To Thomas Archer Hirst   Sunday 13 Nov. 1853

Sunday 13 Nov. 1853.

My dear Tom

Up to 3 oC. today I lived a life of thought and half strangled my intellect over the Mechanical Theory of Heat.¹ By slow thoughtful plodding – quick jumping and some pausing to take breath I managed to enter the subject here and there and to master a good deal of it. At 3 oC. I went to Anderton’s² to dinner, had some roast mutton and apple tart – the thought struck me that I would have a glass of brandy and water, I ordered it, it came, and I drank it, wandering meanwhile through some columns of the Weekly Dispatch.³ But the dose was too much for me, it stultified me, and completely spoiled my evenings work. Though it is now nearly 9 oC. I am unfit for any thing serious, and to kill time I take up my pen to write common-place to you. The moon is up, and I have been just out amid the crowds that cumber the pathways. While looking at the silver disk in the ultramarine of heaven I forgot that I had dined, and was lifted a little way, brandy and all, above the earth. There are the stars too when I move my Venitian blind looking steadfastly and solemnly down upon the mighty anthill with all its petty joys and cares. But the Clod⁴ returns and I cannot moralize further. Your daughter⁵ was ill with a cold during her stay in London, she went to a theatre and for a sore throat, I called twice upon Simpson being prompted purely by the fact of having heard you speak of him so often and having read those letters from your daughter to you.⁶ When I saw her last she was muffled up upon a sofa, but getting better of her cold. They are now I suppose gone – at all events I have heard nothing of them for some days. I have as yet had time only to glance over your strictures upon my lecture,⁷ no doubt they will be of service to me, though I dont know whether you kept the fact of the living man uttering the sentence, in view – your correction in some case, would undoubtedly be necessary for the press, but I am not sure whether this is equally the case for a spoken lecture – you ask two questions about radiant heat which I do not quite understand. The conversion of radiant heat into conducted heat presents no difficulty and the heat of conduction I believe to be a motion of the molecules of the body. I read your remarks upon the medal⁸ with much pleasure, but when I proposed the Prussic acid⁹ I intended that the world should know nothing about it, but should regard my death as orthodox. There is little fear of the medal troubling my mental health. Its chief value to me was that it stirred up my laziness, and compelled me to climb up to a position from which I looked down upon it with the calmness of a philosopher. Strange to say that when a man attains this position he is capable of most enjoying such a thing. I suppose it is just the same with plum pudding. The man who can perfectly control his appetite and can relinquish plum pudding upon occasion, enjoys it more than the pig who gorges himself with it – I think this is a bit of Oliver Cromwell’s philosophy¹⁰ and it appears to me to be very sound. It is a strange antithesis – the medal is very pleasant alone and still I dont care a damn about it. dont think that I swear – I merely use a commonplace expression because it seems showy and therefore, suits me. Your remark about the condensing of the labour of years into weeks and thus exploding, rebounds from me like one of your own elastic balls. I feel as strong tonight thank God as 99 per cent of those who know nothing of a taxed brain. There is [work] in my muscles still boy –You have asked me once or twice what those experiments are that I have been making¹¹ – they are on those vibrations and tones produced by the contact of bodies having different temperatures. Forbes of Edinburgh¹² has written a long paper¹³ upon the subject and enunciated with a great degree of confidence what he calls the general laws of action. These general laws it has been my lot to annihilate utterly, not leaving them a scrap of logic to stand on. Dont mention the matter, as it will be some time before I can publish my results – The subject will make a capital Friday evening lecture. I saw M^r Best a few days ago and, was much pleased to hear his account of your Andover lecture.¹⁴ You thought it was in some measure a failure, but he told me that he should not desire to hear a better discourse. I think this letter of mine is a practical refutation of that “reflexional” philosophy of yours.¹⁵ Why man, when I write to you I could write by the yard, whereas when I write to others I am often cramped for expression. Your reflexional philosophy is personal and private, and you must beware of offering it to be universal. Perhaps you want to say something good – now I dont, and therefore my pen is free, I am content if there be a grain here and there amid the chaff. The finding of one pearl compensates for rambling through whole bushels of mud, and if there be no pearl, why you can turn the mud to agricultural purposes. I have had a letter from Tommy Grieve¹⁶ which I have copied into my journal side by side with another from Sir Henry delaBeche¹⁷ which reached me at the same time, but giving Tommy’s the precedence.¹⁸ If you were near me I would consult you on a point of some importance. I am virtually offered a position under Government¹⁹ which I could hold in connexion with my present one – but I am afraid to accept it. I fear being weaned from my researches. What do you say? Is it not better to work forward, even on short commons, for some years, than to give up, or even seriously interfere with, the time necessary for investigations? supposing Faraday had done so at my age would he be as respectable a man as he is at present. Would Michael Faraday with a heavy Bankingbook be as handsome a figure to the human intellect as Michael Faraday “der größte Physiker”²⁰ – as some German²¹ calls him. I have been tempted once or twice since I came to London to mingle in the ways of the world, but I feel great peace of mind in the fact that I pay no visits and am not interrupted in my work, the bonds between me and Faraday are strengthening daily. We know each other and trust each other. There is certainly a kind of freemasonry between souls, by which the spirit recognizes his fellow. Its a wonderful consummation to me when I think of it how I have gravitated towards Faraday. It is a sweet reward which the good gods had stored up for a hard working son of a mother. All the Fellows²² are to dine together on the 30^th of November – the day the medals will be distributed. I shall be expected to make a speech, I am told. I wish you would sit down and write a short one for me. I am now getting clearer – the clod which weighed upon my brain is dissolved and become volatile, Now if I with this incubus²³ squat upon me could get through these 6 pages without much effort, what could I accomplish with the incubus gone home to the devil, and all my faculties free? There is a rule of three question, and when you have solved it reconcile the result with your

“reflexional” philosophy. reflexional, reflexional – let me pause; what is the meaning of this ‘tinkling cymbal’,²⁴ it has either no meaning or it is totally inapplicable to the case in point, for I reflect you more truly than any body else, you mean non-reflexional. You are thinking of those sordid dogs whose souls are like the blackened surface of an old kettle, and unto whom when you shoot the rays of thought you get none back, or if you get them at all the rays are ‘degraded’. It is pleasant to you, is it? to discharge the liquor of the intellect into such gaping sand-bags! Thou squanderer of heaven’s riches, thou giver of medals to those who dont deserve them! It is easier to jump down hill than to jump horizontally and thus you find it easier to write down hill than to write to a man on your own level – from which I infer that the basis of your reflexional philosophy so ‘strange’ and ‘true’ is pure laziness. It gives me pleasure to shell those lath bastions behind which you have esconced yourself, and having thus exposed the rottenness of your position I retire to bed with great satisfaction.

John Tyndall

RI MS JT/1/T/578

RI MS JT/1/HTYP/284–284a