Faraday to François Napoleon Marie Moigno   22 April 1857

<qr>Private | Royal Institution | London | 22 April 1857.

My dear Abbe Moigno

To day I send off by the Railway Company three volumes of the Experimental Researches¹ about which you enquired² and which I trust you will do me the favour to accept - I send them by the Railway Company addressed to your name at 2 Rue Servandoni and I hope they will arrive safe. I have read your translation of Groves volume³ and the matter added by M. Seguin⁴. The latter has interested me exceedingly and will keep my thoughts going for some time but it requires a great deal of thought to compare such a view with ones accustomed notions & ideas of matter especially if one tries to carry it out in relation to the different varieties of matter and their chemical and electrical relations one to another - and my thoughts are now very slow and soon weary by exertion. It is wonderful to the mind when one endeavours to form a conception of matter & of force - it would be still more wonderful if those who have dealt with these things did not strive to form a conception and though we cannot hope in this life to know the beginning or ending of these things still we may hope to develope an extra link in that part of the chain of reasoning which comes within our comprehension. At the same time I must confess my feeling of great insufficiency in these matters and am constrained to hold my views under continued subjection & cross questioning and not having the honor of knowing in the slightest manner M. Seguin I dare not intrude upon him my very hesitating views - or give any expression to the feeling of great pleasure which I have had in reading his vigorous & as it seems to me philosophic view. It is very encouraging to see how men’s minds are moving[.] These things cannot be developed quickly & M Seguin must not be disheartened - It requires a generation to pass away that prejudices may die out with it & though that has happened since the time of Montgolfier⁵ still the change required is of such extent that the dissolution of another may be needed before the mind is freed from her trammels[.]

Believe me to be | Your faithful Servant | M. Faraday