But we must quit the man and go on to the discoverer: we shall return for a brief space to his company by-and-by. Carry your thoughts back to his last experiments, and see him endeavouring to prove that induction is due to the action of contiguous particles. He knew that polarized light was a most subtle and delicate investigator of molecular condition. He used it in 1834 in exploring his electrolytes, and he tried it in 1838 upon his dielectrics. At that time he coated two opposite faces of a glass cube with tinfoil, connected one coating with his powerful electric machine and the other with the earth, and examined by polarized light the condition of the glass when thus subjected to strong electric influence. He failed to obtain any effect; still he was persuaded an action existed, and required only suitable means to call it forth.

After his return from Switzerland he was beset by these thoughts; they were more inspired than logical: but he resorted to magnets and proved his inspiration true. His dislike of 'doubtful knowledge' and his efforts to liberate his mind from the thraldom of hypotheses have been already referred to. Still this rebel against theory was incessantly theorising himself. His principal researches are all connected by an undercurrent of speculation. Theoretic ideas were the very sap of his intellect—the source from which all his strength as an experimenter was derived. While once sauntering with him through the Crystal Palace, at Sydenham, I asked him what directed his attention to the magnetization of light. It was his theoretic notions. He had certain views regarding the unity and convertibility of natural forces; certain ideas regarding the vibrations of light and their relations to the lines of magnetic force; these views and ideas drove him to investigation. And so it must always be: the great experimentalist must ever be the habitual theorist, whether or not he gives to his theories formal enunciation.

Faraday, you have been informed, endeavoured to improve the manufacture of glass for optical purposes. But though he produced a heavy glass of great refractive power, its value to optics did not repay him for the pains and labour bestowed on it. Now, however, we reach a result established by means of this same heavy glass, which made ample amends for all.

In November, 1845, he announced his discovery of the 'Magnetization of Light and the Illumination of the Lines of Magnetic Force.' This title provoked comment at the time, and caused misapprehension. 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. The world knows little of the toil of the discoverer. It sees the climber jubilant on the mountain top, but does not know the labour expended in reaching it. Probably hundreds of experiments had been made on transparent crystals before he thought of testing his heavy glass. Here is his own clear and simple description of the result of his first experiment with this substance:—'A piece of this glass, about two inches square, and 0.5 of an inch thick, having flat and polished edges, was placed as a diamagnetic (1) between the poles (not as yet magnetized by the electric current), so that the polarized ray should pass through its length; the glass acted as air, water, or any other transparent substance would do; and if the eye-piece were previously turned into such a position that the polarized ray was extinguished, or rather the image produced by it rendered invisible, then the introduction of the glass made no alteration in this respect. In this state of circumstances, the force of the electro-magnet was developed by sending an electric current through its coils, and immediately the image of the lamp-flame became visible and continued so as long as the arrangement continued magnetic. On stopping the electric current, and so causing the magnetic force to cease, the light instantly disappeared. These phenomena could be renewed at pleasure, at any instant of time, and upon any occasion, showing a perfect dependence of cause and effect.'

In a beam of ordinary light the particles of the luminiferous ether vibrate in all directions perpendicular to the line of progression; by the act of polarization, performed here by Faraday, all oscillations but those parallel to a certain plane are eliminated. When the plane of vibration of the polarizer coincides with that of the analyzer, a portion of the beam passes through both; but when these two planes are at right angles to each other, the beam is extinguished. If by any means, while the polarizer and analyzer remain thus crossed, the plane of vibration of the polarized beam between them could be changed, then the light would be, in part at least, transmitted. In Faraday's experiment this was accomplished. His magnet turned the plane of polarization of the beam through a certain angle, and thus enabled it to get through the analyzer; so that 'the magnetization of light and the illumination of the magnetic lines of force' becomes, when expressed in the language of modern theory, the rotation of the plane of polarization.

To him, as to all true philosophers, the main value of a fact was its position and suggestiveness in the general sequence of scientific truth. Hence, having established the existence of a phenomenon, his habit was to look at it from all possible points of view, and to develop its relationship to other phenomena. He proved that the direction of the rotation depends upon the polarity of his magnet; being reversed when the magnetic poles are reversed. He showed that when a polarized ray passed through his heavy glass in a direction parallel to the magnetic lines of force, the rotation is a maximum, and that when the direction of the ray is at right angles to the lines of force, there is no rotation at all. He also proved that the amount of the rotation is proportional to the length of the diamagnetic through which the ray passes. He operated with liquids and solutions. Of aqueous solutions he tried 150 and more, and found the power in all of them. He then examined gases; but here all his efforts to produce any sensible action upon the polarized beam were ineffectual. He then passed from magnets to currents, enclosing bars of heavy glass, and tubes containing liquids and aqueous solutions within an electro-magnetic helix. A current sent through the helix caused the plane of polarization to rotate, and always in the direction of the current. The rotation was reversed when the current was reversed. In the case of magnets, he observed a gradual, though quick, ascent of the transmitted beam from a state of darkness to its maximum brilliancy, when the magnet was excited. In the case of currents, the beam attained at once its maximum. This he showed to be due to the time required by the iron of the electro-magnet to assume its full magnetic power, which time vanishes when a current, without iron, is employed. 'In this experiment,' he says, 'we may, I think, justly say that a ray of light is electrified, and the electric forces illuminated.' In the helix, as with the magnets, he submitted air to magnetic influence 'carefully and anxiously,' but could not discover any trace of action on the polarized ray.

Many substances possess the power of turning the plane of polarization without the intervention of magnetism. Oil of turpentine and quartz are examples; but Faraday showed that, while in one direction, that is, across the lines of magnetic force, his rotation is zero, augmenting gradually from this until it attains its maximum, when the direction of the ray is parallel to the lines of force; in the oil of turpentine the rotation is independent of the direction of the ray. But he showed that a still more profound distinction exists between the magnetic rotation and the natural one. I will try to explain how. Suppose a tube with glass ends containing oil of turpentine to be placed north and south. Fixing the eye at the south end of the tube, let a polarized beam be sent through it from the north. To the observer in this position the rotation of the plane of polarization, by the turpentine, is right-handed. Let the eye be placed at the north end of the tube, and a beam be sent through it from the south; the rotation is still right-handed. Not so, however, when a bar of heavy glass is subjected to the action of an electric current. In this case if, in the first position of the eye, the rotation be right-handed, in the second position it is left-handed. These considerations make it manifest that if a polarized beam, after having passed through the oil of turpentine in its natural state, could by any means be reflected back through the liquid, the rotation impressed upon the direct beam would be exactly neutralized by that impressed upon the reflected one. Not so with the induced magnetic effect. Here it is manifest that the rotation would be doubled by the act of reflection. Hence Faraday concludes that the particles of the oil of turpentine which rotate by virtue of their natural force, and those which rotate in virtue of the induced force, cannot be in the same condition. The same remark applies to all bodies which possess a natural power of rotating the plane of polarization.

And then he proceeded with exquisite skill and insight to take advantage of this conclusion. He silvered the ends of his piece of heavy glass, leaving, however, a narrow portion parallel to two edges diagonally opposed to each other unsilvered. He then sent his beam through this uncovered portion, and by suitably inclining his glass caused the beam within it to reach his eye first direct, and then after two, four, and six reflections. These corresponded to the passage of the ray once, three times, five times, and seven times through the glass. He thus established with numerical accuracy the exact proportionality of the rotation to the distance traversed by the polarized beam. Thus in one series of experiments where the rotation required by the direct beam was 12degrees, that acquired by three passages through the glass was 36degrees, while that acquired by five passages was 60degrees. But even when this method of magnifying was applied, he failed with various solid substances to obtain any effect; and in the case of air, though he employed to the utmost the power which these repeated reflections placed in his hands, he failed to produce the slightest sensible rotation.

These failures of Faraday to obtain the effect with gases seem to indicate the true seat of the phenomenon. The luminiferous ether surrounds and is influenced by the ultimate particles of matter. The symmetry of the one involves that of the other. Thus, if the molecules of a crystal be perfectly symmetrical round any line through the crystal, we may safely conclude that a ray will pass along this line as through ordinary glass. It will not be doubly refracted. From the symmetry of the liquid figures, known to be produced in the planes of freezing, when radiant heat is sent through ice, we may safely infer symmetry of aggregation, and hence conclude that the line perpendicular to the planes of freezing is a line of no double refraction; that it is, in fact, the optic axis of the crystal. The same remark applies to the line joining the opposite blunt angles of a crystal of Iceland spar. The arrangement of the molecules round this line being symmetrical, the condition of the ether depending upon these molecules shares their symmetry; and there is, therefore, no reason why the wavelength should alter with the alteration of the azimuth round this line. Annealed glass has its molecules symmetrically arranged round every line that can be drawn through it; hence it is not doubly refractive. But let the substance be either squeezed or strained in one direction, the molecular symmetry, and with it the symmetry of the ether, is immediately destroyed and the glass becomes doubly refractive. Unequal heating produces the same effect. Thus mechanical strains reveal themselves by optical effects; and there is little doubt that in Faraday's experiment it is the magnetic strain that produces the rotation of the plane of polarization. (2)