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Faraday, Matter, and Natural Theology—Reflections on an Unpublished Manuscript*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

T. H. Levere
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Extract

The publication of L. Pearce Williams's definitive biography of Faraday has led to lively discussion of the influence of Naturphilosophie on Davy and Faraday, and of the role played by Bosco vichean atomism in their scientific development. In a recent article J. Brookes Spencer argued that Boscovich's force law, involving interaction between point atoms independent of surrounding particles, was only compatible with Faraday's view of gravity and not with his views on other forces. This would of course contradict the notion of unity which is absolutely fundamental to Boscovich's Theoria.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 4 , Issue 2 , December 1968 , pp. 95 - 107
Copyright
Copyright © British Society for the History of Science 1968

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References

1 Williams, L. Pearce, Michael Faraday (London, 1965).Google Scholar

2 For mutually opposing viewpoints see Siegfried, R., Isis, lvii (1966), 325–335CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Knight, D. M., Ambix., xiv (1967), 181–182.Google Scholar

3 E.g. Kuhn, T. S.'s review of Williams's Faraday: B. J. Phil. Sc., xviii (1967), 148–154.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Arch. Hist. Exact Sc., iv (1967), 184 ff.Google Scholar

5 Nineteenth-century commentators who could not dispense with the notion of imponderable fluids reached the same conclusion from different premises, e.g. Hare, R., Phil. Mag. [3], xxvi (1845), 602.Google Scholar

6 Boscovich, R. J., Theoria Philosophiae Naturalis (Venice, 1763)Google Scholar; trans. Child, J. M. (Chicago, 1922).Google Scholar

6a The relevant MSS. are now at the Institution of Electrical Engineers.

7 Indeed Davy has left so many contradictory statements in his MSS. that one can prove almost anything by selective quotation. This is because he considered both sides of every argument and not because his thought was completely chaotic.

8 E.g. Oersted thought that Gowin Knight's work (see footnote 29) was Idealistic—but it definitely was not.

9 For an introduction to dynamical chemistry (including some Idealistic chemistry) see Knight, , op. cit. (2), 179–197Google Scholar. Note that Eriksson, G., Lychnos (1965), 1–37Google Scholar, insists on the distinction between Kantian and Romantic dynamists. He makes it clear that in Swedish universities around the beginning of the nineteenth century, Kantian and Romantic dynamism were clearly differentiated from one another, and suggests that this differentiation may be significant for Berzelius's strong bias against Schelling. In general (Oersted was an exception), it was the atomists, with their blanket condemnation of dynamism, who confused the various forms of dynamical theories of matter.

10 By “force atoms” I mean any atoms the properties of which are consequent upon in herent or constitutive forces.

11 E.g. Rowning, J., Knight, G.. See (28), (29).Google Scholar

12 Coleridge, S. T. to Liverpool, Lord, 28 07 1817Google Scholar. Letters, ed. Griggs, , 4 vols. (Oxford, 1956–1959), iii, 760.Google Scholar

13 Williams, L. P., op. dt. (1), 67–68.Google Scholar

14 Davy, J., Memoirs of … H. Davy, 2 vols. (London, 1836), i, 36Google Scholar; but Davy could not read German, and there was then no English translation of Kant's dynamical work (10).

15 Williams, , op. cit. (1), 68Google Scholar. Note, however, that Davy's rejection of imponderable fluids was not always unequivocal; e.g. Phil. Trans., cxvi (1826), 383–422Google Scholar; Davy, J., op. cit. (14), i, 314, 318. See (7) above.Google Scholar

16 , R. I. MS. iv, 15j.Google Scholar

17 , R. I. MS. iv, 1 (undated, but about 1808).Google Scholar

18 Few Englishmen had studied Kant at the beginning of the nineteenth century. A fair picture is given by the Edinburgh Review:

“…we are content to be dully indifferent, and can hear of a system which has divided into patrons and opposers the whole thinking part of a large empire, without any public curiosity to become acquainted with its merits, or to know enough, even of its imperfections, to comfort ourselves with the certainty that our neglect of it has been deserved.”

(Ed. Rev., i (1803), 254–255).Google Scholar

19 Consolations in Travel; or, The Last Days of a Philosopher (London, 1830).Google Scholar

20 Library catalogues were published for 1809, 1821, 1852. None of them lists any works by Ritter, Richter, Wenzel, Schelling or Kant; nor were Oersted's early works acquired.

21 , R. I. MS. iv, 12Google Scholar (undated entry; next dated entry is of 9 Dec. 1814).

22 Collected Works, ed. Davy, J., 9 vols. (London, 1839), ix, 388.Google Scholar

23 , R. I. MS. iv, 1.Google Scholar

24 Boscovich, , op. cit. (6), sect. 99Google Scholar. The 1763 ed. of the Theoria is not in the R.I.'s 1809 catalogue, but appears in that for 1821. There were several other sources in the R.I. which would have given him second-hand information about the theory.

25 , R. I. MS. iv, 9.Google Scholar

26 Ibid. (MS. iv, 9, consists of various unnumbered and undated dialogues.)

27 E.g. Works, vii, 11.Google Scholar

28 A Compendious System of Natural Philosophy…, 2 vols. (London, 1744), ii, 5–6Google Scholar. (There were many other editions.)

29 An attempt to demonstrate, that all the phaenomena in nature may be explained by two simple principles, attraction and repulsion (London, 1748)Google Scholar. Although Knight used a dynamical approach, he would surely not have agreed with the tenets of Naturphilosophie. But Oersted, in his decidedly Idealistic Ansichten der chemischen Naturgesetze (Berlin, 1812)Google Scholar, referred to it as being the nearest approach to the modern Philosophy of Nature.

30 Cf. Williams, L. P., Scientific American, ccxvii (1967), 145.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

31 Quoted by Davy, J., op. cit. (13), i, 76.Google Scholar

32 Common Place Book, I.E.E. MS.

33 Quoted by Hofmann, A., Faraday Lecture for 1875.Google Scholar

34 Faraday, to de la Rive, A., 12 09 1821Google Scholar, expresses scepticism about Ampère's electrodynamic theory because of its lack of experimental support. Quoted by Jones, H. Bence, Life & Letters of Faraday, 2 vols. (London, 1870), i, 354.Google Scholar

35 For an account of this, see Williams, L. P., Faraday, chaps, iv–vii.Google Scholar

36 Ibid., 309–311.

36a Phil. Trans., 1838.Google Scholar

37 Jones, Bence, op. cit. (34), ii, 85Google Scholar; quoted from Tyndall, J., Faraday as a Discoverer (London, 1868).Google Scholar

38 Phil. Mag., xvii (1840), 64.Google Scholar

39 Cuvier, , Rapport Historique … (Paris, 1810), 9Google Scholar, and Berzelius, , Jahresbericht, i (1822), 1–2Google Scholar, show typical hostility to Naturphilosophie.

40 Jac. Berzelius Bref (Uppsala, 1916), iv, 17. Letter dated 2 10 1820.Google Scholar

41 Exemplified by the popularity of T. Reid's philosophy.

42 Introduction to the Atomic Theory (2nd ed., Oxford, 1850), 47.Google Scholar

43 Chemistry (4th ed., London, 1839), 40.Google Scholar

44 Magdalen College, Oxford, MS. 400/46.

45 Jones, Bence, op. cit. (34), ii, 177–179.Google Scholar

46 Phil. Mag., xxiv (1844), 136–144.Google Scholar

47 I.e. Lavoisier's and Dalton's idea of hard incompressible atoms.

48 Compare their use of analogy. Davy, , R.I. MS. iv, 9Google Scholar (and Consolations):“The imagination must be active and brilliant in seeking analogies yet intirely under the influence of the judgement in applying them”. Cf. Faraday, to Schoenbein, , 13 11 1845Google Scholar, in The Letters of Faraday and Schoenbein, ed. Kahlbaum, and Derbyshire, (Basle and London, 1899), 149Google Scholar: “You can hardly imagine how I am struggling to exert my poetical ideas just now for the discovery of analogies and remote figures respecting the earth, sun, and all sorts of things—for I think that is the true way (corrected by judgement) to work out a discovery.”

49 Helmholtz, H., J. Chem. Soc., xxxix (1881), 277CrossRefGoogle Scholar, went so far as to make the mistaken claim that Faraday's scientific method was “destined to purify science from the last remnant of metaphysics”. Faraday did not identify religion with metaphysics!

50 I.E.E. MS.

51 Diary, ed. Martin, T., 7 vols, and index (London, 1932–1936).Google Scholar

52 Williams, L. P., op. cit. (1), 102–106.Google Scholar

53 While on tour with Davy, Faraday wrote to Benjamin Abbott from Geneva (6 Sept. 1814; quoted by Jones, Bence, op. cit. (34), i, 157Google Scholar): “Travelling … I find, is almost inconsistent with religion (I mean modern travelling), and I am yet so old-fashioned as to remember strongly (I hope perfectly) my youthful education…” Davy was not so troubled.

54 Cf. (58) below.

55 Exley, T., Principles of Nat. Phil. (London, 1829), xxviiGoogle Scholar, remarks that if matter exists solely by its powers, which are created by God, then the existence of matter is unremittingly maintained by the power of God.

56 A good example is Priestley, J., Disquisitions on Matter & Spirit, 2 vols, (2nd ed., London, 1777)Google Scholar, where his theology makes him adopt a form of Boscovichean atomism, e.g. i, 43.

57 The Unseen Universe (1876), preface.Google Scholar

58 For a good account of this see Metzger, H., Attraction universelle et religion naturelle… (Paris, 1937).Google Scholar

The most direct statement I have found, or indeed could wish to find on this topic, occurs in a letter which Sir William Rowan Hamilton wrote to Coleridge in 1832:

“Do I then at all express a possible view, or am I talking nonsense, when I say that I regard a certain atomistic theory as having a subjective truth, and as being a fit medium between our understanding and certain phenomena: although objectively, and in the truth of things, the powers attributed to atoms belong not to them but to God? The atomistic theory of which I speak is nearly that of Boscovich…” (Graves, R. P., Life of Sir W, R. Hamilton, 3 vols. (London and Dublin, 1882–1889), i, 593Google Scholar; my italics).

Hamilton was both a Christian and an Idealist, and was inclined to Boscovichean atomism because of its religious associations, and also because Boscovich's views “seem capable of being incorporated with high metaphysical idealism” (Life, ii, 86, letter of 27 06 1834Google Scholar). It was in this same year, 1834, that Hamilton first became acquainted with Faraday, and discovered with delight that he and Faraday had almost identical views on the nature of matter. It does not appear unlikely that this coincidence of opinion may have extended to the theological implications of point atomism.

59 E.g. Experimental Researches in Electricity, 3 vols. (London, 1839–1855)Google Scholar, sects. 2447, 2968 imply the acceptance of an economical theological teleology; Lectures on the non-metallic elements, ed. Scoffern, (London, 1853), 2Google Scholar, tells us that chemistry is admirably suited to awaken within us “the sentiment of immortality”. In , R. I. MS. iv, 23 (lecture of 1847)Google Scholar, he concludes a discussion of point atomism as follows: “…at last the molecule rises up, in accordance with the mighty purpose ordained for it and plays its part in the gift of life itself:—and therefore our philosophy, whilst it shews us these things should lead us to think of Him who hath wrought them: —for it is said by an authority far above even that which these works present that ‘the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made even his eternal power and Godhead’.”.

60 Consolations, 279 (my italics).Google Scholar

61 Jones, Bence, Life (34), ii, 195.Google Scholar

62 Graves, , Life of Hamilton (58), ii, 397–398Google Scholar, Hamilton, to O'Brien, E., winter 1835–1836.Google Scholar

63 Stoughton, J., Worthies of Science (Religious Tract Society, London), 273.Google Scholar

64 Williams, , Faraday (1), 4Google Scholar. The same point is made by Clark, R. E. D., The Christian Graduate (1967), 26–27.Google Scholar

64a After this article had been written, Dr. Colin Russell informed me of the article by Clark, R. E. D.: “Michael Faraday on Science and Religion” (Hibbert Journal, 1967, 144–147)Google Scholar. Clark's conclusions about Faraday's natural theology are very similar to mine.

65 Mr. Rom Harré first pointed this out to me.

66 Cambridge U.L., Add. MS. 7655/11, 14. A similarly cautious and broad definition is proposed by Boscovich in his Theoria.

67 , R. I. MS. iv, 23.Google Scholar

68 I.E.E. MS.

68a Cf. (4) above.

69 This would also agree with the Newtonian theory of light, as Brewster doubtless intended.

70 In a lecture of 1844 (, R. I. MS. iv, 23Google Scholar), Faraday asks, “In radiation appear to have power separate from matter?” [sic].

71 It is striking that this memorandum is more dynamical in character than the published “Speculation”. Perhaps, as Dr. D. M. Knight has suggested (private communication), Faraday already saw his own logic pushing him beyond the Boscovichean position of the published paper, and towards his papers on ray vibrations and lines of force.