Thomas Mayo to Faraday   6 March 1844¹

My dear Sir

You will, I trust, excuse my troubling you with some remarks on the admirable lecture² of which you have very kindly favored me with an abstract³.

Believing that no analytical inquiry has ever been set on foot without some preconceived hypothesis, I imagine, also, that theory & hypothesis never need interfere with the prosecution of an inquiry. Your discoveries indeed sufficiently shew the value of hypothesis. For no man uses its language more successfully, than you do, as the associating agent in your analytical inquiries. In this respect your intellectual operations supply a striking proof of the value of a vivid imagination in a Philosopher.

But I would suggest to you the following doubts, as to the hypothetical expression, wh you are disposed to substitute, for that, at present in use, of the Atomic Doctrine.

1ly Is it not the substitution of an expression comparatively barren & unproductive, for one `greatly used', as you say, (& I presume greatly useful,) 'for the interpretation of Phenomena especially those of chrystallography [sic] & chemistry'?⁴ Your atmosphere of force, grouped round a mathematical point, is not, as other hypothetical expressions have been in the course of your researches, an expression linking together admitted phenomena, but rather superseding the material phenomena, which it pretends to explain. It resolves in fact, as it would appear to me, all matter into a metaphysical abstraction. For it must all consist of the mathematical point, & the atmosphere of force grouped around it.

2dly might not the difficulty so well pointed out by you, as involved in the prior atomic theory, that it makes space at once an Isolator & a conductor, be removed without your hypothesis?

You observe, that in a stick of black sealing wax the particles of conducting charcoal diffused through every part of it, are deprived of their conducting power, by a non-conducting body, a resin, intervening & separating one from another; & this appears to you analogous to the condition of atoms generally in respect to conduction or isolation, on the supposition of intervening spaces. But the atoms of a conducting or isolating body may be presumed (I imagine) to have around them an atmosphere of space absolutely indifferent, & no way interfering with the isolating or conducting power of the homogeneous substance.

But, I will not detain you longer. If my imperfect acquaintance with this class of subjects has occasioned me to write nonsense, pray tear my letter, but Believe me

Your sincere friend & admirer Thos. Mayo

56 Wimpole Street | March 6th 1844

Remarks

Dr. Faraday ought perhaps to carry his disposition to limit our real knowledge of things to effects & laws, a little farther, & to apply it also to his own hypothesis. A mathematical point with an atmosphere of force around it, is, in respect to the atmosphere of force, an expression of certain effects. But what is the mathematical point?

The question, which the Philosopher has to answer, in deciding, whether he should accept this, or any other hypothesis, on the subject, is, whether it best interprets phenomena, or is least at variance with them. The views stated by Dr. Faraday in relation to conduction or Isolation, as regards the atomic theory, are an objection to it, supposing the answer, which I ventured to propose in my letter, be insufficient. The objection, which he takes to atoms on the ground of their uncertain magnitude, is one, which presumes, that we pretend to more knowledge of them, than those who entertain that theory need affect to possess. Indeed the mathematical point of Dr. Faraday is either a simple negation, as having neither magnitude nor parts, or is itself, after all, a material atom.

The objection that 'The Silver' (in Dr. Faradays Illustration) `must vanish if its forces are abstracted'⁵, may prove the necessity of forces to our conception of silver, but does not disprove the necessity of silver to our conception of its forces. All that we can positively assert as known is effects or forces; but we are organised & irresistibly impelled to assume substantia, of which these are properties. Berkeley⁶ permitted himself to philosophise in regard to the external world, just as if he had not proved, that our sensations are all, that we can confidently assert as known to us.

On grounds of this kind I object to Dr. Faradays applying the reasoning contained in his manuscript, in favor of his view, & as destructive of the atomic theory. It is equally subversive of both as far as it goes.

If, upon consideration, Dr. Faraday still is of opinion, that his argument against the atomic doctrine, founded on its involving the contradictory position, that the intervening space must be both a conductor & an Isolator is satisfactory, I can only say, with becoming humility, that he is more likely to be right, than I am:- | T. Mayo