centuries England will be able
to point with just pride to the possession of such men.

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The first volume of the 'Life and Letters' reveals to us the youth who
was to be father to the man. Skilful, aspiring, resolute, he grew
steadily in knowledge and in power. Consciously or unconsciously, the
relation of Action to Reaction was ever present to Faraday's mind. It
had been fostered by his discovery of Magnetic Rotations, and it
planted in him more daring ideas of a similar kind. Magnetism he knew
could be evoked by electricity, and he thought that electricity, in
its turn, ought to be capable of evolution by magnetism. On August
29, 1831, his experiments on this subject began. He had been
fortified by previous trials, which, though failures, had begotten
instincts directing him towards the truth. He, like every strong
worker, might at times miss the outward object, but he always gained
the inner light, education, and expansion. Of this Faraday's life was
a constant illustration. By November he had discovered and colligated
a multitude of the most wonderful and unexpected phenomena. He had
generated currents by currents; currents by magnets, permanent and
transitory; and he afterwards generated currents by the earth itself.
Arago's 'Magnetism of Rotation,' which had for years offered itself
as a challenge to the best scientific intellects of Europe, now fell
into his hands. It proved to be a beautiful, but still special,
illustration of the great principle of Magneto-electric Induction.
Nothing equal to this latter, in the way of pure experimental enquiry,
had previously been achieved.

Electricities from various sources were next examined, and their
differences and resemblances revealed. He thus assured himself of
their substantial identity. He then took up Conduction, and gave many
striking illustrations of the influence of Fusion on Conducting Power.
Renouncing professional work, from which at this time he might have
derived an income of many thousands a year, he poured his whole
momentum into his researches. He was long entangled in
Electrochemistry. The light of law was for a time obscured by the
thick umbrage of novel facts; but he finally emerged from his
researches with the great principle of Definite Electro-chemical
Decomposition in his hands. If his discovery of Magneto-electricity
may be ranked with that of the pile by Volta, this new discovery, may
almost stand beside