Xll

Faraday's Researches

relations to commerce and litigation, he said to me that at
a certain period of his career he was forced definitely to ask
himself, and finally to decide, whether he should make wealth
or science the pursuit of his life. He could not serve both
masters, and he was therefore compelled to choose between
them. After the discovery of magneto-electricity his fame
was so noised abroad that the commercial world would hardly
have considered any remuneration too high for the aid of
abilities like his. Even before he became so famous, he had
done a little " professional business." This was the phrase
he applied to his purely commercial work. His friend,
Richard Phillips, for example, had induced him to undertake
a number of analyses, which produced, in the year 1830, an
addition to his income of more than a thousand pounds; and
in 1831, a still greater addition. He had only to will it to
raise in 1832 his professional business income to ^5000 a year.
Indeed, this is a wholly insufficient estimate of what he
might, with ease, have realised annually during the last thirty
years of his life.
While restudying the experimental researches with reference
to the present memoir, the conversation with Faraday here
alluded to came to my recollection, and I sought to ascertain
the period when the question, " wealth or science," had
presented itself with such emphasis to his mind. I fixed upon
the year 1831 or 1832, for it seemed beyond the range of human
power to pursue science as he had done during the subsequent
years, and to pursue commercial work at the same time. To
test this conclusion I asked permission to see his accounts,
and on my own responsibility, I will state the result. In
1832, his professional business-income, instead of rising to
£5000, or more, fell from £1090 4$. to ^155 gs. From this
it fell with slight oscillations to ^92 in 1837, and to zero in
1838. Between 1839 and 1845, it never, except in one
instance, exceeded ^22; being for the most part much under
this. The exceptional year referred to was that in which he
and Sir Charles Lyell were engaged by Government to write
a report on the Haswell Colliery explosion, and then his
business income rose to £112. From the end of 1845 to the
day of his death, Faraday's annual professional business
income was exactly zero. Taking the duration of his life
into account, this son of a blacksmith, and apprentice to a
bookbinder, had to decide between a fortune of ^150,000
on the one side, and his undowered science on the other.