Michael Faraday

Now and then he would pay a visit to some scene of early days. One of his near relatives tells me: "It is said that Mr. Faraday once went to the shop where his father had formerly been employed as a blacksmith, and asked to be allowed to look over the place. When he got to a part of the premises at which there was an opening into the lower workshop, he stopped and said: 'I very nearly lost my life there once. I was playing in the upper room at pitching halfpence into a pint pot close by this hole, and having succeeded at a certain distance, I stepped back to try my fortune further off, forgetting the aperture, and down I fell; and if it had not been that my father was working over an anvil fixed just below, I should have fallen on it, broken my back, and probably killed myself. As it was, my father's back just saved mine.'"

Business, as well as pleasure, sometimes took him away from home. He often joined the British Association, returning usually on Saturday, that he might be among his own people on the Lord's Day. During the meeting he would generally accept the hospitality of some friend; and it was one of these occasions that gave rise to the following jeu d'esprit: —

"'That P will change to F in the British tongue is true
(Quoth Professor Phillips), though the instances are few;'
An entry in my journal then I ventured thus to parody,
'I this day dined with Fillips, where I hobbed and nobbed with Pharaday.'

    "T. T.
    "Oxford, June 27, 1860."
At the Liverpool meeting, in 1837, he was president of the Chemical Section, and on two other occasions he was selected to deliver the evening lecture, but though repeatedly pressed to undertake the presidency of the whole body, he could not be prevailed upon to accept the office.

My first personal intercourse with him, of any extent, was at the Ipswich meeting in 1851. I watched him with all the interest of an admiring disciple, and there is deeply engraven on my memory the vivacity of his conversation, the eagerness with which he entered into some mathematico-chemical speculations of Dumas, and the playfulness with which, when we were dining together, he cut boomerangs out of card, and shot them across the table at his friends.

Professional engagements also took him not unfrequently into the country. Some of these will be described in the later sections, that treat of his mode of working and its valuable results.

To comprehend a man's life it is necessary to know not merely what he does, but also what he purposely leaves undone. There is a limit to the work that can be got out of a human body or a human brain, and he is a wise man who wastes no energy on pursuits for which he is not fitted; and he is still wiser who, from among the things that he can do well, chooses and resolutely follows the best.

Faraday took no part in any of the political or social movements of his time. To politics indeed he seems to have been really indifferent. It was during the intensely interesting period of 1814-15 that he was on the Continent with Davy, but he alludes to the taking of Paris by the allied troops simply because of its bearing on the movements of the travellers, and on March 7, 1815, he made his remarkable entry in his journal: "I heard for news that Bonaparte was again at liberty. Being no politician, I did not trouble myself much about it, though I suppose it will have a strong influence on the affairs of Europe." In later days he seems to have awaked to sufficient interest to read the debates, and to show a Conservative tendency; he became a special constable in 1848, and was disposed generally to support "the powers that be," – though that involved some perplexity at a change of Government.

It is more singular that a man of his benevolent spirit should never have taken a prominent part in any philanthropic movement. In some cases his religious views may have presented an obstacle, but this reason can hardly apply to many of those social movements in which the influence of his name, and his occasional presence and advice, would have been highly valuable. During the latter half of his life, he, as a rule, avoided serving on committees even for scientific objects, and was reluctant to hold office in the learned societies with which he was connected. I believe, however, that this arose not so much from want of interest, as from a conviction that he was ill-suited by natural temperament for joining in discussions on subjects that roused the passions of men, or for calmly weighing the different courses of action, and deciding which was the most judicious. It is remarkable how little even of his scientific work was done in conjunction with others. Neither did he spend time in rural occupations, or in literary or artistic pursuits. Beasts and birds and flowers he looked at, but it was for recreation, not for study. Music he was fond of, and occasionally he visited the Opera, but he did not allow sweet sounds to charm him away from his work. He stuck closely to his fireside, his laboratory, his lecture table, and his church. He lived where he worked, so that he had only to go downstairs to put to the test of experiment any fresh thought that flitted across his brain. He almost invariably declined dinner-parties, except at Lady Davy's, and at Mr. and Mrs. Masquerier's at Brighton, towards whom he felt under an obligation on account of former kindnesses. If he went to a soirée, he usually stayed but a short time; and even when away from home he generally refused private hospitality. Thus he was able to give almost undivided attention to the chief pursuit of his life.

His residence in so accessible a part of London did, however, expose him to the constant invasion of callers, and his own good nature often rendered fruitless the efforts that were considerately made to restrict these within reasonable limits. Of course he suffered from the curious and the inconsiderate of the human species; and then there were those pertinacious bores, the dabblers in science. "One morning a young man called on him, and with an air of great importance confided to him the result of some original researches (so he deemed them) in electrical philosophy. 'And pray,' asked the Professor, taking down a volume of Rees' Cyclopædia, 'did you consult this or any elementary work to learn whether your discovery had been anticipated?' The young man replied in the negative. 'Then why do you come to waste my time about well-known facts, that were published forty years ago?' 'Sir,' said the visitor, 'I thought I had better bring the matter to head-quarters immediately.' 'All very well for you, but not so well for head-quarters,' replied the Professor, sharply, and set him down to read the article."

"A grave, elderly gentleman once waited upon him to submit to his notice 'a new law of physics.' The visitor requested that a jug of water and a tumbler might be brought, and then producing a cork, 'You will be pleased to observe,' said he, 'how persistently this cork clings to the side of the glass when the vessel is half filled.' 'Just so,' replied the Professor. 'But now,' resumed this great discoverer, 'mark what happens when I fill the tumbler to the brim. There! you see the cork flies to the centre – positively repelled by the sides!' 'Precisely so,' replied the amused electrician, with the air of a man who felt perfectly at home with the phenomenon, and indeed regarded it quite as an old friend. The visitor was evidently disconcerted. 'Pray how long have you known this?' he ventured to ask Faraday. 'Oh, ever since I was a boy,' was the rejoinder. Crestfallen – his discovery demolished in a moment – the poor gentleman was retiring with many apologies, when the Professor, sincerely concerned at his disappointment, comforted him by suggesting that possibly he might some day alight upon something really new."[8 - British Quarterly Review, April 1868.]

But there were other visitors who were right welcome to a portion of his time. One day it might be a young man, whom a few kind words and a little attention on the part of the great philosopher would send forward on the journey of life with new energy and hopes. Another day it might be some intellectual chieftain, who could meet the prince of experimenters on equal terms. But these are hardly to be regarded as interruptions; – rather as a part of his chosen work.

Here is one instance in the words of Mr. Robert Mallet. "… I was, in the years that followed, never in London without paying him a visit, and on one of those times I ventured to ask him (if not too much engaged) to let me see where he and Davy had worked together. With the most simple graciousness he brought me through the whole of the Royal Institution, Albemarle Street. Brande's furnaces, Davy's battery, the place in the laboratory where he told me he had first observed the liquefaction of chlorine, are all vividly before me – but nothing so clear or vivid as our conversation over a specimen of green (crown) glass, partially devitrified in floating opaque white spheres of radiating crystals: he touched luminously on the obscure relation of the vitreous and crystalloid states, and on the probable nature of the nuclei of the white spheres. My next visit to Faraday that I recollect was not long after my paper 'On the Dynamics of Earthquakes' had appeared in the Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy. He almost at once referred to it in terms of praise that seemed to me so far beyond my due, that even now I recall the very humble way I felt, as the thought of Faraday's own transcendent merits rushed across my mind. I ventured to ask him, had the paper engaged his attention sufficiently that I might ask him – did he consider my explanation of the before supposed vorticose shock sufficient? To my amazement he at once recited nearly word for word the paragraph in which I took some pains to put my views into a demonstrative shape, and ended with, 'It is as plain and certain as a proposition of Euclid!' And yet the subject was one pretty wide away from his own objects of study."

Often, too, if some interesting fact was exhibited to him, he would send to his brother savants some such note as this: —

    "Royal Institution, 4th May, 1852.

"My Dear Wheatstone,

"Dr. Dubois-Raymond will be making his experiments here next Thursday, the 6th, from and after 11 o'clock. I wish to let you know, that you may if you like join the select few.

    "Ever truly yours,
    "M. Faraday."

It was indeed his wont to share with others the delight of a new discovery. Thus Sir Henry Holland tells me that he used frequently to run to his house in Brook Street with some piece of scientific news. One of these visits was after reading Bunsen and Kirchhoff's paper on Spectrum Analysis; and he did not stop short with merely telling the tale of the special rays of light shot forth by each metallic vapour, as the following letter will show. It is addressed to the present Baroness Burdett Coutts.

    "Royal Institution, Friday, 17th May.

"Dear Miss Coutts,

"To-morrow, at 4 o'clock, immediately after Max Müller's lecture, I shall show Sir Henry Holland an apparatus which has arrived from Munich to manifest the phenomena of light which have recently been made known to us by Bunsen and Kirchhoff. Mr. Barlow will be here, and he suggests that you would like to know of the occasion. If you are inclined to see how philosophers work and live, and so are inclined to climb our narrow stairs (for I must show the experiments in my room), we shall be most happy to see you. The experiments will not be beautiful except to the intelligent.

    "Ever your faithful Servant,
    "M. Faraday."

Sometimes, too, the exhibition of a scientific fact would take him away from home. Thus, when her Majesty and the Prince Consort once paid a private visit to the Polytechnic, Mr. Pepper arranged a surprise for the Royal party, by getting Faraday in a quiet room to explain the Ruhmkorff's coil – the latest development of his own inductive currents. This he did with his usual vivacity and enthusiasm, and the interview is said to have gratified the philosopher as well as the Queen.

He could not, however, escape the inroads made upon his time by correspondence. People would write and ask him questions. Once a solitary prisoner wrote to tell him, "It is indeed in studying the great discoveries which science is indebted to you for, that I render my captivity less sad, and make time flow with rapidity," – and then he proceeds to ask, "What is the most simple combination to give to a voltaic battery, in order to produce a spark capable of setting fire to powder under water, or under ground? Up to the present I have only seen employed to that purpose piles of thirty to forty pairs constructed on Dr. Wollaston's principles. They are very large and inconvenient for field service. Could not the same effect be produced by two spiral pairs only? and if so, what can be their smallest dimension?" And who was the prisoner who thus speculated on the applications of science to war? It was no other than Prince Louis Napoleon, then immured in the fortress of Ham, and now the ex-Emperor of the French. At another time he wrote asking for his advice in the manufacture of an alloy which should be about as soft as lead, but not so fusible, – a question which also had evident bearing upon the art of war; and offering at the same time to pay the cost of any experiments that might be necessary.

Often, too, the correspondents of Faraday thought that they were doing him a kindness. He says somewhere: "The number of suggestions, hints for discovery, and propositions of various kinds, offered to me very freely and with perfect goodwill and simplicity on the part of the proposers, for my exclusive investigation and final honour, is remarkably great, and it is no less remarkable that but for one exception – that of Mr. Jenkin – they have all been worthless… I have, I think, universally found that the man whose mind was by nature or self-education fitted to make good and worthy suggestions, was also the man both able and willing to work them out."

Both the askers of questions and the givers of advice expected answers – and the answers came. Most of Faraday's letters, indeed, are of a purely business character: sometimes they are very laconic, as the note in which he announced to Dr. Paris one of his principal discoveries: —

"Dear Sir,

"The oil you noticed yesterday turns out to be liquid chlorine.

    "Yours faithfully,
    "M. Faraday."

But in other letters, as may be expected, there is found the enthusiasm of his ardent nature, or the glow of his genial spirit. An instance or two may suffice.

"Royal Institution, 24th March, 1843.

"Dear Sir,

"I have received and at once looked at your paper. Many thanks for so good a contribution to the beloved science. What glorious steps electricity has taken in the days within our remembrance, and what hopes are held out for the future! The great difficulty is to remove the mists which dim the dawn of a subject, and I cannot but consider your paper as doing very much that way for a most important part of natural knowledge.

    "I am, my dear Sir,
    "Most truly yours,
    "M. Faraday.

"J. P. Joule, Esq."

    "Royal Institution, 15th Oct., 1853.

"My dear Miss Moore,

"The summer is going away, and I never (but for one day) had any hopes of profiting by your kind offer of the roof of your house in Clarges Street. What a feeble summer it has been as regards sunlight! I have made a good many preliminary experiments at home, but they do not encourage me in the direction towards which I was looking. All is misty and dull, both the physical and the mental prospect. But I have ever found that the experimental philosopher has great need of patience, that he may not be downcast by interposing obstacles, and perseverance, that he may either overcome them, or open out a new path to the bourn he desires to reach. So perhaps next summer I may think of your housetop again. Many thanks for your kind letter and all your kindnesses uswards. My wife had your note yesterday, and I enjoyed the violets, which for a time I appropriated.

"With kindest remembrances and thoughts to all with you and her at Hastings,

    "I am, my dear Friend,
    "Very faithfully yours,
    "M. Faraday."

The following is written to Mr. Frank Barnard, then an Art student in Paris: —

    "Royal Institution, 9th Nov., 1852.

"My dear Nephew,