To George Biddell Airy   10th March 1856

Royal Institution | 10^th March 1856

Dear Sir

The letter¹ with which you have favoured me has been a source of great satisfaction and encouragement to me.

Believe me I have not accepted the convictions of which my papers are the utterance without due caution. I have sometimes wavered and said to myself – There may be something in the matter which you do not see – look what great things have been accomplished in another way – You may be shutting out the light by adopting your present course.

But the more I have thought on the matter the more profoundly have I ever felt the truth of the view which you have expressed in your note.

On the other hand, as you very well know, a hypothesis may be valuable in two ways. It may, by its truth, help us to systematic arrangement or lead us to discovery. But it may also, by the attractiveness it possesses for the person who holds it, prove a source of energy and be a spur to action.² In this way while vague, or ever erroneous, it may be, and I doubt not has been, productive of glorious results.

Believe me dear Sir | most faithfully yours | John Tyndall

GB Airy Esq^r

RGO MS 6/694