ic telegraph. From them have
sprung the extraordinary advances made in electrical illumination.
Faraday could have had but an imperfect notion of the expansions of
which his discoveries were capable. Still he had a vivid and strong
imagination, and I do not doubt that he saw possibilities which did not
disclose themselves to the general scientific mind. He knew that his
discoveries had their practical side, but he steadfastly resisted
the seductions of this side, applying himself to the development of
principles; being well aware that the practical question would receive
due development hereafter.

During my sojourn in Switzerland this year, I read through the proofs of
this new edition, and by my reading was confirmed in the conviction that
the book ought not to be suffered to go out of print. The memoir was
written under great pressure, but I am not ashamed of it as it stands.
Glimpses of Faraday's character and gleams of his discoveries are there
to be found which will be of interest to humanity to the end of time.

John Tyndall. Hind Head, December, 1893.

[Note.--It was, I believe, my husband's intention to substitute
this Preface, written a few days before his death, for all former
Prefaces. As, however, he had not the opportunity of revising the old
prefatory pages himself, they have been allowed to remain just as they
stood in the last edition.

Louisa C. Tyndall.]

Preface to the fourth edition.

When consulted a short time ago as to the republication of 'Faraday as a
Discoverer,' it seemed to me that the labours, and points of character,
of so great a worker and so good a man should not be allowed to vanish
from the public eye. I therefore willingly fell in with the proposal of
my Publishers to issue a new edition of the little book.

Royal Institution, February, 1884.

Preface to the second edition.

The experimental researches of Faraday are so voluminous, their
descriptions are so detailed, and their wealth of illustration is so
great, as to render it a heavy labour to master them. The multiplication
of proofs, necessary and interesting when the new truths had to be
established, are however less needful now when these truths have become
household words in science. I have therefore tried in the following
pages to compress the body, without injury to the spirit, of these
imperishable investigations, and to present them in a form which should
be convenient and useful to the student o