MAGNETIC HYPOTHESES.
As an instance of the obstacles which erroneous hypotheses throw in the way of scientific discovery, Professor Faraday adduces the unsuccessful attempts that had been made in England to educe Magnetism from Electricity until Oersted showed the simple way. Faraday relates, that when he came to the Royal Institution as an assistant in the laboratory, he saw Davy, Wollaston, and Young trying, by every way that suggested itself to them, to produce magnetic effects from an electric current; but having their minds diverted from the true course by their existing hypotheses, it did not occur to them to try the effect of holding a wire through which an electric current was passing over a suspended magnetic needle. Had they done so, as Oersted afterwards did, the immediate deflection of the needle would have proved the magnetic property of an electric current. Faraday has shown that the magnetism of a steel bar is caused by the accumulated action of all the particles of which it is composed: this he proves by first magnetising a small steel bar, and then breaking it successively into smaller and smaller pieces, each one of which possesses a separate pole; and the same operation may be continued until the particles become so small as not to be distinguishable without a microscope.
We quote the above from a late Number of the Philosophical Magazine, wherein also we find the following noble tribute to the genius and public and private worth of Faraday:
The public never can know and appreciate the national value of such a man as Faraday. He does not work to please the public, nor to win its guineas; and the said public, if asked its opinion as to the practical value of his researches, can see no possible practical issue there. The public does not know that we need prophets more than mechanics in science,—inspired men, who, by patient self-denial and the exercise of the high intellectual gifts of the Creator, bring us intelligence of His doings in Nature. To them their pursuits are good in themselves. Their chief reward is the delight of being admitted into communion with Nature, the pleasure of tracing out and proclaiming her laws, wholly forgetful whether those laws will ever augment our banker’s account or improve our knowledge of cookery. Such men, though not honoured by the title of “practical,” are they which make practical men possible. They bring us the tamed forces of Nature, and leave it to others to contrive the machinery to which they may be yoked. If we are rightly informed, it was Faradaic electricity which shot the glad tidings of the fall of Sebastopol from Balaklava to Varna. Had this man converted his talent to commercial purposes, as so many do, we should not like to set a limit to his professional income. The quality of his services cannot be expressed by pounds; but that brave body, which for forty years has been the instrument of that great soul, is a fit object for a nation’s care, as the achievements of the man are, or will one day be, the object of a nation’s pride and gratitude.