Royal Institution | Albermarle Street London | 17th. June 1863
My dear Sir,
It gave me the greatest pleasure to receive a letter from you,1 and still greater pleasure to find that what I have written and spoken regarding you has given you satisfaction.
My task has not been a difficult one. From the moment when I first became acquainted with your writings I knew that your reputation was secure. And though I have encountered an amount and a kind of opposition which I did not anticipate,2 still with so good a cause I should not fear to encounter far greater.
It is a great delight to me to be the means of setting before the people of England the claims of a man to whom we owe so much. And depend upon it as far as England is concerned your reputation will triumph over all antagonism. With regard to Mr Joule no man esteems him more highly than I do & I knew that you would share this feeling. You ought never to be put in opposition to each other,3 you ought both to stand side by side like brothers, and no man ought to attempt to put the claims of one above those of the other. This I think will be the course which the future historian of science will pursue.
It would give me great delight to make your personal acquaintance and should I, during the next vacation, or any subsequent vacation come near you I shall certainly do myself the pleasure of finding you out.
Your works are appearing in the Philosophical Magazine. Knowing their value I induced the Editor to publish translations of them. Three of them have already appeared and the only one that remains is “Die Organische Bewegung” which will also appear in due time.4
Let me express to you again the great pleasure which your letter has given me, and wish you health and happiness to enjoy your well won honours.
Yours most sincerely | John Tyndall
RI MS JT/1/T/1064
LT Typescript Only
a letter from you: letter 2013.
opposition which I did not anticipate: this is a reference to disputes over Mayer’s work, which spurred controversy between Peter Tait, William Thomson, and John Tyndall. See the introductory essay of this volume for further commentary.
You ought never to be put in opposition to each other: Tyndall had characterized William Thompson as doing exactly this; see letters 2004 and 2006.
Your works... in due time: J. R. Mayer, ‘Remarks on the Forces of inorganic Nature (1842)’, Phil. Mag., 24 (1862): pp. 371–7; J. R. Mayer, ‘On Celestial Dynamics (1848)’, Phil. Mag., 25 (1863), pp. 241–8, 387–409, 417–28; J. R. Mayer, ‘Remarks on the Mechanical Equivalent of Heat (1851)’, Phil. Mag., (1863), pp. 493–522. Mayer’s lengthy essay, Die Organische Bewegung in ihren Zusammenhange mit dem Stoffwechsel (Heilbronn: C. Drechsler, 1845) had not been translated at this point in time, nor would it be published in the Phil. Mag. at all (in letter 2102 to Hirst, dated 31 May 1864, Tyndall noted that Mayer’s essay was so far ‘unpublished in England’). The essay did appear in a later German edition of Mayer’s work (see letter 1904, n. 3).
Please cite as “Tyndall2016,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on