I have this evening been busy with an atmospherical electrical
apparatus. It was a very temporary thing, but answered the
purpose completely. A wire, with some small brush-wire rolled
round the top of it, was elevated into the atmosphere by a thin
wood rod having a glass tube at the end, and tied to a
chimney-pot on the housetop; and this wire was continued down
(taking care that it touched nothing in its way) into the
lecture-room; and we succeeded, at intervals, in getting sparks
from it nearly a quarter of an inch in length, and in charging a
Leyden jar, so as to give a strong shock. The electricity was
positive. Now, I think you could easily make an apparatus of
this kind, and it would be a constant source of interesting
matter; only take care you do not kill yourself or knock down
the house.
On June 12, 1820, he married Miss Sarah Barnard, third daughter of Mr.
Barnard, of Paternoster Row--"an event which," to use his own words,
"more than any other contributed to his earthly happiness and
healthful state of mind." It was his wish that the day should be "just
like any other day"--that there should be "no bustle, no noise, no
hurry occasioned even in one day's proceeding," though in carrying out
this plan he offended some of his relations by not inviting them to
his wedding.
Up to this time Faraday's experimental researches had been for the
most part in the domain of chemistry, and for two years a great part
of his energy had been expended in investigating, in company with Mr.
Stodart, a surgical instrument-maker, the properties of certain alloys
of steel, with a view to improve its manufacture for special purposes.
It was in 1821 that he commenced his great discoveries in electricity.
In the autumn of that year he wrote an historical sketch of
electro-magnetism for the "Annals of Philosophy," and he repeated for
himself most of the experiments which he described. In the course of
these experiments, in September, 1821, he discovered the rotation of a
wire conveying an electric current around the pole of a magnet.
[OE]rsted had discovered, in 1820, the tendency of a magnetic needle
to set itself at right angles to a wire conveying a current. This
action is due to a tendency on the part of the north pole to revolve
in a right-handed direction around the current, while the south pole
tends to revolve in the opposite direction. The principle that action
and reaction are equal and opposite indicates that, if a magnetic pole
tend to rotate around a conductor conveying a current, there must be
an equal tendency for the conductor to rotate around the pole. It was
this rotation that constituted Faraday's first great discovery in
electro-dynamics. On December 21, in the same year, Faraday showed
that the earth's magnetism was capable of exerting a directive action
on a wire conveying a current. Writing to De la Rive on the subject,
he says:--
I find all the usual attractions and repulsions of the magnetic
needle by the conjunctive wire are deceptions, the motions
being, not attractions or repulsions, nor the result of any
attractive or repulsive forces, but the result of a force in the
wire, which, instead of bringing the pole of the needle nearer
to or further from the wire, endeavours to make it move round it
in a never-ending circle and motion whilst the battery remains
in action. I have succeeded, not only in showing the existence
of this motion theoretically, but experimentally, and have been
able to make the wire revolve round a magnetic pole, or a
magnetic pole round the wire, at pleasure. The law of
revolution, and to which all the other motions of the needle are
reducible, is simple and beautiful.
Conceive a portion of connecting wire north and south, the north
end being attached to the positive pole of a battery, the south
to the negative. A north magnetic pole would then pass round it
continually in the apparent direction of the sun, from east to
west above, and from west to east below. Reverse the connections
with the battery, and the motion of the pole is reversed; or, if
the south pole be made to revolve, the motions will be in the
opposite direction, as with the north pole.
If the wire be made to revolve round the pole, the motions are
according to those mentioned.... Now, I have been able,
experimentally, to trace this motion into its various forms, as
exhibited by Ampere's helices, etc., and in all cases to show
that the attractions and repulsions are only appearances due to
this circulation of the pole; to show that dissimilar poles
repel as well as attract, and that similar poles attract as well
as repel; and to make, I think, the analogy between the helix
and common bar magnet far stronger than before. But yet I am by
no means decided that there are currents of electricity in the
common magnet. I have no doubt that electricity puts the circles
of the helix into the same state as those circles are in that
may be conceived in the bar magnet; but I am not certain that
this state is directly dependent on the electricity, or that it
cannot be produced by other agencies; and therefore, until the
presence of electric currents be proved in the magnet by other
than magnetical effects, I shall remain in doubt about Ampere's
theory.
The most convenient rule by which to remember the direction of these
electro-magnetic rotations is probably that given by Clerk Maxwell,
which will be stated in its place.[7] If a circular plate of copper
and another of zinc be connected by a piece (or better, by three
pieces) of insulated wire, so that the zinc is about an inch above the
copper, and the combined plates be suspended by a silk fibre in a
small beaker of dilute sulphuric acid, which is placed on the pole of
a large magnet, the liquid will be seen to rotate about a vertical
axis in one direction, and the two plates with their connecting wires
in the opposite direction. On reversing the polarity of the magnet,
both rotations will be reversed. This is a very simple mode of
exhibiting Faraday's discovery. A little powdered resin renders the
motion of the liquid readily visible.
[Footnote 7: See p. 302.]
In 1823 Faraday published his work on the liquefaction of gases, from
which he concluded that there was no difference in kind between gases
and vapours. In the course of this work he met with more than one
serious explosion. On January 8, 1824, he was elected a Fellow of the
Royal Society, and in 1825, on the recommendation of Sir Humphry Davy,
he was appointed Director of the Laboratory of the Royal Institution,
and in this capacity he instituted the laboratory conferences, which
developed into the Friday evening lectures. For five years after
this, the greater part of Faraday's spare time was occupied in some
investigations in connection with optical glass, made at the request
of the Royal Society, and at the expense of the Government. Mr.
Dollond and Sir John Herschel were associated with him on this
committee, but the results obtained were not of much value to
opticians. The silico-borate of lead which Faraday prepared in the
course of these experiments was, however, the substance with which he
first demonstrated the effect of a magnetic field on the plane of
polarization of light, and with which he discovered diamagnetic
action.
Faraday's experimental researches were generally guided by theoretical
considerations. Frequently these theories were based on very slender
premises, and sometimes were little else than flights of a scientific
imagination, but they served to guide him into fruitful fields of
discovery, and he seldom placed much confidence in his conclusions
till he had succeeded in verifying them experimentally. For many years
he had held the opinion that electric currents should exhibit
phenomena analogous to those of electro-static induction. Again and
again he returned to the investigation, and attempted to obtain an
induced current in one wire through the passage of a powerful current
through a neighbouring conductor; but he looked for a permanent
induced current to be maintained during the whole time that the
primary current was flowing. At length, employing two wires wound
together as a helix on a wooden rod, the first capable of transmitting
a powerful current from a battery, while the second was connected with
a galvanometer, he observed that, when the current started in the
primary, there was a movement of the galvanometer, and when it ceased
there was a movement in the opposite direction, though the
galvanometer remained at zero while the current continued steady.
Hence it was apparent that it is by changes in the primary current
that induced currents may be generated, and not by their steady
continuance; and it was demonstrated that, when a current is started
in a conductor, a temporary current is induced in a neighbouring
conductor in the opposite direction, while a current is induced in the
same direction as the primary when the latter ceases to flow. Before
obtaining this result with the wires on a wooden bobbin, he had
experimented with a wrought-iron ring about six inches in diameter,
and made of 7/8-inch round iron. He wound two sets of coils round it,
one occupying nearly half the ring, and the other filling most of the
other half. One of these he connected with a galvanometer, the other
could be connected at will with a battery. On sending the battery
current through the latter coil, the galvanometer needle swung
completely round four or five times, and a similar action took place,
but in the opposite direction, on stopping the current. Here it was
clearly the magnetism induced in the iron ring which produced so
powerful a current in the galvanometer circuit. Next he wound a
quantity of covered copper wire on a small iron bar, and connecting
the ends to a galvanometer, he placed the little bobbin between the
opposite poles of a pair of bar magnets, whose other ends were in
contact. As soon as the iron core touched the magnets, a current
appeared in the galvanometer. On breaking contact, the current was in
the opposite direction. Then came the experiment above mentioned, in
which no iron was employed. After this, one end of a cylindrical bar
magnet was introduced into a helix of copper wire, and then suddenly
thrust completely in. The galvanometer connected with the coil showed
a transient current. On withdrawing the magnet, the current appeared
in the opposite direction; so that currents were induced merely by the
relative motion of a magnet and a conductor.
A copper disc was mounted so that it could be made to rotate rapidly.
A wire was placed in connection with the centre of the disc, and the
circuit completed by a rubbing contact on the circumference. A
galvanometer was inserted in the circuit, and the large horseshoe
magnet of the Royal Institution so placed that the portion of the disc
between the centre and the rubbing contact passed between the poles of
the magnet. A current flowed through the galvanometer as long as the
disc was kept spinning. Then he found that the mere passage of a
copper wire between the poles of the magnet was sufficient to induce a
current in it, and concluded that the production of the current was
connected with the cutting of the "magnetic curves," or "lines of
magnetic force" which would be depicted by iron filings. Thus in the
course of ten days' experimental work, in the autumn of 1831, Faraday
so completely investigated the phenomena of electro-magnetic induction
as to leave little, except practical applications, to his successors.
A few weeks later he obtained induction currents by means of the
earth's magnetism only, first with a coil of wire wound upon an iron
bar in which a strong current was produced when it was being quickly
placed in the direction of the magnetic dip or being removed from that
position, and afterwards with a coil of wire without an iron core. On
February 8, 1832, he succeeded in obtaining a spark from the induced
current. Unless the electro-motive force is very great, it is not
possible to obtain a spark between two metallic surfaces which are
separated by a sensible thickness of air. If, however, the circuit of
a wire is broken _while_ the current is passing, a little bridge of
metallic vapour is formed, across which for an instant the spark
leaps. The induced current being of such short duration, the
difficulty was to break the circuit while it was flowing. Faraday
wound a considerable length of fine wire around a short bar of iron;
the ends of the wire were crossed so as just to be in contact with one
another, but free to separate if exposed to a slight shock. The ends
of the iron bar projected beyond the coil, and were held just over the
poles of the magnet. On releasing the bar it fell so as to strike the
magnetic poles and close the circuit of the magnet. An induced current
was generated in the wire, but, while this was passing, the shock
caused by the bar striking the magnet separated the ends of the wire,
thus breaking the circuit of the conductor, and a spark appeared at
the gap. In this little spark was the germ of the electric light of
to-day. Subsequently Faraday improved the apparatus, by attaching a
little disc of amalgamated copper to one end of the wire, and bending
over the other end so as just to press lightly against the surface of
the disc. With this apparatus he showed the "magnetic spark" at the
meeting of the British Association at Oxford.
Faraday supposed that when a coil of wire was in the neighbourhood of
a magnet, or near to a conductor conveying a current, the coil was
thrown into a peculiar condition, which he called the _electro-tonic
state_, and that the induced currents appeared whenever this state was
assumed or lost by the coil. He frequently reverted to his conception
of the electro-tonic state, though he saw clearly that, when the
currents were induced by the relative motion of a wire and a magnet,
the current induced depended on the rate at which the lines of
magnetic force had been cut by the wire. Of his conception of lines of
force filling the whole of space, we shall have more to say presently.
It is sufficient to remark here that, in the electro-tonic state of
Faraday, Clerk Maxwell recognized the number of lines of magnetic
force enclosed by the circuit, and showed that the electro-motive
force induced is proportional to the rate of change of the number of
lines of force thus enclosed.
It is seldom that a great discovery is made which has not been
gradually led up to by several observed phenomena which awaited that
discovery for their explanation. In the case of electro-magnetic
induction, however, there appears to have been but one experiment
which had baffled philosophers, and the key to which was found in
Faraday's discovery, while the complete explanation was given by
Faraday himself. Arago had found that, if a copper plate were made
rapidly to rotate beneath a freely suspended magnetic needle, the
needle followed (slowly) the plate in its revolution, though a sheet
of glass were inserted between the two to prevent any air-currents
acting on the magnet. The experiment had been repeated by Sir John
Herschel and Mr. Babbage, but no explanation was forthcoming. Faraday
saw that the revolution of the disc beneath the poles of the magnet
must generate induced currents in the disc, as the different portions
of the metal would be constantly cutting the lines of force of the
magnet. These currents would react upon the magnet, causing a
mechanical stress to act between the two, which, as stated by Lenz,
would be in the direction tending to oppose the _relative_ motion, and
therefore to drag the magnet after the disc in its revolution. In the
above figure the unfledged arrows show the general distribution of the
currents in the disc, while the winged arrows indicate the direction
of the disc's rotation. The currents in the semicircle A will repel
the north pole and attract the south pole. Those in the semicircle B
will produce the opposite effect, and hence there will be a tendency
for the magnet to revolve in the direction of the disc, while the
motion of the disc will be resisted. This resistance to the motion of
a conductor in a magnetic field was noticed by Faraday, and,
independently, by Tyndall, and it is sufficiently obvious in the power
absorbed by dynamos when they are generating large currents.
Faraday's next series of researches was devoted to the experimental
proof of the identity of frictional and voltaic electricity. He showed
that a magnet could be deflected and iodide of potassium decomposed by
the current from his electrical machine, and came to the conclusion
that the amount of electricity required to decompose a grain of water
was equal to 800,000 charges of his large Leyden battery. The current
from the frictional machine also served to deflect the needle of his
galvanometer. These investigations led on to a complete series of
researches on the laws of electrolysis, wherein Faraday demonstrated
the principle that, however the strength of the current may be varied,
the amount of any compound decomposed is proportional to the whole
quantity of electricity which has passed through the electrolyte. When
the same current is sent through different compounds, there is a
constant relation between the amounts of the several compounds
decomposed. In modern language, Faraday's laws may be thus
expressed:--
_If the same current be made to pass through several different
electrolytes, the quantity of each ion produced will be proportional
to its combining weight divided by its valency, and if the current
vary, the quantity of each ion liberated per second will be
proportional to the current._
This is the great law of electro-chemical equivalents. The amount of
hydrogen liberated per second by a current of one ampere is about
.00001038 gramme, or nearly one six-thousandth of a grain. This is the
electro-chemical equivalent of hydrogen. That of any other substance
may be found by Faraday's law.
From Faraday's results it appears that the passage of the same amount
of electricity is required in order to decompose one molecule of any
compound of the same chemical type, but it does not follow that the
same amount of energy is employed in the decomposition. For example,
the combining weights of copper and zinc are nearly equal. Hence it
will require the passage of about the same amount of electricity to
liberate a pound of copper from, say, the copper sulphate as to
liberate a pound of zinc from zinc sulphate; but the work to be done
is much less in the case of the copper. This is made manifest in the
following way:--A battery, which will just decompose the copper salt
slowly, liberating copper, oxygen, and sulphuric acid, will not
decompose the zinc salt at all so as to liberate metallic zinc, but
immediately on sending the current through the electrolyte,
polarization will set in, and the opposing electro-motive force thus
introduced will become equal to that of the battery, and stop the
current before metallic zinc makes its appearance. In the case of the
copper, polarization also sets in, but never attains to equality with
the electro-motive force of the primary battery. In fact, in all cases
of electrolysis, polarization produces an opposing electro-motive
force strictly proportional to the work done in the cell by the
passage of each unit of electricity. If the strength of the battery be
increased, so that it is able to decompose the zinc sulphate, and if
this battery be applied to the copper sulphate solution, the latter
will be _rapidly_ decomposed, and the excess of energy developed by
the battery will be converted into heat in the circuit.
One important point in connection with electrolysis which Faraday
demonstrated is that the decomposition is the result of the passage of
the current, and is not simply due to the attraction of the
electrodes. Thus he showed that potassium iodide could be decomposed
by a stream of electricity coming from a metallic point on the prime
conductor of his electric machine, though the point did not touch the
test-paper on which the iodide was placed.
It was in 1834 that Mr. Wm. Jenkin, after one of the Friday evening
lectures at the Royal Institution, called the attention of Faraday to
a shock which he had experienced in breaking the circuit of an
electro-magnet, though the battery employed consisted of only one pair
of plates. Faraday repeated the experiment, and found that, with a
large magnet in circuit, a strong spark could thus be obtained. On
November 14, 1834, he writes, "The phenomenon of increased spark is
merely a case of the induction of electric currents. If a current be
established in a wire, and another wire forming a complete circuit be
placed parallel to it, at the moment the current in the first is
stopped it induces a current in the same direction in the second,
itself then showing but a feeble spark. But if the second be away, it
induces a current in its own wire in the same direction, producing a
strong spark. The strong spark in the current when alone is therefore
the equivalent of the current it can produce in a neighbouring wire
when in company." The strong spark does, in fact, represent the energy
of the current due to the self-induction of its circuit, which energy
would, in part at least, be expended in inducing a current in a
neighbouring wire if such existed.
His time from 1835 till 1838 was largely taken up with his work on
electro-static induction. Faraday could never be content with any
explanation based on direct action at a distance; he always sought for
the machinery through which the action was communicated. In this
search the lines of magnetic force, which he had so often delineated
in iron filings, came to his aid. Faraday made many pictures in iron
filings of magnetic fields due to various combinations of magnets. He
employed gummed paper, and when the filings were arranged on the hard
gummed surface, he projected a feeble jet of steam on the paper, which
melted the gum and fixed the filings. Several of his diagrams were
exhibited at the Loan Collection at South Kensington. He conceived
electrical action to be transmitted along such lines as these, and to
him the whole electric field was filled with lines passing always from
positive to negative electrification, and in some respects resembling
elastic strings. The action at any place could then be expressed in
terms of the lines of force that existed there, the electrifications
by which these lines were produced being left out of consideration.
The acting bodies were thus replaced by the field of force they
produced. He showed that it was impossible to call into existence a
charge of positive electricity without at the same time producing an
equal negative charge. From every unit of positive electricity he
conceived a line of force to start, and thus, with the origin of the
line, there was created simultaneously a charge of negative
electricity on which the line might terminate. By the famous ice-pail
experiment he showed that, when a charged body is inserted in a closed
or nearly closed hollow conductor, an equal amount of the same kind of
electricity appeared on the outside of the hollow conductor, while an
equal amount of the opposite kind appeared on the interior surface of
the conductor. With the ice-pail and the butterfly-net he showed that
there could be no free electricity on the interior of a conductor.
Lines of force cannot pass through the material of a conductor without
producing electric displacement. Every element of electricity must be
joined to an equal amount of the opposite kind by a line of force.
Such lines cannot pass through the conductor itself; hence the charge
must be entirely on the outside of the conductor, so that every
element of the charge may be associated with an equal amount of the
opposite electricity upon the surfaces of surrounding objects. Thus to
Faraday every electrical action was an exhibition of electric
induction. All this work had been done before by Henry Cavendish, but
neither Faraday nor any one else knew about it at the time. From the
fact that there could be no electricity in the interior of a hollow
conductor, Cavendish deduced, in the best way possible, the truth of
the law of inverse squares as applied to electrical attraction and
repulsion, and thus laid the foundation of the mathematical theory of
electricity. To Cavendish every electrical action was a displacement
of an incompressible fluid which filled the whole of space, producing
no effect in conductors on account of the freedom of its motion, but
producing strains in insulators by displacing the material of the
body. Faraday, in his lines of force, saw, as it were, the lines along
which the displacements of Cavendish's fluid took place.
Faraday thought that, if he could show that electric induction could
take place along curved lines, it would prove that the action took
place through a medium, and not directly at a distance. He succeeded
in experimentally demonstrating the curvature of these lines; but his
conclusions were not warranted, for if we conceive of two or more
centres of force acting directly at a distance according to the law of
inverse squares, the resultant lines of force will generally be
curved. Of course, this does not prove the possibility of direct
action at a distance, but only shows that the curvature of the lines
is as much a consequence of the one hypothesis as of the other.
It soon appeared to Faraday that the nature of the dielectric had very
much to do with electric induction. The capacity of a condenser, for
instance, depends on the nature of the dielectric as well as on the
configuration of the conductors. To express this property, Faraday
employed the term "specific inductive capacity." He compared the
electric capacity of condensers, equal in all other respects, but one
possessing air for its dielectric, and the other having other media,
and thus roughly determined the specific inductive capacities of
several insulators. These results turned out afterwards to be of great
value in connection with the insulation of submarine cables. Even now
the student of electricity is sometimes puzzled by the manner in which
specific inductive capacity is introduced to his notice as modifying
the capacity of condensers, after learning that the capacity of any
system of conductors can be calculated from its geometrical
configuration; but the fact is that the intensity of all electrical
actions depends on the nature of the medium through which they take
place, and it will require more electricity to exert upon an equal
charge a unit force at unit distance when the intervening medium has a
high than when it possesses a low specific inductive capacity.
In 1835 Faraday received a pension from the civil list; in 1836 he was
appointed scientific adviser to the Elder Brethren of the Trinity
House. In the same year he was made a member of the Senate of the
University of London, and in that capacity he has exerted no small
influence on the scientific education of the country, for he was one
of those who drew up the schedules of the various examinations.
In his early years, Faraday thought that all kinds of matter might
ultimately consist of three materials only, and that as gases and
vapours appeared more nearly to resemble one another than the liquids
or solids to which they corresponded, so each might be subject to a
still higher change in the same direction, and the gas or vapour
become radiant matter--either heat, light, or electricity. Later on,
Faraday clearly recognized the dynamical nature of heat and light; but
his work was always guided by his theoretical conceptions of the
"correlation of the physical forces." For a long time he had tried to
discover relations between electricity and light; at length, on
September 13, 1845, after experimenting on a number of other
substances, he placed a piece of silico-borate of lead, or
heavy-glass, in the field of the magnet, and found that, when a beam
of polarized light was transmitted through the glass in the direction
of the lines of magnetic force, there was a rotation of the plane of
polarization. Afterwards it appeared that all the transparent solids
and liquids experimented on were capable of producing this rotation in
a greater or less degree, and in the case of all non-magnetic
substances the rotation was in the direction of the electric current,
which, passing round the substance, would produce the magnetic field
employed. Abandoning the magnet, and using only a coil of wire with
the transparent substance within it, similar effects were obtained.
Thus at length a relation was found between light and electricity.
On November 4, employing a piece of heavy-glass and a new horseshoe
magnet, Faraday noticed that the magnet appeared to have a directive
action upon the glass. Further examination showed that the glass was
repelled by the magnetic poles. Three days afterwards he found that
all sorts of substances, including most metals, were acted upon like
the heavy-glass. Small portions of them were repelled, while elongated
cylinders tended to set with their lengths perpendicular to the lines
of magnetic force. Such actions could be imitated by suspending a
feebly magnetic body in a medium more magnetic than itself. Faraday,
therefore, sought for some medium which would be absolutely neutral to
magnetic action. Filling a glass tube with compressed oxygen, and
suspending it in an atmosphere of oxygen at ordinary pressure, the
compressed gas behaved like iron or other magnetic substances.
Faraday compared the intensity of its action with that of ferrous
sulphate, and this led to an explanation of the diurnal variations of
the compass-needle based on the sun's heat diminishing the magnetic
_permeability_ of the oxygen of the air. Repeating the experiment with
nitrogen, he found that the compressed gas behaved in a perfectly
neutral manner when surrounded by the gas at ordinary pressure. Hence
he inferred that in nitrogen he had found the neutral medium required.
Repeating his experiments in an atmosphere of nitrogen, it still
appeared that most bodies were repelled by the magnetic poles, and set
_equatorially_, or at right angles to the lines of force when
elongated portions were tested. To this action Faraday gave the name
of diamagnetism.
About a month after his marriage, Faraday joined the Sandemanian
Church, to which his family had for several generations belonged, by
confession of sin and profession of faith. Not unfrequently he used to
speak at the meetings of his Church, but in 1840 he was elected an
elder, and then he took his turn regularly in conducting the services.
The notes of his addresses he generally made on small pieces of card.
He had a curious habit of separating his religious belief from his
scientific work, although the spirit of his religion perpetually
pervaded his life. A lecture on mental education, given in 1854, at
the Royal Institution, in the presence of the late Prince Consort, he
commenced as follows:--
"Before entering on this subject, I must make one distinction, which,
however it may appear to others, is to me of the utmost importance.
High as man is placed above the creatures around him, there is a
higher and far more exalted position within his view; and the ways are
infinite in which he occupies his thoughts about the fears, or hopes,
or expectations of a future life. I believe that the truth of that
future cannot be brought to his knowledge by any exertion of his
mental powers, however exalted they may be; that it is made known to
him by other teaching than his own, and is received through simple
belief of the testimony given. Let no one suppose for a moment that
the self-education I am about to commend, in respect of the things of
this life, extends to any considerations of the hope set before us, as
if man by reasoning could find out God. It would be improper here to
enter upon this subject further than to claim an absolute distinction
between religious and ordinary belief. I shall be reproached with the
weakness of refusing to apply those mental operations which I think
good in respect of high things to the very highest. I am content to
bear the reproach. Yet even in earthly matters I believe that 'the
invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly
seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal
power and Godhead;' and I have never seen anything incompatible
between those things of man which can be known by the spirit of man
which is within him, and those higher things concerning his future
which he cannot know by that spirit."
On more than one occasion the late Prince Consort had discussed
physical questions with Faraday, and in 1858 the Queen offered him a
house on Hampton Court Green. This was his home until August 25, 1867.
He saw not only the magnetic spark, which he had first produced,
employed in the lighthouses at the South Foreland and Dungeness, but
he saw also his views respecting lines of electric induction examined
and confirmed by the investigations of Thomson and Clerk Maxwell.
Of the ninety-five distinctions conferred upon him, we need only
mention that of Commandant of the Legion of Honour, which he received
in January, 1856.