R Institution | Feb. 21, 1831
Sir
Mr Daniell has put your letter into my hands because the note you refer to passed through me into the Journal2. When a friend from Cambridge (who had received it from a friend of yours) gave it to me to put into the journal if thought fit for that purpose you may suppose I did not hesitate a moment in my opinion. Nor have I any hesitation with regard to your offer of further explanation on the subject but shall (as far as I have influence) be very glad to have it for the next number3.
Your remarks upon chemical notation with the variety of systems which have arisen with regard to notation nomenclature scales of proportional or atomic number &c &c had almost stirred me up to regret publicly that such hindrances to the progress of science should exist - I cannot help thinking it a most unfortunate thing that men who as experimentalists & philosophers are the most fitted to advance the general cause of science & knowledge should by the promulgation of their own theoretical views under the form of nomenclature notation or scale actually retard its progress - It would not be of so much consequence if it was only theory & hypotheses which they thus treated but they put facts or the current coin of science into the same limited circulation when they describe them in such a way that the initiated only can read them[.]
You will easily supposed that I am not referring to the value which would belong to the application of any acknowledged & received mode of expressing facts of one kind; to another kind but I am objecting in general to what you object to in particular when you reprove the introduction of a new mode of notation whilst the one already received & known is amply sufficient[.]
I am Sir | Your Obedient Servant | M. Faraday
W Whewell Esq | &c &c &c
Mr. Daniell wished me to ask you where we could pay to your account the sum (I think Seven Guineas) for the paper on Arches &c &c4 MF
Let us have the paper as soon as convenient - Not later than the end of April[.] Sooner if possible.
Address: Revd. W Whewell | &c &c | Trinity College | Cambridge
LASSAUX (1831): “Description of a Mode of Erecting Light Vaults over Churches and Similar Spaces”, J. Roy. Inst., 1: 224-40.
WHEWELL, William (1828): An Essay on Mineralogical Classification and Nomenclature; with Tables of the orders and Species of Minerals, Cambridge.
WHEWELL, William (1831): “On the employment of notation in chemistry”, J. Roy. Inst., 1: 437-53.
Please cite as “Faraday0483,” in Ɛpsilon: The Michael Faraday Collection accessed on 28 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/faraday/letters/Faraday0483