Michael Faraday

"Are you aware that many years ago our Institution was lighted up for months, if not for years together, by oil-gas (or, as you call it, olefiant gas), compressed into cylinders to the extent of thirty atmospheres, and brought to us from a distance? I have no idea that the patent referred to at the bottom of page 9 could stand for an hour in a court of law. I think, too, you are wrong in misapplying the word olefiant. It already belongs to a particular gas, and cannot, without confusion, be used as you use it.

"I am Sir,"Your obedient Servant,"M. Faraday."

"Sir,

"Thanks for your letter. At the close of it you ask me privately and confidingly for the encouragement my opinion might give you if this power gas-light is fit for lighthouses. I am unable to assent to your request, as my position at the Trinity House requires that I should be able to take up any subject, applications, or documents they may bring before me in a perfectly unbiassed condition of mind.

"I am, Sir,"Yours very truly,"M. Faraday."

The kindliness which shed its genial radiance on every worthy object around, glowed most warmly on the domestic hearth. Little expressions in his writings often reveal it, as when we read in his Swiss journal about Interlaken: "Clout-nail making goes on here rather considerably, and is a very neat and pretty operation to observe. I love a smith's shop, and anything relating to smithery. My father was a smith."

When he was sitting to Noble for his bust, it happened one day that the sculptor, in giving the finishing touches to the marble, made a clattering with his chisels: noticing that his sitter appeared distrait, he said that he feared the jingling of the tools had annoyed him, and that he was weary. "No, my dear Mr. Noble," said Faraday, putting his hand on his shoulder, "but the noise reminded me of my father's anvil, and took me back to my boyhood."

This deep affection peeps out constantly in his letters to different members of his family, "bound up together," as he wrote to his sister-in-law, "in the one hope, and in faith and love which is in Jesus Christ." But it was towards his wife that his love glowed most intensely. Yet how can we properly speak of this sacred relationship, especially as the mourning widow is still amongst us? It may suffice to catch the glimpse that is reflected in the following extract from a letter he wrote to Mrs. Andrew Crosse on the death of her husband: —

"July 12, 1855.

"… Believe that I sympathize with you most deeply, for I enjoy in my life-partner those things which you speak of as making you feel your loss so heavily.

"It is the kindly domestic affections, the worthiness, the mutual aid in sorrow, the mutual joy in happiness that has existed, which makes the rupture of such a tie as yours so heavy to bear; and yet you would not wish it otherwise, for the remembrance of those things brings solace with the grief. I speak, thinking what my own trouble would be if I lost my partner; and I try to comfort you in the only way in which I think I could be comforted.

"M. Faraday."

There was, as Tyndall has observed, a mixture of chivalry with this affection. In his book of diplomas he made the following remarkable entry: —

"25th January, 1847.

"Amongst these records and events, I here insert the date of one which, as a source of honour and happiness, far exceeds all the rest. We were married on June 12, 1821.

"M. Faraday."

On the character of Faraday, these two qualities of reverence and kindliness have appeared to me singularly influential. Among the ways in which they manifested themselves was that beautiful combination of firmness and gentleness which has been frequently remarked: intimately associated with them also were his simplicity and truthfulness. These points must have made themselves evident already, but they deserve further illustration.

In his early days, "one Sabbath morning his swift and sober steps were carrying him along the Holborn pavement towards his meeting-house, when some small missile struck him smartly on the hat. He would have thought it an accident and passed on, when a second and a third rap caused him to turn and look just in time to perceive a face hastily withdrawn from a window in the upper story of a closed linendraper's establishment. Roused by the affront, he marched up to the door and rapped. The servant opening it said there was no one at home, but Faraday declared he knew better, and desired to be shown upstairs. Opposition still being made, he pushed on, made his way up through the house, opened the door of an upper room, discovering a party of young drapers' assistants, who at once professed they knew nothing of the motive of this sudden visit. But the hunter had now run his game to earth: he taxed them sharply with their annoyance of wayfarers on the Sabbath, and said that unless an apology were made at once, they should hear from their employer of something much to their disadvantage. An apology was made forthwith."13

Long, long after this event, Dr. and Mrs. Faraday, with Dr. Tyndall, were returning one evening from Mr. Gassiot's, on Clapham Common: a dense fog came on, and they did not know where they were. The two gentlemen got out of their vehicle, and walked to a house and knocked. A man appeared, first at a window and afterwards at the door, very angry indeed at the disturbance, and demanded to know their business. Faraday, in his calm, irresistible manner, explained the situation and their object in knocking. The man instantly changed his tone, looked foolish, and muttered something about being in a fright lest his house of business was on fire.

As to simplicity of character: when, in the course of writing this book, I have spoken to his acquaintances about Faraday, the most frequent comment has been in such words as, "Oh! he was a beautiful character, and so simple-minded." I have tried to ascertain the cause of this simple-mindedness, and I believe it was the consciousness that he was meaning to do right himself, and the belief that others whom he addressed meant to do right too, and so he could just let them see everything that was passing through his mind. And while he knew no reason for concealment, there was no trace of self-conceit about him, nor any pretence at being what he was not. To illustrate this quality is not so easy; the indications of it, like his humour, were generally too delicate to be transferred to paper; but perhaps the following letter will do as well as anything else, for there are few philosophers who could have written so naturally about the pleasures of a pantomime and then about his highest hopes: —

"Royal Institution, London, W."1st January, 1857.

"My dear Miss Coutts,

"You are very kind to think of our pleasure and send us entrance to your box for to-morrow night. We thank you very sincerely, and I mean to enjoy it, for I still have a sympathy with children and all their thoughts and pleasure. Permit me to wish you very sincerely a happy year; and also to Mrs. Brown. With some of us our greatest happiness will be content mingled with patience; but there is much happiness in that and the expected end.

"Ever your obliged Servant,"M. Faraday."14

As to truthfulness: he was not only truthful in the common acceptation of the word, but he did not allow, either in himself or others, hasty conclusions, random assertions, or slippery logic. "At such times he had a way of repeating the suspicious statement very slowly and distinctly, with an air of wondering scrutiny as if it had astonished him. His irony was then irresistible, and always produced a modification of the objectionable phrase."

One Friday evening there was exhibited an improved Davy lamp, with an eulogistic description. Faraday added the words, "The opinion of the inventor."

"An acquaintance rather given to inflict tedious narratives on his friends was descanting to Faraday on the iniquity of some coachman who had set him down the previous night in the middle of a dark and miry road, – 'in fact,' said the irksome drawler, 'in a perfect morass; and there I was, as you may imagine, half the night, plunging and struggling to get out of this dreadful morass.' 'More ass you!' rapped out the philosopher at the top of his scale of laughter." This was a rare instance, for it was only when much provoked that he would perpetrate a pun, or depart from the kind courtesy of his habitual talk.

That he was quite ready to give up a statement or view when it was proved by others to be incorrect, is shown by the Preface to the volumes in which are reprinted his "Experimental Researches." "In giving advice," says his niece Miss Reid, "he always went back to first principles, to the true right and wrong of questions, never allowing deviations from the simple straightforward path of duty to be justified by custom or precedent; and he judged himself strictly by the same rule which he laid down for others."

These beauties of character were not marred by serious defects or opposing faults. "He could not be too closely approached. There were no shabby places or ugly comers in his mind." Yet he was very far from being one of those passionless men who resemble a cold statue rather than throbbing flesh and blood. He was no "model of all the virtues," dreadfully uninteresting, and discouraging to those who feel such calm perfection out of their reach. His inner life was a battle, with its wounds as well as its victory. Proud by nature, and quick-tempered, he must have found the curb often necessary; but notwithstanding the rapidity of his actions and thoughts, he knew how to keep a tight rein on that fiery spirit.

I have listened attentively to every remark in disparagement of Faraday's character, but the only serious ones have appeared to me to arise from a misunderstanding of the man, a misunderstanding the more easy because his standard of right and wrong, and of his own duty, often differed from the notions current around him. Still, it may be true that his extreme sensitiveness led him sometimes to do scant justice to those who, he imagined, were treading too closely in his own footsteps; as, for instance, when Nobili brought out some beautiful experiments on magnetism, just after the short notice of his own discoveries in 1831 which Faraday had sent to M. Hachette, and which was communicated to the Académie des Sciences. It is true also that, with his great caution and his repugnance to moral evil, he was more disposed to turn away in disgust from an erring companion than to endeavour to reclaim him. It has also been imputed to him as a fault that he founded no school, and took no young man by the hand as Davy had taken him. That this was rather his misfortune than his fault, would appear from words he once wrote to Miss Moore: "I have often endeavoured to discover a genius, but have not been very successful, though many cases seemed promising at first." The world would doubtless have been the gainer if he had stamped his own image on the minds of a group of disciples: but a man cannot do everything; and had Faraday been more of a teacher, he would perhaps have been less of an investigator.

Of course Faraday was subject, like other men, to errors of judgment, and it was impossible, even if desirable, always to avoid giving offence. Thus he was constantly pestered for his autograph; and instead of throwing the applications into his waste-paper basket, he had a formal circular lithographed excusing himself from complying. This offended more than one recipient; and he was roughly made aware of it by once having the circular returned from St. Louis with a scurrilous comment, and the postage from America not prepaid. He never again used the printed form, Miss Barnard undertaking to answer all such requests.

It has been previously remarked that Faraday took little part in social movements, and went little into society, but it must not be supposed that he was by any means unsocial. It seems probable that his freedom in this matter was somewhat hampered by the principles in which he had been brought up: it is certain that he was restrained by the desire to give all the time and energy he could to scientific research. Yet pleasant stories are told of his occasional appearances at social gatherings. Thus he liked to attend the Royal Academy dinners, and in earlier days he enjoyed the artistic and musical conversaziones at Hullmandel's, where Stanfield Turner and Landseer met Garcia and Malibran; and sometimes he joined this pleasant company at supper and charades, at others in their excursions up the river in an eight-oared cutter. Captain Close has described to me how, when the French Lighthouse authorities put up the screw-pile light on the sands near Calais, they invited the Trinity House officers and Faraday to inspect it. A dinner was arranged for them after the inspection, and M. Reynaud proposed the health of the étranger célèbre. A young engineer took exception to Faraday being called a stranger – since he had been at St. Cyr he had known the great Englishman well by his works. The Professor replied to the compliment in the language of his hosts, with a few of his happy and kindly remarks. A gentleman high in the diplomatic service, who was present, remarked that Faraday had said many things which were not French, but not a word which ought not to be so.

More unrestricted was Faraday's sympathy with Nature. He felt the poetry of the changing seasons, but there were two aspects of Nature that especially seemed to claim communion with his spirit: he delighted in a thunderstorm, and he experienced a pleasurable sadness as the orange sunset faded into the evening twilight. There are other minds to which both these sensations are familiar, but they seem to have been felt with great intensity by him. No doubt his electrical knowledge added much to his interest in the grand discharges from the thunder-clouds, but it will hardly account for his standing long at a window watching the vivid flashes, a stranger to fear, with his mind full of lofty thoughts, or perhaps of high communings. Sometimes, too, if the storm was at a little distance, he would summon a cab, and, in spite of the pelting rain, drive to the scene of awful beauty.

On a clear starry night Captain Close quoted to him the words of Lorenzo in the "Merchant of Venice: " —

… "Look, how the floor of heavenIs thick inlaid with patines of bright gold;There's not the smallest orb, which thou behold'st,But in his motion like an angel sings,Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins;Such harmony is in immortal souls;But, whilst this muddy vesture of decayDoth grossly close us in, we cannot hear it."

Faraday, who happened not to be familiar with the passage, made his friend repeat it over and over again as he drank in the whole meaning of the poetry, for there is a true sense in which no other mortal had ever opened his ears so fully to the harmony of the universe.

From the plains of mental mediocrity there occasionally rise the mountains of genius, and from the dead level of selfish respectability there stand out now and then the peaks of moral greatness. Neither kind of excellence is so common as we could wish it, and it is a rare coincidence when, as in Socrates, the two meet in the same individual. In Faraday we have a modern instance. There are persons now living who watched this man of strong will and intense feelings raising himself from the lower ranks of society, yet without losing his balance; rather growing in simplicity, disinterestedness, and humility, as princes became his correspondents and all the learned bodies of the world vied with each other to do him homage; still finding his greatest happiness at home, though reigning in the affections of all his fellows, – loving every honest man, however divergent in opinion, and loved most by those who knew him best.

This is the phenomenon. By what theory is it to be accounted for?

The secret did not lie in the nature of his pursuits. This cannot be better shown than in the following incident furnished me by Mrs. Crosse: – "One morning, a few months after we were married, my husband took me to the Royal Institution to call on Mr. and Mrs. Faraday. I had not seen the laboratory there, and the philosopher very kindly took us over the Institution, explaining for my information many objects of interest. His great vivacity and cheeriness of manner surprised me in a man who devoted his life to such abstruse studies, but I have since learnt to know that the highest philosophical nature is often, indeed generally, united with an almost childlike simplicity.

"After viewing the ample appliances for experimental research, and feeling impressed by the scientific atmosphere of the place, I turned and said, 'Mr. Faraday, you must be very happy in your position and with your pursuits, which elevate you entirely out of the meaner aspects and lower aims of common life.'

"He shook his head, and with that wonderful mobility of countenance which was characteristic, his expression of joyousness changed to one of profound sadness, he replied: 'When I quitted business, and took to science as a career, I thought I had left behind me all the petty meannesses and small jealousies which hinder man in his moral progress; but I found myself raised into another sphere, only to find poor human nature just the same everywhere – subject to the same weaknesses and the same self-seeking, however exalted the intellect.'

"These were his words as well as I can recollect; and, looking at that good and great man, I thought I had never seen a countenance which so impressed me with the characteristic of perfect unworldliness. We know how his life proved that this rare qualification was indeed his."

"Childlike simplicity: " "unworldliness." Where was the tree rooted that bore such beautiful blossoms? Faraday had learnt in the school of Christ to become "a little child," and he loved not the world because the love of the Father was in him.

We have a charming glimpse of this in an extract which Professor Tyndall has given from an old paper in which he wrote his impressions after one of his earliest dinners with the philosopher: – "At two o'clock he came down for me. He, his niece, and myself formed the party. 'I never give dinners,' he said; 'I don't know how to give dinners; and I never dine out. But I should not like my friends to attribute this to a wrong cause. I act thus for the sake of securing time for work, and not through religious motives as some imagine.' He said grace. I am almost ashamed to call his prayer a 'saying' of grace. In the language of Scripture, it might be described as the petition of a son into whose heart God had sent the Spirit of His Son, and who with absolute trust asked a blessing from his father. We dined on roast beef, Yorkshire pudding, and potatoes, drank sherry, talked of research and its requirements, and of his habit of keeping himself free from the distractions of society. He was bright and joyful – boylike, in fact, though he is now sixty-two. His work excites admiration, but contact with him warms and elevates the heart. Here, surely, is a strong man. I love strength, but let me not forget the example of its union with modesty, tenderness, and sweetness, in the character of Faraday."

But his religion deserves a closer attention. When an errand-boy, we find him hurrying the delivery of his newspapers on a Sunday morning so as to get home in time to make himself neat to go with his parents to chapel: his letters when abroad indicate the same disposition; yet he did not make any formal profession of his faith till a month after his marriage, when nearly thirty years of age. Of his spiritual history up to that period little is known, but there seem to be good grounds for believing that he did not accept the religion of his fathers without a conscientious inquiry into its truth. It would be difficult to conceive of his acting otherwise. But after he joined the Sandemanian Church, his questionings were probably confined to matters of practical duty; and to those who knew him best nothing could appear stronger than his conviction of the reality of the things he believed. In order to understand the life and character of Faraday, it is necessary to bear in mind not merely that he was a Christian, but that he was a Sandemanian. From his earliest years that religious system stamped its impress deeply on his mind, it surrounded the blacksmith's son with an atmosphere of unusual purity and refinement, it developed the unselfishness of his nature, and in his after career it fenced his life from the worldliness around, as well as from much that is esteemed as good by other Christian bodies. To this small self-contained sect he clung with warm attachment; he was precluded from Christian communion or work outside their circle, but his sympathies at least burst all narrow bounds. Thus the Abbé Moigno tells us that at Faraday's request he one day introduced him to Cardinal Wiseman. The interview was very cordial, and his Eminence did not hesitate frankly and good-naturedly to ask Faraday if, in his deepest conviction, he believed all the Church of Christ, holy, catholic, and apostolical, was shut up in the little sect in which he bore rule. "Oh no!" was the reply; "but I do believe from the bottom of my soul that Christ is with us." There were other points, too, in his character which reflected the colouring of the religious school to which he belonged. Thus, while humility is inseparable from a Christian life, there is a special phase of that virtue bred of those doctrines which teach that all our righteousness must be the unmerited gift of another: these doctrines are strongly insisted upon in the Sandemanian Church, and this humility was acquired in an intense degree by its minister. Again, while all Christians deplore the terrible amount of folly and sin in the world, most recognize also a large amount of good, and believe in progressive improvement; but small communities are apt to take gloomy views, and so did Faraday, notwithstanding his personal happiness, and his firm conviction that "there is One above who worketh in all things, and who governs even in the midst of that misrule to which the tendencies and powers of men are so easily perverted."

In writing to Professor Schönbein and a few other kindred spirits he would turn naturally enough from scientific to religious thoughts, and back again to natural philosophy, but he generally kept these two departments of his mental activity strangely distinct; yet of course it was well known that the Professor at Albemarle Street was one of that long line of scientific men, beginning with the savants of the East, who have brought to the Redeemer the gold, frankincense, and myrrh of their adoration.

But the peculiar features of Faraday's spiritual life are matters of minor importance: the genuineness of his religious character is acknowledged by all. We have admired his faithfulness, his amiability of disposition, and his love of justice and truth; how far these qualities were natural gifts, like his clearness of intellect, we cannot precisely tell; but that he exercised constant self-control without becoming hard, ascended the pathway of fame without ever losing his balance, and shed around himself a peculiar halo of love and joyousness, must be attributed in no small degree to a heart at peace with God, and to the consciousness of a higher life.

SECTION III

FRUITS OF HIS EXPERIENCE

Those who loved Faraday would treasure every word that he wrote, and to them the life and letters which Bence Jones has given to the world will be inestimable; but from the multitude who knew him only at a distance, we can expect no enthusiasm of admiration. Yet all will readily believe that through the writings of such a genius there must be scattered nuggets of intellectual gold, even when he is not treating directly of scientific subjects. Some of these relate to questions of permanent interest, and such nuggets it is my aim to separate and lay before the reader.

When quite a young man he drew the following ideal portrait: – "The philosopher should be a man willing to listen to every suggestion, but determined to judge for himself. He should not be biassed by appearances, have no favourite hypothesis, be of no school, and in doctrine have no master. He should not be a respecter of persons, but of things. Truth should be his primary object. If to these qualities be added industry, he may indeed hope to walk within the veil of the temple of Nature." This ideal he must steadily have kept before him, and not unfrequently in after days he gave utterance to similar thoughts. Here are two instances, the first from a lecture thirty years afterwards, the second from a private letter: – "We may be sure of facts, but our interpretation of facts we should doubt. He is the wisest philosopher who holds his theory with some doubt; who is able to proportion his judgment and confidence to the value of the evidence set before him, taking a fact for a fact, and a supposition for a supposition; as much as possible keeping his mind free from all source of prejudice, or, where he cannot do this (as in the case of a theory), remembering that such a source is there." The letter is to Mr. Frederick Field, and relates to a paper on the existence of silver in the water of the ocean.