Faraday to John Gibson Macvicar   29 December 1856¹

29 Decr. 1856 | Royal Institution | London W

My dear Sir

I hasten to thank you for your paper² & letter. You work vigorously; & it is well you do so; for your work is before you. I am free to say you are far in advance of me, for I am only an experimentalist, & cannot enter into the very numerous views of natural bodies & forces which have been put forth; otherwise than as they arise in my own mind from my own results. As it is I am esteemed by many to be very heterodox, but I just work on, forgetting as age comes on, many of my own choices of thought which I would have been very glad to retain, & afraid to embarras[s] myself with the reasonings of others. Let us hope we are all advancing more or less towards truth though it may be by different roads[.]

Yours Very Truly | M. Faraday

Revd. John MacVicar | &c &c &c