"Take care of your money," was his advice to Mr. Joule, then another young aspirant to scientific honours, but who has since rendered the highest service to science, without leaning on any hopes of Government help or public support.
But the impressions given in conversation may not be always correct. Happily there exist his written opinions on this subject. In a letter addressed to Professor Andrews of Belfast, and dated 2nd February, 1843, there occurs this passage:—"As to the particular point of your letter about which you honour me by asking my advice, I have no advice to give; but I have a strong feeling in the matter, and will tell you what I should do. I have always felt that there is something degrading in offering rewards for intellectual exertion, and that societies or academies, or even Kings and Emperors, should mingle in the matter does not remove the degradation, for the feeling which is hurt is a point above their condition, and belongs to the respect which a man owes to himself. With this feeling, I have never since I was a boy aimed at any such prize; or even if, as in your case, they came near me, have allowed them to move me from my course; and I have always contended that such rewards will never move the men who are most worthy of reward. Still, I think rewards and honours good if properly distributed, but they should be given for what a man has done, and not offered for what he is to do, or else talent must be considered as a thing marketable and to be bought and sold, and then down falls that high tone of mind which is the best excitement to a man of power, and will make him do more than any commonplace reward. When a man is rewarded for his deserts, he honours those who grant the reward, and they give it not as a moving impulse to him, but to all those who by the reward are led to look to that man for an example."
Eleven years afterwards Faraday expressed similar views, but more fully, in a letter to the late Lord Wrottesley as chairman of the Parliamentary Committee of the British Association:—
"Royal Institution, March 10th, 1854.
"My Lord,
"I feel unfit to give a deliberate opinion on the course it might be advisable for the Government to pursue if it were anxious to improve the position of science and its cultivators in our country. My course of life, and the circumstances which make it a happy one for me, are not those of persons who conform to the usages and habits of society. Through the kindness of all, from my Sovereign downwards, I have that which supplies all my need; and in respect of honours, I have, as a scientific man, received from foreign countries and Sovereigns, those which, belonging to very limited and select classes, surpass in my opinion anything that it is in the power of my own to bestow.
"I cannot say that I have not valued such distinctions; on the contrary, I esteem them very highly, but I do not think I have ever worked for or sought after them. Even were such to be now created here, the time is past when these would possess any attraction for me; and you will see therefore how unfit I am, upon the strength of any personal motive or feeling, to judge of what might be influential upon the minds of others. Nevertheless, I will make one or two remarks which have often occurred to my mind.
"Without thinking of the effect it might have upon distinguished men of science, or upon the minds of those who, stimulated to exertion, might become distinguished, I do think that a Government should for its own sake honour the men who do honour and service to the country. I refer now to honours only, not to beneficial rewards; of such honours I think there are none. Knighthoods and baronetcies are sometimes conferred with such intentions, but I think them utterly unfit for that purpose. Instead of conferring distinction, they confound the man who is one of twenty, or perhaps fifty, with hundreds of others. They depress rather than exalt him, for they tend to lower the especial distinction of mind to the commonplaces of society. An intelligent country ought to recognize the scientific men among its people as a class. If honours are conferred upon eminence in any class, as that of the law or the army, they should be in this also. The aristocracy of the class should have other distinctions than those of lowly and high-born, rich and poor, yet they should be such as to be worthy of those whom the Sovereign and the country should delight to honour, and, being rendered very desirable and even enviable in the eyes of the aristocracy by birth, should be unattainable except to that of science. Thus much I think the Government and the country ought to do, for their own sake and the good of science, more than for the sake of the men who might be thought worthy of such distinction. The latter have attained to their fit place, whether the community at large recognize it or not.
"But besides that, and as a matter of reward and encouragement to those who have not yet risen to great distinction, I think the Government should, in the very many cases which come before it having a relation to scientific knowledge, employ men who pursue science, provided they are also men of business. This is perhaps now done to some extent, but to nothing like the degree which is practicable with advantage to all parties. The right means cannot have occurred to a Government which has not yet learned to approach and distinguish the class as a whole. * * *
"I have the honour to be, my Lord,
"Your very faithful Servant,
"M. Faraday."
Sometimes people's views on these matters change when the despised distinction is actually offered, but it was not so with him; for once, when indirectly sounded as to whether a knighthood would be acceptable, he declined the honour, preferring to "remain plain Michael Faraday to the last."
In this day, when so many allow their names to be used for offices of which they never intended to discharge the duties, the following letter may convey an appropriate lesson:—
"Royal Institution, Oct. 17th, 1849.
"My dear Percy,
"I cannot be on the committee; I avoid everything of that kind, that I may keep my stupid mind a little clear. As to being on a committee and not working, that is worse still. * * *
"Ever yours and Mrs. Percy's,
"M. Faraday."
It is well known that he waged implacable war with the Spiritualists. Eighteen years ago tables took to spinning mysteriously under the fingers of ladies and gentlemen who sat or stood around the animated furniture; much was said about a new force, much too about strange revelations from another sphere, but Faraday made a simple apparatus which convinced him and most others that the tables moved through the unconscious pressure of the hands that touched them. The account of this will be found in the Athenæum of July 2, 1853. Three weeks afterwards he wrote to his friend Schönbein: "I have not been at work except in turning the tables upon the table-turners, nor should I have done that, but that so many inquiries poured in upon me, that I thought it better to stop the inpouring flood by letting all know at once what my views and thoughts were. What a weak, credulous, incredulous, unbelieving, superstitious, bold, frightened,—what a ridiculous world ours is, as far as concerns the mind of man! How full of inconsistencies, contradictions, and absurdities it is!" But the believers in these occult phenomena, some of them holding high positions about the Court, would not let him alone; and there are many indications of the annoyance and irritation they caused him. He declined to meet the professors of the mysterious art, and the following letter will serve to show the way in which he regarded them:—
"Royal Institution, Nov. 1, 1864.
"Sir,
"I beg to thank you for your papers, but have wasted more thought and time on so-called spiritual manifestation than it has deserved. Unless the spirits are utterly contemptible, they will find means to draw my attention.
"How is it that your name is not signed to the testimony that you give? Are you doubtful even whilst you publish? I've no evidence that any natural or unnatural power is concerned in the phenomena that requires investigation or deserves it. If I could consult the spirits, or move them to make themselves honestly manifest, I would do it. But I cannot, and am weary of them.
"I am, Sir, your obedient Servant,
"M. Faraday."