He therefore added an explanatory note; but the note left his meaning
as entangled as before. In fact Faraday had notions regarding the
magnetization of light which were peculiar to himself, and
untranslatable into the scientific language of the time. Probably
no other philosopher of his day would have employed the phrases just
quoted as appropriate to the discovery announced in 1845.
But Faraday was more than a philosopher; he was a prophet, and often
wrought by an inspiration to be understood by sympathy alone.
The prophetic element in his character occasionally coloured,
and even injured, the utterance of the man of science; but
subtracting that element, though you might have conferred on him
intellectual symmetry, you would have destroyed his motive force.
But let us pass from the label of this casket to the jewel it contains.
'I have long,' he says, 'held an opinion, almost amounting to
conviction, in common, I believe, with many other lovers of natural
knowledge, that the various forms under which the forces of matter
are made manifest have one common origin; in other words, are so
directly related and mutually dependent, that they are convertible,
as it were, into one another, and possess equivalents of power in
their action.... This strong persuasion,' he adds, 'extended to the
powers of light.' And then he examines the action of magnets upon
light. From conversation with him and Anderson, I should infer that
the labour preceding this discovery was very great.
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