Michael Faraday

PREFACE

Shortly after the death of Michael Faraday, Professor Auguste de la Rive, and others of his friends, gave to the world their impressions of his life, his character, and his work; Professor Tyndall drew his portrait as a man of science; and after a while Dr. Bence Jones published his biography in two octavo volumes, with copious extracts from his journals and correspondence. In a review of this "Life and Letters" I happened to mention my thought of giving to the public some day my own reminiscences of the great philosopher; several friends urged me to do so, not in the pages of a magazine, but in the form of a little book designed for those of his fellow-countrymen who venerate his noble character without being able to follow his scientific researches. I accepted the task. Professor Tyndall and Dr. Bence Jones, with Messrs. Longman, the publishers, kindly permitted me to make free use of their materials; but I am indebted to the Corporation of the Trinity House, and to many friends, for a good deal of additional information; and in compiling my book I have preferred, where practicable, to illustrate the character of Faraday by documents or incidents hitherto unpublished, or contained in those sketches of the philosopher which are less generally known.

It is due to myself to say that I had pretty well sketched out the second part of this book before I read M. Dumas' "Eloge Historique." The close similarity of my analysis of Professor Faraday's character with that of the illustrious French chemist may perhaps be accepted as an additional warrant for the correctness of our independent estimates.

PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION

The very favourable reception which my book has met with, both from the press and the public, seems to call for my grateful acknowledgment on the issue of a second edition.

In revising the former, I have added some further particulars about Faraday, especially in regard to "his method of working;" and an engraving from a photograph by Watkins, which best recalls to my recollection the features and the usual expression of the genial philosopher.

SECTION I

THE STORY OF HIS LIFE

At the beginning of this century, in the neighbourhood of Manchester Square, London, there was an inquisitive boy running about, playing at marbles, and minding his baby-sister. He lived in Jacob's Well Mews, close by, and was learning the three R's at a common day-school. Few passers-by would have noticed him, and none certainly would have imagined that this boy, as he grew up, was to achieve the truest success in life, and to die honoured by the great, the wise, and the good. Yet so it was; and to tell the story of his life, to trace the sources of this success, and to depict some of the noble results of his work, are the objects of this biographical sketch.

It was not at Jacob's Well Mews, but in Newington Butts, that the boy had been born, on September 22, 1791, and his parents, James and Margaret Faraday, had given this, their third child, the unusual name of Michael. The father was a journeyman blacksmith, a skilful workman who, in spite of poverty and feeble health, strove to bring up his children in habits of industry and the love of God.

Of course young Michael must soon do something for his living. There happened to be a bookseller's shop in Blandford Street, a few doors from the entrance to the Mews, kept by a Mr. Riebau, an intelligent man, who is said to have had a leaning to astrology; and there he went as errand boy when thirteen years old. Many a weary walk he had, carrying round newspapers to his master's customers; but he did his work faithfully; and so, after a twelvemonth, the bookseller was willing to take him as an apprentice, and that without a premium.

Now, a boy in a bookseller's shop can look at the inside as well as the outside of the books he handles, and young Faraday took advantage of his position, and fed on such intellectual food as Watts's "Improvement of the Mind," Mrs. Marcet's "Conversations on Chemistry," and the article on "Electricity" in the Encyclopædia Britannica, besides such lighter dishes as Miss Burney's "Evelina;" nor can we doubt that when he was binding Lyons' "Experiments on Electricity," and Boyle's "Notes about the Producibleness of Chymicall Principles," he looked beyond the covers.1 And his thirst for knowledge did not stop with reading: he must see whether Mrs. Marcet's statements were correct, and so, to quote his own words, "I made such simple experiments in chemistry as could be defrayed in their expense by a few pence per week, and also constructed an electrical machine, first with a glass phial, and afterwards with a real cylinder, as well as other electrical apparatus of a corresponding kind."

He kept too a note-book called "The Philosophical Miscellany," intended, he tells us, "to promote both amusement and instruction, and also to corroborate or invalidate those theories which are continually starting into the world of science;" and miscellaneous indeed were the scraps he gathered from the magazines of the time.

One day, early in 1810, walking somewhere in the neighbourhood of Fleet Street, he saw in a shop-window a bill announcing that lectures on natural philosophy were delivered by Mr. Tatum, at 53, Dorset Street, at eight in the evening, price of admission one shilling. He wanted to hear these lectures. His master's permission was obtained, but where was the money to come from? The needful shillings were given him by his elder brother, Robert, who earned them as a blacksmith; and so Michael Faraday made his first acquaintance with scientific lectures. And not with lectures only, for Tatum's house was frequented by other earnest students, and lifelong friendships were formed. Among these students was Benjamin Abbott, a young Quaker, who had received a good education, and had then a situation in a City house as confidential clerk. With him Faraday chatted on philosophy or anything else, and happily for us he chatted on paper, in letters of that fulness and length which the penny post and the telegraph have well-nigh driven out of existence; and happily for us, too, Abbott kept those letters, and Dr. Bence Jones has published them. They are wonderful letters for a poor bookseller's apprentice; they bear the stamp of an innate gentleman and philosopher.

Long afterwards, when Benjamin Abbott was an old man, he used to tell how Faraday made his first experiments in the kitchen of his house, and delivered his first lecture from the end of that kitchen table. The electrical machine made by him in those early days came into the possession of Sir James South, and now forms one of the treasures of the Royal Institution.

As the eager student drank in the lectures of Tatum, he took notes, and he afterwards wrote them out carefully in a clear hand, numbering and describing the different experiments that he saw performed, and making wonderfully neat drawings of the apparatus, in good perspective. These notes he bound in four volumes, adding to each a copious index, and prefixing to the first this dedication to his master: —

"Sir,

"When first I evinced a predilection for the sciences, but more particularly for that one denominated electricity, you kindly interested yourself in the progress I made in the knowledge of facts relating to the different theories in existence, readily permitting me to examine those books in your possession that were in any way related to the subjects then occupying my attention. To you, therefore, is to be attributed the rise and existence of that small portion of knowledge relating to the science which I possess, and accordingly to you are due my acknowledgments.

"Unused to the arts of flattery, I can only express my obligations in a plain but sincere way. Permit me, therefore, Sir, to return thanks in this manner for the many favours I have received at your hands and by your means and believe me,

Now there happened to be lodging at Mr. Riebau's a notable foreigner of the name of Masquerier. He was a distinguished artist, who had painted Napoleon's portrait, and had passed through the stirring events of the first French Revolution, not without serious personal danger, and was now finding a refuge and a home in London. He was struck with the intelligence of the apprentice, whose duty it was to do various offices for him; and he lent the young man his books, and taught him how to make the drawings in perspective which have already been alluded to.

But the lectures in Dorset Street were not the only ones that Michael Faraday attended; and as the Royal Institution is the central scene of all his subsequent history, we must pay a mental visit to that building. Turning from the busy stream of Piccadilly into the quiet of Albemarle Street, we see, in a line with the other houses, a large Grecian façade with fourteen lofty pilasters. Between these are folding doors, which are pushed open from time to time by grave-looking gentlemen, many of them white-headed; but often of an afternoon, and always on Friday evening during the season, the quiet street is thronged with carriages and pedestrians, ladies and gentlemen, who flock through these folding doors. Entering with them, we find ourselves in a vestibule, with a large stone staircase in front, and rooms opening on the right and left. The walls of these rooms are lined with myriads of books, and the tables are covered with scientific and other periodicals of the day, and there are cabinets of philosophical apparatus and a small museum. Going up the broad staircase and turning to the right, we pass through an ante-room to the lecture theatre. There stands the large table, horseshoe-shaped, with the necessary appliances for experiments, and behind it a furnace and arrangements for black-board and diagrams; while round the table as a centre range semicircular seats, rising tier above tier, and surmounted by a semicircular gallery, the whole capable of seating 700 persons. On the basement is a new chemical laboratory, fitted up with modern appliances, and beyond it the old laboratory, with its furnaces and sand-bath, its working tables and well-stored shelves, flanked by cellars that look like dark lumber-rooms. A narrow private staircase leads up to the suite of apartments in which resides the Director of the house. Such is the Royal Institution of Great Britain, incorporated by Royal Charter in the year 1800, "for the diffusing knowledge and facilitating the general introduction of useful mechanical inventions and improvements, and for teaching, by courses of philosophical lectures and experiments, the application of science to the common purposes of life;" – with the motto, "Illustrans commoda vitæ." Fifty or sixty years ago the building was essentially what it is now, except the façade and entrance, and that the laboratory, which was considered a model of perfection, was even darker than at present, and in the place of the modern chemical room there was a small theatre. The side room, too, was fitted up for actual work, though even at mid-day it had to be artificially lighted; and beyond this there was, and still is, a place called the Froggery, from a certain old tradition of frogs having been kept there. The first intention of the founders to exhibit useful inventions had not been found very practicable, but the place was already famous with the memories of Rumford and Young; and at that time the genius of Sir Humphry Davy was entrancing the intellectual world with brilliant discoveries, and drawing fashionable audiences to Albemarle Street to listen to his eloquent expositions.

Among the customers of the bookseller in Blandford Street was a Mr. Dance, who, being a member of the Royal Institution, took young Faraday to hear the last four public lectures of Davy. The eager student sat in the gallery, just over the clock, and took copious notes of the Professor's explanations of radiant matter, chlorine, simple inflammables, and metals, while he watched the experiments that were performed. Afterwards he wrote the lectures fairly out in a quarto volume, that is still preserved – first the theoretical portions, then the experiments with drawings, and finally an index. "The desire to be engaged in scientific occupation, even though of the lowest kind, induced me," he says, "whilst an apprentice, to write, in my ignorance of the world and simplicity of my mind, to Sir Joseph Banks, then President of the Royal Society. Naturally enough, 'No answer' was the reply left with the porter."

On the 7th of October his apprenticeship expired, and on the next day he became a journeyman bookbinder under a disagreeable master – who, like his friend the artist, was a French émigré. No wonder he sighed still more for congenial occupation.

Towards the end of that same October Sir Humphry Davy was working on a new liquid which was violently explosive, now known as chloride of nitrogen, – and he met with an accident that seriously injured his eye, and produced an attack of inflammation. Of course, for a while he could not write, and, possibly through the introduction of M. Masquerier,2 the young bookseller was employed as his amanuensis. This, however, Faraday himself tells us lasted only "some days;" and in writing years afterwards to Dr. Paris, he says, "My desire to escape from trade, which I thought vicious and selfish, and to enter into the service of Science, which I imagined made its pursuers amiable and liberal, induced me at last to take the bold and simple step of writing to Sir H. Davy, expressing my wishes, and a hope that, if an opportunity came in his way, he would favour my views; at the same time I sent the notes I had taken of his lectures." Davy, it seems, called with the letter on one of his friends – at that time honorary inspector of the models and apparatus – and said, "Pepys, what am I to do? Here is a letter from a young man named Faraday; he has been attending my lectures, and wants me to give him employment at the Royal Institution —what can I do?" "Do?" replied Pepys; "put him to wash bottles: if he is good for anything, he will do it directly; if he refuses, he is good for nothing." "No, no," replied Davy, "we must try him with something better than that."

So Davy wrote a kind reply, and had an interview with the young man upon the subject; in which, however, he advised him to stick to his business, telling him that "Science was a harsh mistress, and, in a pecuniary point of view, but poorly rewarding those who devoted themselves to her service." He promised him the work of the Institution, and his own besides.

But shortly afterwards the laboratory assistant was discharged for misconduct, and so it happened that one night the inhabitants of quiet Weymouth Street were startled by the unusual apparition of a grand carriage with a footman, which drew up before the house where Faraday lived, when the servant left a note from Sir Humphry Davy. The next morning there was an interview, which resulted in the young aspirant for scientific work being engaged to help the famous philosopher. His engagement dates from March 1, 1813, and he was to get 25s. per week, and a room in the house. The duties had been previously laid down by the managers: – "To attend and assist the lecturers and professors in preparing for, and during lectures. Where any instruments or apparatus may be required, to attend to their careful removal from the model room and laboratory to the lecture-room, and to clean and replace them after being used; reporting to the managers such accidents as shall require repair, a constant diary being kept by him for that purpose. That in one day in each week he be employed in keeping clean the models in the repository, and that all the instruments in the glass cases be cleaned and dusted at least once within a month."

The young assistant did not confine himself to the mere discharge of these somewhat menial duties. He put in order the mineralogical collection; and from the first we find him occupying a higher position than the minute quoted above would indicate.

In the course of a few days he was extracting sugar from beet-root; but all his laboratory proceedings were not so pleasant or so innocent as that, for he had to make one of the worst smelling of all chemical compounds, bisulphide of carbon; and as Davy continued to work on the explosive chloride of nitrogen, his assistant's career stood some chance of being suddenly cut short at its commencement. Indeed it seems that before the middle of April he had run the gauntlet of four separate explosions. Knowing that the liquid would go off on the slightest provocation, the experimenters wore masks of glass, but this did not save them from injury. In one case Faraday was holding a small tube containing a few grains of it between his finger and thumb, and brought a piece of warm cement near it, when he was suddenly stunned, and on returning to consciousness found himself standing with his hand in the same position, but torn by the shattered tube, and the glass of his mask even cut by the projected fragments. Nor was it easy to say when the compound could be relied on, for it seemed very capricious; for instance, one day it rose quietly in vapour in a tube exhausted by the air-pump, but the next day, when subjected to the same treatment, it exploded with a fearful noise, and Sir Humphry was cut about the chin, and was struck with violence on the forehead. This seems to have put an end to the experiments.

Nevertheless, in spite of disagreeables and dangers, the embryo philosopher worked on with a joyful heart, beguiling himself occasionally with a song, and in the evening playing tunes on his flute.

The change in Michael Faraday's employment naturally made him more earnest still in the pursuit of knowledge. He was admitted as a member of the "City Philosophical Society," a fraternity of thirty or forty men in the middle or lower ranks of life, who met every Wednesday evening for mutual instruction; and here is a contemporary picture of him at one of its debates: —

Another way in which he strove to educate himself is thus described in his own words: – "During this spring Magrath and I established the mutual improvement plan, and met at my rooms up in the attics of the Royal Institution, or at Wood Street at his warehouse. It consisted, perhaps, of half-a-dozen persons, chiefly from the City Philosophical Society, who met of an evening to read together, and to criticise, correct, and improve each other's pronunciation and construction of language. The discipline was very sturdy, the remarks very plain and open, and the results most valuable. This continued for several years."

Seven months after his appointment there began a new passage in Faraday's life, which gave a fresh impulse to his mental activity, and largely extended his knowledge of men and things. Sir Humphry Davy, wishing to travel on the Continent, and having received a special pass from the Emperor Napoleon, offered to take him as his amanuensis: he accepted the proposal, and for a year and a half they wandered about France, Italy, and Switzerland, and then they returned rapidly by the Tyrol, Germany, and Holland.

From letters written when abroad we can catch some of the impressions made on his mind by these novel scenes. "I have not forgot," he writes to Abbott, "and never shall forget, the ideas that were forced on my mind in the first days. To me, who had lived all my days of remembrance in London, a city surrounded by a flat green country, a hill was a mountain, and a stone a rock; for though I had abstract ideas of the things, and could say rock and mountain, and would talk of them, yet I had no perfect ideas. Conceive then the astonishment, the pleasure, and the information which entered my mind in the varied county of Devonshire, where the foundations of the earth were first exposed to my view, and where I first saw granite, limestone, &c., in those places and in those forms where the ever-working and all-wonderful hand of nature had placed them. Mr. Ben., it is impossible you can conceive my feelings, and it is as impossible for me to describe them. The sea then presented a new source of information and interest; and on approaching the shores of France, with what eagerness, and how often, were my eyes directed to the South! When arrived there, I thought myself in an uncivilized country; for never before nor since have I seen such wretched beings as at Morlaix." His impression of the people was not improved by the fact of their having arrested the travellers on landing, and having detained them for five days until they had sent to Paris for verification of their papers.

Again, to her towards whom his heart was wont to turn from distant lands with no small longing: "I have said nothing as yet to you, dear mother, about our past journey, which has been as pleasant and agreeable (a few things excepted, in reality nothing) as it was possible to be. Sir H. Davy's high name at Paris gave us free admission into all parts of the French dominions, and our passports were granted with the utmost readiness. We first went to Paris, and stopped there two months; afterwards we passed, in a southerly direction, through France to Montpellier, on the borders of the Mediterranean. From thence we went to Nice, stopping a day or two at Aix on our way; and from Nice we crossed the Alps to Turin, in Piedmont. From Turin we proceeded to Genoa, which place we left afterwards in an open boat, and proceeded by sea towards Lerici. This place we reached after a very disagreeable passage, and not without apprehensions of being overset by the way. As there was nothing there very enticing, we continued our route to Florence; and, after a stay of three weeks or a month, left that fine city, and in four days arrived here at Rome. Being now in the midst of things curious and interesting, something arises every day which calls for attention and observations. The relics of ancient Roman magnificence, the grandeur of the churches, and their richness also – the difference of habits and customs, each in turn engages the mind, and keeps it continually employed. Florence, too, was not destitute of its attractions for me, and in the Academy del Cimento and the museum attached to it is contained an inexhaustible fund of entertainment and improvement; indeed, during the whole journey, new and instructive things have been continually presented to me. Tell B. I have crossed the Alps and the Apennines; I have been at the Jardin des Plantes; at the museum arranged by Buffon; at the Louvre, among the chefs d'œuvre of sculpture and the masterpieces of painting; at the Luxembourg Palace, amongst Rubens' works; that I have seen a Glowworm!!! waterspouts, torpedo, the museum at the Academy del Cimento, as well as St. Peter's, and some of the antiquities here, and a vast variety of things far too numerous to enumerate."

But he kept a lengthy journal, and as we turn over the pages – for the best part of it is printed by Bence Jones – we meet vivid sketches of the provokingly slow custom-house officers, the postilion in jack-boots, and the thin pigs of Morlaix – pictures of Paris, too, when every Frenchman was to him an unintelligible enemy; when the Apollo Belvidere, the Venus de Medici, and the Dying Gladiator were at the Louvre, and when the First Napoleon visited the Senate in full state. "He was sitting in one corner of his carriage, covered and almost hidden from sight by an enormous robe of ermine, and his face overshadowed by a tremendous plume of feathers that descended from a velvet hat." We watch Sir Humphry as Ampère and others bring to him the first specimens of iodine, and he makes experiments with his travelling apparatus on the dark lustrous crystals and their violet vapour; we seem, too, to be present with the great English chemist and his scholar as they burn diamonds at Florence by means of the Grand Duke's gigantic lens, and prove that the invisible result is carbonic acid; or as they study the springs of inflammable gas at Pietra Mala, and the molten minerals of Vesuvius. The whole, too, is interspersed with bits of fun, and this culminates at the Roman Carnival, where he evidently thoroughly enjoyed the follies of the Corso, the pelting with sugar-plums, and the masked balls, to the last of which he went in a nightgown and nightcap, with a lady who knew all his acquaintances; and between the two they puzzled their friends mightily.