Christian Friedrich Schoenbein to Faraday   17 December 1839

My dear Sir

I was very sorry, indeed, I could not have the pleasure of bidding personally farewell to you before my leaving England and of expressing viva voce my thanks for the many proofs of kindness and friendship which I received from you during my late stay at London. Several times I called at the Royal Institution with the view of seeing you but to my infinite regret I invariably received the disappointing answer: Mr. Faraday is not at home, he is still in the country¹. I will not conceal it from you that I intended to take up much more of your precious time than I actually did and that my principal view in visiting England was to enjoy as often as possible the society of that philosopher to whom I feel myself attached by a sort of intellectual affinity and by feelings of congeniality more than to any other man. I ardently wish and confidently hope it will fall to my lot to see you once more in this world and to have an opportunity of making good again what acci‑dental circumstances made me lose. I am just now reading the accounts of your late researches on electrical induction² and I cannot help telling you that some of your results appear to me to be of the utmost importance and such as to throw a strong light upon a series of highly interesting phenomena and particularly upon that of electrolysation. The fact that electrical induction is an action of contiguous particles seems to me to vie in interest with any other discovery ever made in electrical science and what I am only surprized at is the circumstance, that amongst our continental philosophers that fact has not yet met with that attention which it so eminently deserves. I am however confident that before long the subject will be taken up and excite general interest.

A most extraordinary circumstance at first sight is, that magneto-electrical and voltaic induction do apparently not depend upon such a molecular action. What are we to conclude from that difference? Though I am not fond of making conjectures on dark subjects, still I cannot help starting some hypothetical ideas regarding the point in question. It appears to me that what we call static electricity is only a state of tendency of something to move in a certain direction and that current-elec‑tricity is the actual motion of that something. That motion must not be considered as one of weighty particles but as a motion of something that is not affected by gravity; as a peculiar motion of ether if you like. According to these hypothetical views we can easily conceive, how a vibratory motion might be propagated through a space or medium empty of weighty particles but filled up with some imponderable matter which is capable of being brought into a moving state. The only thing difficult to conceive is the relation of that imponderable agency to the weighty particles in their natural and excited condition that is to say the way in which both are acting upon each other. It is possible that a state of tendency to motion may be brought about in ether only by a peculiar action of ponderable particles upon that fluid and that consequently such a state cannot exist in it without the presence or agency of matter, whilst moving ether of itself has the power to impart motion to ether being at rest. The fact that currents of perceptible energy can make their appearance only in matter is perhaps dependent upon a considerable condensation of the ethereal fluid round the pon‑derable particles and it may be that the degree of the con‑ducting and inducteous power of a substance is proportionate to the density of ether contained in it as for instance the degree of density of the air is proportionate to its conducting power of sound. Vague and venturous as all these views may appear they are perhaps at the present state of electrical science the only ones which we are able to conceive.

In the last number of Poggendorff's Annalen there is a very interesting paper of Jacobi³ to which I take the liberty to direct your attention. The german philosopher proves in it by a matter of fact argument that the amount of magnetic power produced by any voltaic arrangement is always pro‑portionate to the chemical effects of the latter or that what is called the intensity of a current is not independent of its quantity.

Bearer of these lines Mr. Bachofen⁴ Juris Doctor of <<Bâle>> a friend of mine and an excellent young man is making a stay in England with the view of getting acquainted with your laws and administration of justice, he is therefore very much desirous of being introduced to some eminent english lawyers and judges. As you have perhaps some means to procure to my friend such a sort of acquaintance, I should be very much obliged to you if you would be kind enough to render to Mr. Bachofen that favour.

Pray remember me most friendly to Mrs. Faraday and be‑lieve me to be

Your's | most sincerely | C.F. Schoenbein‑

Bâle Dec. 17th 1839.

Address: Professor Faraday | &c &c &c | Royal Institution | London