Faraday to Marc Seguin   16 June 1857

Private | Royal Institution | London | 16 June 1857

My dear Sir

I must write to you in English, for if I tried to use your language on paper, I should be sure to leave my thoughts unexpressed; and I should be very sorry not to express my deep sense of your most kind invitation for which I am exceedingly grateful to you. I can imagine the pleasure of a visit to you:- but there is no hope of its being realized. Every day shows me its impossibility. Time & labour have had their course with me; they have left me happy, but with little power of active social engagements. My memory fails me: - society depends much upon it and when I make calls upon it for that purpose, then it becomes fatigued and fails for real scientific use. I beg you whilst accepting my sincerest thanks for yourself to express my sense of gratitude to those members of your family who were willing to accept us into their company & do us kindness. I sympathise deeply with you in respect of the illness of your daughter which must be a heavy trouble to you.

Monsieur L’abbe Moigno was so good as to give me some printed accounts of parts of your researches and views¹, and Monsieur Tremblay² has left with me other portions. I rejoice to see with what power you work amongst the molecular forces, and how you break up the fallow ground; though indeed as regards the grand views of Montgolfier³ it can hardly be called fallow to you, though it may be to others⁴. You must not be disheartened: for however brightly the light may shine, those see but little of it who will not look towards it. Neither indeed can one expect that a new principle in physics should make rapid advance, unless it be accompanied by new phenomena. When once we have formed an opinion from the phenomena it becomes a prejudice, and we are very lo[a]th to give it up; and when that prejudice is shared by the multitude then we trust in the multitude as justifying our opinions. I think that such convictions & developments as yours, being published, are as seed sown, and if good seed, is sure to produce its fruit in due season. For my own part I am obliged to suspend my opinion daily and wait for further reasons. I receive many views of natural forces; some I feel I can reject at once, others, though contradictory, I feel bound to reserve, thinking it possible that parts may hereafter be found to be truth. My own views (always very imperfect & insufficient) I of course think well of, or I would not make them mine; but I cannot doubt that they will fail in parts as others fail. Looking to past times and to those sciences which have made the most distinct advances, as chemistry, Electricity, magnetism &c. how different are the results we now possess from the view or expected results which the leaders in those different paths entertained 50 or even 30 years ago. - And so I think it will be with our views - in many points I doubt not they will be confirmed & enlarged; in others they will be corrected;- and we must not expect to see the development but leave it as an inheritance to future ages.

It is a great cause of rejoicing to observe how many workers in molecular science have joined you in late years; and more will come. As men perceive the inconsistency or insufficiency of the present views they will become workers; but I expect more from the rising generation than from that already established in character:- we may yet live to see great changes.

I hope you will forgive me the freedom of my writing but I have run on just as I thought without waiting for consistency of expression: for I think I see in your papers a true man[.] Again thanking you for your extreme kindness I beg to call myself

Your Very Obliged & faithful Servant | M. Faraday

a Monsieur | Monsieur Seguin aimé | &c &c &c.