Faraday to Charles Frederick Winslow   26 April 1858

Royal Institution | London | 26 April 1858

Dear Sir

I write at once to acknowledge your letter¹ and your paper² on the relations of the sun and the earth. I am very glad to see you occupied on the subject, and certainly have been very much surprised by your monthly table of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. The relation of these mighty terrestrial phenomena to the distance at which our earth is placed from the sun at the time seems as if it could only be referred to the amount of heat received at the time from the sun or else to some function of the force of gravity varying as it does in accordance as to time with the phenomena³.

I sincerely wish you may establish your view i.e. may by further examination of the phenomena prove it to be the truth. We none of us want anything but the truth, but when the truth is in a new direction and aside from our preconceived notions we are often very slow to receive it. I should be very glad to find some effect of gravity that might be considered complementary to the variation of that force by change of distance but the thought is very coldly received here⁴. I see no reason to change my own impression but I should rejoice to find them receiving either expansion or correction by such views as yours.

You amuse me rather by your account of your interview with Sir Astley Cooper⁵, and I am glad you did not take his advice. If you have found a good wife you have found sources of happiness very different but quite equal to those which science could have given you and I trust far more abundant. I believe that the work God intended you for has been as well carried out as it would have been by any monkish devotion to science alone. It is in the power of man to perform duties of both kinds and I suspect his moral and religious nature will be best subserved by a wife and family.

I do not imagine that I shall hear from either Airy or Sabine on the subject of your paper. I doubt whether either are as yet favorable to such views as ours. If the views be truth it will require time for them to make their view. Still they are announced and I am persuaded will progress though probably not much in the present generation.

I am Sir | Your Very Obliged Servant | M. Faraday

Dr. C.F. Winslow