæum Club, which still
flourishes. For a short while Faraday acted as honorary secretary
to the Club; but his more congenial scientific labours could not be
neglected, and he soon retired from the secretaryship, in which he was
succeeded by his friend Magrath, who continued to hold the post for
many years.
Faraday's notes and papers contributed to the scientific journals and
other periodicals were frequent, but it would profit little here to
detail them. One discovery he made about this time is well worthy of
mention as it has had an important effect on a particular industry--the
discovery was that of benzol, benzine, or as Faraday named it,
"bicarburet of hydrogen." This is prepared now in large quantities,
being employed in the manufacture of aniline colours.
We have it on the authority of Sir Roderick Murchison that Faraday's
first lecture at the Royal Institution was delivered in the following
circumstances. Brande, who had succeeded Sir Humphry Davy as the
Professor of Chemistry, was delivering a course of lectures; one day
the lecturer, owing to illness or some other cause, was absent, but
his assistant (Faraday) took his place, and lectured with so much ease
that he won the complete approval of his audience. In this connection
too, it is interesting to note that it was towards the close of this
same year that Faraday began his experiments in magnetic electricity,
the particular branch of research which was to occupy a great part of
his later life, and in which he was destined to make some of his most
brilliant discoveries.
[Illustration: THE LABORATORY, ROYAL INSTITUTION.]
It is pleasing to find that whatever may have been Davy's object
in opposing Faraday's election into the Royal Society, he did not
bear him any continued ill-will; this is shown us not only by Davy's
expressions of goodwill in his letters, but by such things as an entry
in the minutes of a meeting of the managers of the Royal Institution in
February, 1825. From this entry we learn that Sir Humphry Davy, "having
stated that he considered the talents and services of Mr. Faraday,
assistant in the laboratory, entitled to some mark of approbation from
the managers, and these sentiments having met the cordial concurrence
of the board; _Resolved_:--That Mr. Faraday be appointed Director
of the Laboratory, under the superintendence of the Professor of
Chemistry."
It was after receiving this appointment that Faraday occasionally
invited members of the Institution to evening meetings in the
laboratory, when he generally had something new and interesting to
show them. In these meetings in the laboratory was the origin of
those regular Friday evening meetings in the theatre, which commenced
in 1826, which have had for many years a world-wide reputation, and
which have drawn together, week after week and year after year, large
numbers of persons interested in science and in its popular exposition.
In 1826, the year in which the first regular Friday evening meetings
took place, seventeen lectures were delivered, six of them being given
by Faraday himself, on such a variety of subjects as "Caoutchouc,"
"Lithography," "Brunel's Tunnel at Rotherhithe," etc. His aim in
inaugurating these "Friday evenings" may be gathered from the scanty
notes which he made for introducing one of the earliest of the
lectures:--"Evening opportunities--interesting, amusing; instructive
also:--scientific research--abstract reasoning, but in a popular
way--dignity;--facilitate our object of attracting the world, and
making ourselves with science attractive to it."
These notes, slight as they are, give us an idea of what Faraday's
objects were, and are at the same time interesting, as they may fairly
be said to represent the aim of a large part of his lecturing work
throughout his career, the aim that is, which always seemed to be his,
to make the subject of which he was speaking amusing, interesting, and
instructive. No other man had ever succeeded in attracting the world to
science by making the science attractive to them. High as is Faraday's
position as a scientist and philosopher, he is also to be remembered
with much gratitude as, in point of time as well as of ability, the
first of all true popularisers of science. This may not at first sound
a very high title to bestow, but yet it is far from an insignificant
one, and one that must indeed have gratified Faraday; much as he was
pleased with the acknowledgment of himself as one of their peers by
such men as Davy, De la Rive, and other scientists, the knowledge that
he was interpreting the wonders of Nature to a vast number of persons
hitherto ignorant, or in a measure ignorant, of her marvellous ways,
was yet more pleasing to him. We can fully understand his echoing the
sentiment which the late James Russell Lowell, speaking of the poet,
expresses in the following beautiful verses:--
"It may be glorious to write
Thoughts that shall glad the two or three
High souls, like those far stars that come in sight
Once in a century;--
"But better far it is to speak
One simple word, which now and then
Shall waken their free nature in the weak
And friendless sons of men;
"To write some earnest verse or line,
Which, seeking not the praise of art,
Shall make a clearer faith and manhood shine
In the untutored heart.
"He who doth this in verse or prose,
May be forgotten in his day,
But surely shall be crowned at last with those
Who live and speak for aye."
In 1827 Faraday's first book--_On Chemical Manipulation_--was produced.
Faraday had published a short while before an account of some discovery
he had made with respect to the existence of fluid sulphurs; in this
year he writes:--"I have just learned that Signor Bellani had observed
the same fact in 1813. M. Bellani complains of the manner in which
facts and theories which have been published by him are afterwards
given by others as new discoveries; and though I find myself classed
with Gay-Lussac, Sir H. Davy, Daniell and Bostock, in having thus
erred, I shall not rest satisfied without making restitution, for
M. Bellani in this instance certainly deserves it at my hand." This
is worthy of note as a slight illustration of the true integrity of
Faraday's character; much as he valued any original discovery he might
make, he valued much more that absolute truth which made him render
honour to any predecessor even at his own expense; this was done,
too, always as a matter of course, without the slightest spirit of
grudging. His behaviour on such occasions, which are indeed too trying
to most persons, had perhaps a great deal to do with the feeling which
he awakened in all who came in contact with him. Never, perhaps, was
there a more unselfish, as there was never a more universally beloved,
man. "His friendship," as Professor Tyndall says, "was energy and
inspiration."
Faraday was appointed member of a "committee for the improvement of
glass for optical purposes;" one of the results of his investigation
was that when delivering, in 1829, the Bakerian lecture at the Royal
Institution, he took for his subject, "The Manufacture of Glass for
Optical Purposes." For further investigation of this subject a special
experimenting room and furnace had been built at the Institution in
1827, and a special assistant--Sergeant Anderson--engaged to assist
Faraday. One chief object of these experiments was to improve the
glasses of telescopes. This desired result was, however, not attained,
although some notable work was done; the glass then manufactured, for
instance, became invaluable in some of Faraday's later researches. In
1830 the glass-making investigation stopped, and in the year following
the committee presented their report to the Royal Society which had
appointed them.
The recognition of Faraday's importance in the world of science was now
made more manifest each year; not only were honours done him by various
English and Continental societies, but in 1826 the managers of the
Royal Institution "relieved him from his duty as chemical assistant
at the lectures because of his occupation in research." In 1829 he was
invited to attend the meetings of the managers. In 1827 he had been
offered the Professorship of Chemistry in London University, but much
as he felt the honour which was done him, Faraday declined it, and from
the noblest of motives, as will be seen in this passage from his letter
to Dr. Lardner on the subject.
"I think it a matter of duty and gratitude on my part to do what I
can for the good of the Royal Institution in the present attempt to
establish it firmly. The Institution has been a source of knowledge and
pleasure to me for the last fourteen years; and though it does not pay
me in salary for what I _now_ strive to do for it, yet I possess the
kind feelings and goodwill of its authorities and members, and all the
privileges it can grant or I require; and, moreover, I remember the
protection it has afforded me during the past years of my scientific
life."
In 1829 he was offered, and accepted, as it did not interfere with his
Royal Institution work, a post as lecturer in chemistry at the Royal
Academy, Woolwich.
In the same year died Sir Humphry Davy--the great chemist to whom
Faraday owed so much, and to whom, as we have shown, he remained deeply
attached to the last. Davy had fought his way up as Faraday had done,
but, unlike Faraday, had been in a measure spoiled by his success; he
had very little self-control, and but little method and order, and was,
perhaps, too anxious about his fame,--about how he would stand in the
eyes of men. With Faraday it was far different--he aimed at truth in
his knowledge, and cared but little for what the world might consider
as success. He was known to say, referring to his experiments under
Davy, "that the greatest of all his great advantages was that he had a
model to teach him what to avoid." Faraday and Davy were, nevertheless,
friends to the last, and the death of the latter at the comparatively
early age of fifty-two must have been a great blow to the younger man.
The year 1831 is an important one in the life of Michael Faraday, for
it was then that he commenced his brilliant series of experiments
in electro-magnetism. It is on his electrical research that his
chief claim to be remembered as a scientist rests. He had earlier
experimented in the same connection, but hitherto without attaining
the results which he had anticipated. But from this time forward he
devoted much energy to this branch of research, with such success
that if we pick up any of the most recent works on electrical science
we inevitably find an important position given in it to the name and
discoveries of Michael Faraday. This is not the place to enter into
a description of these experiments, though reference to them will of
course be made later on in this biography in the chapter devoted to a
consideration of Faraday's discoveries. In the year 1833 Faraday was
appointed Fullerian Professor of Chemistry in the Royal Institution
for life, without the obligation of having to deliver lectures in
connection with the professorship.
In the year 1834 a boy living in a distant part of England wrote
to Professor Faraday, saying that he was desirous of taking up a
scientific career. Doubtless remembering his own beginning, Faraday
sent "by return of post a kind and courteous reply," which that boy,
grown to man's estate, and known as Doctor J. Scoffern, gratefully
referred to in a graceful tribute which he wrote after Faraday's death.
It was during this early part of Faraday's success that he once gave
evidence in a judicial case, when the scientific testimony was so
diverse that the judge, in summing up, levelled something very like a
reproach at the scientific witnesses, saying, "Science has not shone
this day." Faraday would never again appear as a witness in a court of
law.
This is, perhaps, the most fitting place in which we can refer to some
slight account of Faraday's home-life in the Institution, which is
given by his brother-in-law George (Mrs. Faraday's youngest brother)
and Miss Reid (her niece). George Barnard was much with the Faradays
in these earlier times. "All the years I was with Harding I dined at
the Royal Institution," he says. "After dinner we nearly always had
our games just like boys--sometimes at ball, or with horse-chestnuts
instead of marbles--Faraday appearing to enjoy them as much as I
did, and generally excelling us all. Sometimes we rode round the
theatre on a velocipede, which was then a new thing." It is said "that
sometimes of an early summer morning the philosopher was to be seen
going up Hampstead Hill on this velocipede." Barnard tells, too, of
Faraday's unflagging good spirits and his faculty for entering with
keen enjoyment into any fun that was going forward--pic-nics up the
river, with rustic cookery, charades, or anything else the party seemed
bent upon, Faraday would join in with delight; how he used to attend
Hullmandel's conversaziones, where he met many of the leading singers
and artists of the day--Garcia and Malibran, Sir Edwin Landseer,
Clarkson Stanfield, J. M. W. Turner, and indeed most of the members
of the Royal Academy. The last-named artist often applied to Faraday
for chemical information about his pigments; upon Turner, and all
artists who made similar requests, Faraday would always impress the
importance there was in their prosecuting experiments with regard to
their colours themselves, giving them a hint to put some of their
colour and colour-washes in a bright sunlight, covering up one half and
leaving the other exposed, and then observing the effect of light and
gases on the latter. Mr. Barnard says that during their various country
trips Faraday was in the habit of just "rambling about geologising or
botanising."
Mrs. Faraday's niece, Miss Reid, was peculiarly well fitted to give
reminiscences of her uncle, as she was for nearly twenty years (from
1826) one of the family at the Royal Institution. When she first
went there Miss Reid was only a little child; and when her aunt was
going out she was taken down to Faraday's laboratory, where, as she
afterwards wrote, "I had, of course, to sit as still as a mouse, with
my needlework; but my uncle would often stop and give me a kind word or
a nod, or sometimes throw a bit of potassium into water to amuse me."
"In all my childish troubles," Miss Reid continues, "he was my
never-failing comforter, and seldom too busy, if I stole into his
room, to spare me a few minutes; and when perhaps I was naughty and
rebellious, how gently and kindly he would win me round, telling me
what he used to feel himself when he was young, advising me to submit
to the reproof I was fighting against.
"I remember his saying that he found it a good and useful rule to
listen to all corrections quietly, even if he did not see reason to
agree with them.
"If I had a difficult lesson, a word or two from him would clear away
all my trouble; and many a long wearisome sum in arithmetic became
quite a delight when he undertook to explain it."
The same lady gives some admirable notes of a holiday the small family
party spent at Walmer, in Kent. How they drove down on the outside of
the coach, and how full of fun Faraday was, when they reached Shooter's
Hill, over Falstaff and the men in buckram; "not a sight nor a sound of
interest escaped his quick eye and ear."
"At Walmer we had a cottage in a field, and my uncle was delighted
because a window looked directly into a blackbird's nest built in a
cherry tree. He would go many times in a day to watch the parent birds
feeding their young."
Sunrise and sunset were never-failing sources of delighted admiration
to him; at such times he was the best of companions, and it has been
described as a great treat to watch the glorious sight with him.
"He carried Galpin's _Botany_ in his pocket, and used to make me
examine any flower new to me as we rested in the fields. The first we
got at Walmer was the _Echium vulgare_, and is always associated in my
mind with his lesson. For when we met with it a second time he asked,
'What is the name of that flower?' 'Viper's bugloss,' said I. 'No, no,
I must have the Latin name,' said he."
On one occasion he called his wife and niece into his room to "see a
spectre." It was about ten o'clock in the evening, a thick white mist
had risen. He then placed a candle behind them as they stood by the
window, and they saw two gigantic shadowy beings projected on the mist
and imitating, of course, every movement they made. Faraday had gone to
Walmer for rest and refreshment, and his niece says that she, the young
one of the party, had to inveigle him away from his books and papers to
which he would return, and tempt him out on some excursion to see or
find something, on which occasion he was nothing loth. We see, indeed,
at all times of his life how keen was the delight he took in the
company of young people; how beautifully he could enter into the spirit
which animated their play, as though he was still a child himself, and
this valuable faculty was his up to the latest.
Of the Walmer excursion his niece further says:--"One day he went far
out among the rocks, and brought home a great many wonderful things to
show me; for in those days I had never seen nor heard of hermit crabs
and sea anemones. My uncle seemed to watch them with as much delight
as I did; and how heartily he would laugh at some of the movements of
the crabs! We went one night to look for glow-worms. We searched every
bank and likely place near, but not one did we see. On coming home to
our cottage he espied a tiny speck of light on one of the doorposts.
It came from a small centipede; but though it was put carefully under a
glass, it never showed its light again.
"My uncle read aloud delightfully. Sometimes he gave us one of
Shakespeare's plays or Scott's novels. But of all things I used to like
to hear him read _Childe Harold_; and never shall I forget the way
in which he read the description of the storm on Lake Leman. He took
great pleasure in Byron, and Coleridge's 'Hymn to Mont Blanc' delighted
him. When anything touched his feelings as he read--and it happened
not infrequently--he would show it not only by tears in his voice, but
by tears in his eyes also. Nothing vexed him more than any kind of
subterfuge or prevarication, or glossing over things."
His niece mentioned on one occasion a professor who had been discovered
abstracting some manuscript from a library. He instantly said, "What do
you mean by abstracting? You should say stealing; use the right word,
my dear."
Indecision of any kind Faraday could not bear; not only should one
decide, but quickly. Indeed he thought that in trifling matters
immediate decision was important; it was better to decide incorrectly
than to remain hesitating. As soon as he left his study and laboratory
Faraday had the happy faculty of being able to throw aside his science,
and would, on going into the sitting-room, "enter into all the nonsense
that was going on as heartily as any one; and as we sat round the
fire he would often play some childish game, at which he was usually
the best performer; or he would take part in a charade, and I well
recollect his being dressed up to act the villain, and very fierce he
looked. Another time I recollect him as the learned pig."
[Illustration: FARADAY'S STUDY.]
As we learn such things as these about him we cease to wonder that
Faraday was the object of so much admiration and love from all persons,
old and young, with whom he came in contact. His wonderful work as
a scientist will, it is to be hoped, never be remembered as his only
claim on our regard; for as one of the best and kindest and most
helpful of men, whose singular modesty and gentleness of character
endeared him to all, he certainly deserves to be kept ever in our
recollection. We must not, as a friend wrote of him, allow the name of
Faraday "to be nothing but a peg on which to hang discoveries;" but
must also recollect that his "time, thoughts, purse, everything was
freely given to those who had need of them."
[Illustration]
[Illustration]