theory of the Voltaic pile in its true light, and to discover the great laws which regulate its action!

On May 7, 1815, after their return home, Faraday was engaged as assistant in the laboratory of the Royal Institution at a salary of 30s. per week. His journey with the Davys, although in many respects it had proved irksome and disagreeable, owing to the false position in which he was frequently placed by Sir Humphry's mismanagement and Lady Davy's want of tact and temper, was doubtless of the greatest value to Faraday, and the benefits which he thus received were thoroughly appreciated.

'Faraday had now full knowledge of his master's genius and power. He had compared him with the French philosophers whilst helping him in his discovery of the elementary nature of iodine; and he was about to see him engage in those researches on fire-damp and flame, which ended in the glorious invention of the Davy lamp, and gave to Davy a popular reputation even beyond that which he gained in science by the greatest of all his discoveries-potassium.'

But although Faraday worked under the most brilliant chemist of the day, and fully appreciated his scientific discoveries, as his careful preservation of all Davy's letters and note-books shows, yet he was by no means so dazzled by his teacher's genius as not to see his many faults. There is no doubt that Davy was hurt by his own success; he had very little selfcontrol, and but little method and order; and Faraday has been known to say that the greatest of all his advantages was that he had a model to teach him what to avoid.*

In 1816 Faraday began to lecture at the City Philosophical Society. Passages in these early lectures clearly show the high view which he takes of scientific work:

'Before leaving this subject, chlorine (the elementary nature of which had been insisted on by Davy some years before), I will point out its history, as an answer to those who are in the habit of saying to every new fact "What is its use?" Dr. Franklin cays to such, "What "is the use of an infant?" The answer of the experimentalist would be "Endeavour to make it useful." When Scheele discovered this substance it appeared to have no use, it was in its infantine and useless state; but having grown up to maturity, witness its powers, and see what endeavours to make it useful have done.'

For Faraday quite understood, even thus early, the wide dif

* When Faraday was at Geneva with Davy, Professor de la Rive did not fail to see the worth of Davy's assistant, and in consequence invited both to dinner. Davy, it appears, declined to dine with a person who in some respects acted as his servant; and M. de la Rive politely remarked that he should in consequence have the pleasure of giving two dinners.

ference between the original investigators of nature and the men who apply the knowledge thus gained to practical purposes :

''Twas easy following where invention trod,

All eyes can see when light flows out from God.'

Then again he says:

"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.'

And through life Faraday proved true to the mark of his high calling. His love of science for its own sake breaks out constantly in his letters and his talk. Complaining late in life to Tyndall about his failing health, he writes, But then our subjects are so glorious, that to work at them rejoices and encourages the feeblest, delights and enchants the strongest.'

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The contemplation of nature,' says Tyndall, and his own relation to her, produced in Faraday a kind of spiritual exaltation which we see 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.'

Early in his career Faraday had to decide whether he should make wealth or science his pursuit in life; he could not serve both masters. After his discovery of magneto-electricity, the commercial world would hardly have considered any remuneration too high for the aid of such abilities as his. He might easily have made his professional business yield him 5,000%. a year; his accounts plainly show how and when he made his choice, for in 1832 his business income, instead of rising to 5,0007., diminished from 1,0901. 4s. Od. to 155l. 9s. Od., and in 1838 it fell to zero, at which point it remained for the rest of his life, with trifling exceptions:—

'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 hand, 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 fame of England for a period of forty years.

In the year 1816, Faraday, being twenty-four years of age, published his first original communication, on Native Caustic

I reprint this

Lime, in the Quarterly Journal of Science.' 'paper at full length,' he says in his Experimental Researches in Chemistry and Physics':

'It was the beginning of my communications to the public, and its results were very important to me. Sir H. Davy gave me the analysis to make as a first attempt in chemistry, at a time when my fear was greater than my confidence, and both far greater than my knowledge; at a time also when I had no thought of ever writing an original paper on science.'

During the next three years Faraday published several papers on scientific subjects, of which one on 'Sounding Flames' is the most important. In 1820 he continued his lectures, and his first paper, on the Chlorides of Carbon, was presented to the Royal Society. In 1821 he married Miss Sarah Barnard. The following extract from his book of diplomas, written long afterwards, shows the strength of his affections and the happiness of his domestic life :

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:

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 the 12th June, 1821.' Elsewhere we find in his own handwriting, ' 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 nowise changed, except in the depth and strength of its character.' Of Faraday's religious views it is difficult to speak. He belonged (as did also his wife) to the sect of the Sandemanians; a month after his marriage he was formally admitted into this Church by making a solemn and public confession of sin and profession of faith; in 1840 he was elected an elder of the Church, and afterwards frequently preached on Sundays. His religion was by no means a harsh form of Calvinism, but a simple child-like faith, rather evincing itself in the deep humility which ran through his life. The sense of his own unworthiness and incapability of doing what was good, extended even to the act of professing the truth:

'Let no one suppose for a moment,' he says in a lecture on Mental Education, delivered in 1854, that the self-education which 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."

His was a high but a supernatural standard of duty founded on what he believed to be the distinct revelation of God's will.

To the fulness of this standard he successfully strove to attain ; on every occasion and in all the varying circumstances of life, he always endeavoured to seek and say that which he believed to be the truth, and to do that which he thought was kind. La fidélité à la foi religieuse,' says Dumas, et la constante 'observation de la loi morale constituent les traits dominants 'de sa vie.' And again his English biographer writes: His religion was a living root of fresh humility, and from first to last it may be seen growing with his fame and reaching its height with his glory, and making him to the end of his life 'certainly the humblest, whilst he was the most energetic, the truest, and the kindest of experimental philosophers.' He fully appreciated the return which others made him in this respect. Tyndall,' said he one day, the sweetest reward of my work is the sympathy and goodwill which it has 'caused to flow in upon me from all quarters of the world.'

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The first or introductory period of his scientific activity had now commenced, and in the ten years which followed his marriage he was constantly engaged in preparing himself for the great discoveries which afterwards awaited his labours. In 1821 he prepared liquid chlorine by heating in a closed tube the solid hydrate discovered by Davy in 1810. The pressure evolved by the compressed and liquefied gases inside these tubes was so great that frequent and violent explosions occurred, and on one occasion a tube burst, and thirteen pieces of glass were driven into Faraday's eye. The publication of these experiments led to an unpleasant expression of feeling by Sir H. Davy, who appears to have been jealous of Faraday's success as an investigator; and though, when the occasion presented itself, the latter most completely exonerated himself from every charge of plagiarism, and pointed out that neither Davy nor he could be said to be the discoverers of liquid chlorine, as it had been prepared in 1805 by Northmore, it is no less certain than sad that Davy as President opposed Faraday's election to the Royal Society :

:

'Sir H. Davy told me I must take down my certificate. I replied that I had not put it up; that I could not take it down as it was put up by my proposers. He then said I must get my proposers to take it down. I answered that I knew they would not do so. Then he said, "I as President will take it down." I replied that I was sure Sir H. Davy would do what he thought was for the good of the Royal Society.

Faraday also said that one of his proposers told him that Davy had walked for an hour round the courtyard of Somerset House arguing that Faraday ought not to be elected. How

ever, shortly afterwards the storm passed over, and Davy writes: I am, dear Faraday, very sincerely your well-wisher ' and friend;' and Faraday was duly elected a Fellow. Now indeed had Faraday learnt that even men of science have their foibles and weaknesses! Hélas! sur ce point, ce fut Davy, lui-même, qui ne laissa rien à faire aux autres pour l'édu'cation de Faraday.'

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The first scientific honour which Faraday received, out of a total of ninety-five honorary titles and marks of merit, was in 1823 from the Cambridge Philosophical Society. When asked what were his titles, one title, namely that of F.R.S., 'was sought,' said he, and paid for; all the rest were spon'taneous offerings of kindness and goodwill.' In 1825 Faraday discovered Benzol, the hydrocarbon contained in coal tar, and from which we now obtain all the bright and brilliant purple, crimson, blue and violet tints known as the Aniline Colours. In the same year he was appointed Director of the Laboratory of the Royal Institution, and at once showed his desire to promote the welfare of the members by instituting evening meetings, which soon developed into the well-known Friday Evening Discourses. The memory of his own Friday evening lectures, always on some new and interesting point of scientific discovery, remains deeply engraved on many minds. To attend these lectures became the fashionable rage-the crush up the Institution stairs was only to be compared to the old rush on a Jenny Lind night! Then there really was something worth seeing and hearing even for those who did not pretend to scientific tastes. There was something so taking, so genially kind, so affectionate in his manner towards his audience; his devotion to his subject so shone in every word and action, whilst his perfect simplicity only heightened the effect of his natural eloquence, that people came to see and hear him not so much for the sake of his science as for the sake of the man. It must not be supposed, however, that men of science themselves did not benefit from his lectures. No one before or since Faraday has been able to lecture as he did. The clearness of his statements, the orderly arrangement of his matter, was so perfect that when lecturing on some new and difficult point of experiment or theory, the merest tyro came away with the idea that he understood the whole bearings of the subject, whilst the men of science, who next to the lecturer knew perhaps most about the question, always found material for thought and not unfrequently incentives to renewed exertion. Then Faraday's manner in lecturing was perfectly natural; everything went so smoothly, his experiments were so convincing