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Faraday As A Discoverer

J >> John Tyndall >> Faraday As A Discoverer





Chapter 16.

Illustrations of Character.

Thus far I have confined myself to topics mainly interesting to the
man of science, endeavouring, however, to treat them in a manner
unrepellent to the general reader who might wish to obtain a notion
of Faraday as a worker. On others will fall the duty of presenting
to the world a picture of the man. But I know you will permit me to
add to the foregoing analysis a few personal reminiscences and
remarks, tending to connect Faraday with a wider world than that of
science--namely, with the general human heart.

One word in reference to his married life, in addition to what has
been already said, may find a place here. As in the former case,
Faraday shall be his own spokesman. The following paragraph, though
written in the third person, is from his hand:--'On June 12, 1821,
he married, an event which more than any other contributed to his
earthly happiness and healthful state of mind. The union has
continued for twenty-eight years and has in no wise changed, except
in the depth and strength of its character.'

Faraday's immediate forefathers lived in a little place called
Clapham Wood Hall, in Yorkshire. Here dwelt Robert Faraday and
Elizabeth his wife, who had ten children, one of them, James
Faraday, born in 1761, being father to the philosopher. A family
tradition exists that the Faradays came originally from Ireland.
Faraday himself has more than once expressed to me his belief that
his blood was in part Celtic, but how much of it was so, or when the
infusion took place, he was unable to say. He could imitate the
Irish brogue, and his wonderful vivacity may have been in part due
to his extraction. But there were other qualities which we should
hardly think of deriving from Ireland. The most prominent of these
was his sense of order, which ran like a luminous beam through all
the transactions of his life. The most entangled and complicated
matters fell into harmony in his hands. His mode of keeping
accounts excited the admiration of the managing board of this
Institution. And his science was similarly ordered. In his
Experimental Researches, he numbered every paragraph, and welded
their various parts together by incessant reference. His private
notes of the Experimental Researches, which are happily preserved,
are similarly numbered: their last paragraph bears the figure 16,041.
His working qualities, moreover, showed the tenacity of the Teuton.
His nature was impulsive, but there was a force behind the impulse
which did not permit it to retreat. If in his warm moments he
formed a resolution, in his cool ones he made that resolution good.
Thus his fire was that of a solid combustible, not that of a gas,
which blazes suddenly, and dies as suddenly away.

And here I must claim your tolerance for the limits by which I am
confined. No materials for a life of Faraday are in my hands, and
what I have now to say has arisen almost wholly out of our close
personal relationship.

Letters of his, covering a period of sixteen years, are before me,
each one of which contains some characteristic utterance;--strong,
yet delicate in counsel, joyful in encouragement, and warm in
affection. References which would be pleasant to such of them as
still live are made to Humboldt, Biot, Dumas, Chevreul, Magnus, and
Arago. Accident brought these names prominently forward; but many
others would be required to complete his list of continental
friends. He prized the love and sympathy of men--prized it almost
more than the renown which his science brought him. Nearly a dozen
years ago it fell to my lot to write a review of his 'Experimental
Researches' for the 'Philosophical Magazine.' After he had read it,
he took me by the hand, and said, 'Tyndall, the sweetest reward of
my work is the sympathy and good will which it has caused to flow in
upon me from all quarters of the world.' Among his letters I find
little sparks of kindness, precious to no one but myself, but more
precious to me than all. He would peep into the laboratory when he
thought me weary, and take me upstairs with him to rest. And if I
happened to be absent, he would leave a little note for me, couched
in this or some other similar form:--
'Dear Tyndall,--I was looking for you, because we were at tea--
we have not yet done--will you come up?' I frequently shared his
early dinner; almost always, in fact, while my lectures were going on.
There was no trace of asceticism in his nature. He preferred the
meat and wine of life to its locusts and wild honey. Never once
during an intimacy of fifteen years did he mention religion to me,
save when I drew him on to the subject. He then spoke to me without
hesitation or reluctance; not with any apparent desire to 'improve
the occasion,' but to give me such information as I sought.
He believed the human heart to be swayed by a power to which science
or logic opened no approach, and, right or wrong, this faith, held in
perfect tolerance of the faiths of others, strengthened and
beautified his life.

From the letters just referred to, I will select three for
publication here. I choose the first, because it contains a passage
revealing the feelings with which Faraday regarded his vocation, and
also because it contains an allusion which will give pleasure to a
friend.


'Royal Institution. [ this is crossed out by Faraday ]

'Ventnor, Isle of Wight, June 28, 1854.

'My Dear Tyndall,--You see by the top of this letter how much habit
prevails over me; I have just read yours from thence, and yet I
think myself there. However, I have left its science in very good
keeping, and I am glad to learn that you are at experiment once
more. But how is the health? Not well, I fear. I wish you would
get yourself strong first and work afterwards. As for the fruits, I
am sure they will be good, for though I sometimes despond as regards
myself, I do not as regards you. You are young, I am old....
But then our subjects are so glorious, that to work at them rejoices
and encourages the feeblest; delights and enchants the strongest.

'I have not yet seen anything from Magnus. Thoughts of him always
delight me. We shall look at his black sulphur together. I heard
from Schonbein the other day. He tells me that Liebig is full of
ozone, i.e., of allotropic oxygen.

'Good-bye for the present.
'Ever, my dear Tyndall,
'Yours truly,
'M. Faraday.'

The contemplation of Nature, and his own relation to her, produced
in Faraday a kind of spiritual exaltation which makes itself
manifest here. His religious feeling and his philosophy could not
be kept apart; there was an habitual overflow of the one into the
other.

Whether he or another was its exponent, he appeared to take equal
delight in science. A good experiment would make him almost dance
with delight. In November, 1850, he wrote to me thus: --'I hope
some day to take up the point respecting the magnetism of associated
particles. In the meantime I rejoice at every addition to the facts
and reasoning connected with the subject. When science is a
republic, then it gains: and though I am no republican in other
matters, I am in that.' All his letters illustrate this catholicity
of feeling. Ten years ago, when going down to Brighton, he carried
with him a little paper I had just completed, and afterwards wrote
to me. His letter is a mere sample of the sympathy which he always
showed to me and my work.


'Brighton, December 9, 1857.

'My Dear Tyndall,--I cannot resist the pleasure of saying how very
much I have enjoyed your paper. Every part has given me delight.
It goes on from point to point beautifully. You will find many
pencil marks, for I made them as I read. I let them stand, for
though many of them receive their answer as the story proceeds, yet
they show how the wording impresses a mind fresh to the subject, and
perhaps here and there you may like to alter it slightly, if you
wish the full idea, i.e., not an inaccurate one, to be suggested at
first; and yet after all I believe it is not your exposition, but
the natural jumping to a conclusion that affects or has affected my
pencil.

'We return on Friday, when I will return you the paper.

'Ever truly yours,
'M. Faraday.'


The third letter will come in its proper place towards the end.

While once conversing with Faraday on science, in its relations to
commerce and litigation, he said to me, that at a certain period of
his career, he was forced definitely to ask himself, and finally to
decide whether he should make wealth or science the pursuit of his
life. He could not serve both masters, and he was therefore
compelled to choose between them. After the discovery of
magneto-electricity his fame was so noised abroad, that the
commercial world would hardly have considered any remuneration too
high for the aid of abilities like his. Even before he became so
famous, he had done a little 'professional business.' This was the
phrase he applied to his purely commercial work. His friend,
Richard Phillips, for example, had induced him to undertake a number
of analyses, which produced, in the year 1830, an addition to his
income of more than a thousand pounds; and in 1831 a still greater
addition. He had only to will it to raise in 1832 his professional
business income to 5000L. a year. Indeed double this sum would be
a wholly insufficient estimate of what he might, with ease, have
realised annually during the last thirty years of his life.

While restudying the Experimental Researches with reference to the
present memoir, the conversation with Faraday here alluded to came
to my recollection, and I sought to ascertain the period when the
question, 'wealth or science,' had presented itself with such
emphasis to his mind. I fixed upon the year 1831 or 1832, for it
seemed beyond the range of human power to pursue science as he had
done during the subsequent years, and to pursue commercial work at
the same time. To test this conclusion I asked permission to see
his accounts, and on my own responsibility, I will state the result.
In 1832, his professional business income, instead of rising to
5000L., or more, fell from 1090L. 4s. to 155L. 9s. From this it
fell with slight oscillations to 92L. in 1837, and to zero in 1838.
Between 1839 and 1845, it never, except in one instance, exceeded
22L.; being for the most part much under this. The exceptional year
referred to was that in which he and Sir Charles Lyell were engaged
by Government to write a report on the Haswell Colliery explosion,
and then his business income rose to 112L. From the end of 1845 to
the day of his death, Faraday's annual professional business income
was exactly zero. Taking the duration of his life into account,
this son of a blacksmith, and apprentice to a bookbinder, had to
decide between a fortune of 150,000L. on the one side, and his
undowered science on the other. He chose the latter, and died a
poor man. But his was the glory of holding aloft among the nations
the scientific name of England for a period of forty years.

The outward and visible signs of fame were also of less account to
him than to most men. He had been loaded with scientific honours
from all parts of the world. Without, I imagine, a dissentient
voice, he was regarded as the prince of the physical investigators
of the present age. The highest scientific position in this country
he had, however, never filled. When the late excellent and lamented
Lord Wrottesley resigned the presidency of the Royal Society, a
deputation from the council, consisting of his Lordship, Mr. Grove,
and Mr. Gassiot, waited upon Faraday, to urge him to accept the
president's chair. All that argument or friendly persuasion could
do was done to induce him to yield to the wishes of the council,
which was also the unanimous wish of scientific men. A knowledge of
the quickness of his own nature had induced in Faraday the habit of
requiring an interval of reflection, before he decided upon any
question of importance. In the present instance he followed his
usual habit, and begged for a little time.

On the following morning, I went up to his room and said on entering
that I had come to him with some anxiety of mind. He demanded its
cause, and I responded:--'Lest you should have decided against the
wishes of the deputation that waited on you yesterday.' 'You would
not urge me to undertake this responsibility,' he said. 'I not only
urge you,' was my reply, 'but I consider it your bounden duty to
accept it.' He spoke of the labour that it would involve; urged that
it was not in his nature to take things easy; and that if he became
president, he would surely have to stir many new questions, and
agitate for some changes. I said that in such cases he would find
himself supported by the youth and strength of the Royal Society.
This, however, did not seem to satisfy him. Mrs. Faraday came into
the room, and he appealed to her. Her decision was adverse, and I
deprecated her decision. 'Tyndall,' he said at length, 'I must
remain plain Michael Faraday to the last; and let me now tell you,
that if I accepted the honour which the Royal Society desires to
confer upon me, I would not answer for the integrity of my intellect
for a single year.' I urged him no more, and Lord Wrottesley had a
most worthy successor in Sir Benjamin Brodie.

After the death of the Duke of Northumberland, our Board of Managers
wished to see Mr. Faraday finish his career as President of the
Institution, which he had entered on weekly wages more than half a
century before. But he would have nothing to do with the
presidency. He wished for rest, and the reverent affection of his
friends was to him infinitely more precious than all the honours of
official life.

The first requisite of the intellectual life of Faraday was the
independence of his mind; and though prompt to urge obedience where
obedience was due, with every right assertion of manhood he
intensely sympathized. Even rashness on the side of honour found
from him ready forgiveness, if not open applause. The wisdom of
years, tempered by a character of this kind, rendered his counsel
peculiarly precious to men sensitive like himself. I often sought
that counsel, and, with your permission, will illustrate its
character by one or two typical instances.

In 1855, I was appointed examiner under the Council for Military
Education. At that time, as indeed now, I entertained strong
convictions as to the enormous utility of physical science to
officers of artillery and engineers, and whenever opportunity
offered, I expressed this conviction without reserve. I did not
think the recognition, though considerable, accorded to physical
science in those examinations at all proportionate to its
importance; and this probably rendered me more jealous than I
otherwise should have been of its claims.

In Trinity College, Dublin, a school had been organized with
reference to the Woolwich examinations, and a large number of
exceedingly well-instructed young gentlemen were sent over from
Dublin, to compete for appointments in the artillery and the
engineers. The result of one examination was particularly
satisfactory to me; indeed the marks obtained appeared so eloquent
that I forbore saying a word about them. My colleagues, however,
followed the usual custom of sending in brief reports with their
returns of marks. After the results were published, a leading
article appeared in 'The Times,' in which the reports were largely
quoted, praise being bestowed on all the candidates, except the
excellent young fellows who had passed through my hands.

A letter from Trinity College drew my attention to this article,
bitterly complaining that whereas the marks proved them to be the
best of all, the science candidates were wholly ignored. I tried to
set matters right by publishing, on my own responsibility, a letter
in 'The Times.' The act, I knew, could not bear justification from
the War Office point of view; and I expected and risked the
displeasure of my superiors. The merited reprimand promptly came.
'Highly as the Secretary of State for War might value the expression
of Professor Tyndall's opinion, he begged to say that an examiner,
appointed by His Royal Highness the Commander-in-Chief, had no right
to appear in the public papers as Professor Tyndall has done,
without the sanction of the War Office.' Nothing could be more just
than this reproof, but I did not like to rest under it. I wrote a
reply, and previous to sending it took it up to Faraday. We sat
together before his fire, and he looked very earnest as he rubbed
his hands and pondered. The following conversation then passed
between us:--

F. You certainly have received a reprimand, Tyndall; but the
matter is over, and if you wish to accept the reproof, you will
hear no more about it.

T. But I do not wish to accept it.

F. Then you know what the consequence of sending that letter will be?

T. I do.

F. They will dismiss you.

T. I know it.

F. Then send the letter!

The letter was firm, but respectful; it acknowledged the justice of
the censure, but expressed neither repentance nor regret. Faraday,
in his gracious way, slightly altered a sentence or two to make it
more respectful still. It was duly sent, and on the following day I
entered the Institution with the conviction that my dismissal was
there before me. Weeks, however, passed. At length the well-known
envelope appeared, and I broke the seal, not doubting the contents.
They were very different from what I expected. 'The Secretary of
State for War has received Professor Tyndall's letter, and deems the
explanation therein given perfectly satisfactory.' I have often
wished for an opportunity of publicly acknowledging this liberal
treatment, proving, as it did, that Lord Panmure could discern and
make allowance for a good intention, though it involved an offence
against routine. For many years subsequently it was my privilege to
act under that excellent body, the Council for Military Education.

On another occasion of this kind, having encouraged me in a somewhat
hardy resolution I had formed, Faraday backed his encouragement by
an illustration drawn from his own life. The subject will interest
you, and it is so sure to be talked about in the world, that no
avoidable harm can rise from its introduction here.

In the year 1835, Sir Robert Peel wished to offer Faraday a pension,
but that great statesman quitted office before he was able to
realise his wish. The Minister who founded these pensions intended
them, I believe, to be marks of honour which even proud men might
accept without compromise of independence. When, however, the
intimation first reached Faraday in an unofficial way, he wrote a
letter announcing his determination to decline the pension; and
stating that he was quite competent to earn his livelihood himself.
That letter still exists, but it was never sent, Faraday's
repugnance having been overruled by his friends. When Lord
Melbourne came into office, he desired to see Faraday; and probably
in utter ignorance of the man--for unhappily for them and us,
Ministers of State in England are only too often ignorant of great
Englishmen--his Lordship said something that must have deeply
displeased his visitor. All the circumstances were once
communicated to me, but I have forgotten the details. The term
'humbug,' I think, was incautiously employed by his Lordship, and
other expressions were used of a similar kind. Faraday quitted the
Minister with his own resolves, and that evening he left his card
and a short and decisive note at the residence of Lord Melbourne,
stating that he had manifestly mistaken his Lordship's intention of
honouring science in his person, and declining to have anything
whatever to do with the proposed pension. The good-humoured
nobleman at first considered the matter a capital joke; but he was
afterwards led to look at it more seriously. An excellent lady,
who was a friend both to Faraday and the Minister, tried to arrange
matters between them; but she found Faraday very difficult to move
from the position he had assumed. After many fruitless efforts,
she at length begged of him to state what he would require of Lord
Melbourne to induce him to change his mind. He replied, 'I should
require from his Lordship what I have no right or reason to expect
that he would grant--a written apology for the words he permitted
himself to use to me.' The required apology came, frank and full,
creditable, I thought, alike to the Prime Minister and the
philosopher.

Considering the enormous strain imposed on Faraday's intellect, the
boy-like buoyancy even of his later years was astonishing. He was
often prostrate, but he had immense resiliency, which he brought
into action by getting away from London whenever his health failed.
I have already indicated the thoughts which filled his mind during
the evening of his life. He brooded on magnetic media and lines of
force; and the great object of the last investigation he ever
undertook was the decision of the question whether magnetic force
requires time for its propagation. How he proposed to attack this
subject we may never know. But he has left some beautiful apparatus
behind; delicate wheels and pinions, and associated mirrors, which
were to have been employed in the investigation. The mere conception
of such an inquiry is an illustration of his strength and hopefulness,
and it is impossible to say to what results it might have led him.
But the work was too heavy for his tired brain. It was long before
he could bring himself to relinquish it and during this struggle he
often suffered from fatigue of mind. It was at this period,
and before he resigned himself to the repose which marked the last
two years of his life, that he wrote to me the following letter--
one of many priceless letters now before me--which reveals, more than
anything another pen could express, the state of his mind at the time.
I was sometimes censured in his presence for my doings in the Alps,
but his constant reply was, 'Let him alone, he knows how to take
care of himself.' In this letter, anxiety on this score reveals
itself for the first time.


'Hampton Court, August 1, 1864.

'My Dear Tyndall,--I do not know whether my letter will catch you,
but I will risk it, though feeling very unfit to communicate with a
man whose life is as vivid and active as yours; but the receipt of
your kind letter makes me to know that, though I forget, I am not
forgotten, and though I am not able to remember at the end of a line
what was said at the beginning of it, the imperfect marks will
convey to you some sense of what I long to say. We had heard of
your illness through Miss Moore, and I was therefore very glad to
learn that you are now quite well; do not run too many risks or make
your happiness depend too much upon dangers, or the hunting of them.
Sometimes the very thinking of you, and what you may be about,
wearies me with fears, and then the cogitations pause and change,
but without giving me rest. I know that much of this depends upon
my own worn-out nature, and I do not know why I write it, save that
when I write to you I cannot help thinking it, and the thoughts
stand in the way of other matter.

* * * * * * *

'See what a strange desultory epistle I am writing to you, and yet I
feel so weary that I long to leave my desk and go to the couch.

'My dear wife and Jane desire their kindest remembrances: I hear
them in the next room:... I forget--but not you, my dear Tyndall,
for I am

'Ever yours,
'M. Faraday.'


This weariness subsided when he relinquished his work, and I have a
cheerful letter from him, written in the autumn of 1865. But
towards the close of that year he had an attack of illness, from
which he never completely rallied. He continued to attend the
Friday Evening Meetings, but the advance of infirmity was apparent
to us all. Complete rest became finally essential to him, and he
ceased to appear among us. There was no pain in his decline to
trouble the memory of those who loved him. Slowly and peacefully he
sank towards his final rest, and when it came, his death was a
falling asleep. In the fulness of his honours and of his age he
quitted us; the good fight fought, the work of duty--shall I not say
of glory?--done. The 'Jane' referred to in the foregoing letter is
Faraday's niece, Miss Jane Barnard, who with an affection raised
almost to religious devotion watched him and tended him to the end.

I saw Mr. Faraday for the first time on my return from Marburg in 1850.
I came to the Royal Institution, and sent up my card, with a copy of
the paper which Knoblauch and myself had just completed. He came
down and conversed with me for half an hour. I could not fail to
remark the wonderful play of intellect and kindly feeling exhibited
by his countenance. When he was in good health the question of his
age would never occur to you. In the light and laughter of his eyes
you never thought of his grey hairs. He was then on the point of
publishing one of his papers on Magnecrystallic action, and he had
time to refer in a flattering Note to the memoir I placed in his
hands. I returned to Germany, worked there for nearly another year,
and in June, 1851, came back finally from Berlin to England. Then,
for the first time, and on my way to the meeting of the British
Association, at Ipswich, I met a man who has since made his mark
upon the intellect of his time; who has long been, and who by the
strong law of natural affinity must continue to be, a brother to me.
We were both without definite outlook at the time, needing proper
work, and only anxious to have it to perform. The chairs of Natural
History and of Physics being advertised as vacant in the University
of Toronto, we applied for them, he for the one, I for the other;
but, possibly guided by a prophetic instinct, the University
authorities declined having anything to do with either of us.
If I remember aright, we were equally unlucky elsewhere.

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