Faraday to Christian Ernst Neeff   24 March 1846¹

Royal Institution | London | 24 March 1846

Sir

I have had the pleasure of receiving your letter and hope soon to have the further pleasure of reading the papers. I am sorry to say that the German language is a sealed language to me & I have not as yet seen the Archives des Sciences Physiques² but look for it in a few days. Still I saw (I conclude) a very good account of your experiments in a French paper[.] I think it was the Constitutionelle and from that was glad to find that our researches were in different directions though tending to the same point. I trust that experimental evidence will now rapidly accumulate in that direction[.]

I have sent through our Royal Society a paper addressed to you which I hope you will do me the honor to accept I mean a copy of my three last series of researches³ and I hope it will reach you safely in a short time. The Royal Society has at last hastened its publication so that I am set at liberty much sooner than I had reason to expect.

I keep dreaming away with views of matter & its powers that I do not think it wise or philosophic to put forth because I hold them so that they may change with the evidence of experiment, but I use these views as stimulants & guides in some degree into the course of new enquiries and I have as yet had no reason to repent the course I have pursued[.]

I am very much obliged for the Corrigenda[.] I shall put them into your paper before I read it[.]

Believe me to be with great respect | Sir | Your Very Obliged Servant | M. Faraday

Dr. Neeff | &c &c &c