London 27th Nov. 1854.
My dear Friend1
I have thought over your note2 and have conversed with Faraday upon the subject3 of it. His feelings are just those which I expected from his high soul and kind heart. Here is my strongest bond of union with London – here the tie which it would grieve me most to sever:– my connexion with Faraday.
In the event of Prof. Forbes’s resignation4 many, I doubt not, would consider the Chair of Natural Philosophy in Edinburgh to be a prize worth fighting for. In a struggle of this kind I should like to bear no part.– I should not like to wade even to success through the gall and bitterness of an election contest.
But if the infirmities of its present distinguished occupant should induce him to resign his Chair – an event which I should be sorry to hasten – and if the Council should think proper to offer me the vacant post, I do not at present see any sufficient cause to prevent me from accepting it.
What I have done in science is, I suppose, sufficiently known: what I am to do is a matter of conjecture and of hope. Between the past and the future thus referred to stands my present self. People think that I am a worker,– at all events I feel the wish to do my duty, however far short of it performance may fall,– and the thought which rises predominant in my mind in connexion with the Chair at Edinburgh is, not the comforts which it will bring, but the sphere of action which it will open – the opportunity which it offers to the teacher and the investigator of making himself useful in his generation and leaving behind him an honourable name.
Believe me ever | Your sincere friend | John Tyndall.
Dr. Coxe.
RI MS JT/1/TYP/1/1/265
LT Typescript Only
My dear Friend: Tyndall had also drafted another version of this letter, dated ‘24th Nov. 1854’, that was not sent. The version that was not sent was roughly the same with the significant exception that in the unsent draft Tyndall did not speculate about the great opportunity that the position would offer to him as a teacher and investigator. He instead sought to further explain his seeming ambiguity about the position: “My independent way of writing when such a high distinction is at stake may perhaps cause you to smile. I write however exactly as I feel, and I do not think the state of mind which prompts me to write is in any way calculated to render me less vigorous in the discharge of my duties, or in the promotion of the cause of science by original research should Edinburgh ever become the sphere of my operations” (Journal, 23 November 1854, JT/2/13b/700). See also letter 1008.
your note: letter 1005.
conversed with Faraday upon the subject: as stated in his journal entry of 27 November, Tyndall had also consulted with Bence Jones on the matter (Journal, JT/2/13b/701). He had also written to Hirst about it (see letter 1008).
Prof. Forbes’s resignation: see letters 1005, nn. 3–4 and 1008.
Please cite as “Tyndall1012,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on