Monday
My dear Tom
Your letter1 you say was intended for your own improvement, but there is a power in the world which overrules the designs of selfish men for the general benefit[.] I read your letter with great interest and pleasure. If you have sufficient time I have no doubt that you will make that review a truly serviceable and beautiful one. It is amusing to see how many write to Faraday asking him what the lines of force are. He bewilders even men of eminence, for the very fact of his making these lines of force the medium of his theoretic sight and his having done so much with them convinces the generality of people that they are the final cause of magnetic phenomena. Your remarks on this point I think very correct & very wise – The fact is that an experiment made with reference to the lines of force is virtually made with reference to the principle on which the lines of force themselves depend, and the deeper scientific mind looks through the lines of force after this principle. Faradays achievements are due to his immense earnestness and great love for his subject and this very mistiness which serves to obscure the verity of matters may have its compensations by rendering the subject attractive and thus wooing [?] a man to work at it with more fervour. I heard Biot once say that he could not understand Faraday – & if you look for exact knowledge in his theories you will be disappointed – flashes of wonderful insight you meet here and there. But he has no exact knowledge himself, and in conversation with him he readily confesses this – In my next paper2 I shall have to say something of these lines of force. Meanwhile it will be better for you to possess yourself of Faraday’s notions as far as this is possible. We will talk the matter over afterwards.
My health thank the gods is excellent. I have kept my eye upon the bowels for some time and without betaking myself to physic have brought them into a good condition. Believe me Tom for the last three years I have not felt more full of hope and courage. I am in extremely comfortable lodgings3 near the Institution & near Hyde Park. My address is 96 Mount Street Grosvenor Square.
I spent a pleasant day with Bevington yesterday – He desires to pay you a visit and I have volunteered to accompany him on the last Saturday in November4 – I have ventured to promise him that you would be able to afford him a bed on Saturday & Sunday night – I will stow myself at Wrights or elsewhere. Goodbye Tom
& affectionately | John
RI MS JT/1/T/935
Your letter: letter 1151.
my next paper: J. Tyndall, ‘Further Researches on the Polarity of the Diamagnetic Force’, which was received by the RS on 27 November 1855, read at a meeting on 20 December and published in Phil. Trans., 146 (1856), pp. 237–60, with a shortened version in Roy. Soc. Proc., 7 (1854–5), pp. 555–8.
lodgings: On October 31, 1855, Tyndall moved into new lodgings at 96 Mount Street, about a third of a mile west of the Royal Institution (Journal: RI MS JT/2/13c/799).
the last Saturday in November: Tyndall went to Queenwood with Bevington on 1 December 1855 (Journal: RI MS JT/2/13c/807).
Please cite as “Tyndall1152,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on