[K]nowledge and progress are the fruits of action

life consists, not in equilibrium, but in the passage towards equilibrium. In man it is the leap from the potential through the actual to repose.

A point highly illustrative of the character of Faraday now comes into view.

With terrible jolts and oscillations the religious life of the world has run down 'the ringing grooves of change.' A smoother route may have been undiscoverable. At all events it was undiscovered.

Knowledge once gained casts a faint light beyond its own immediate boundaries.

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 …

The style of this letter is unexceptionable, for Faraday could not write otherwise than as a gentleman; but the letter shows that had he willed it he could have hit hard. We have heard much of Faraday's gentleness and sweetness and …