Brother Potamian

“ Extremely precocious as a boy, so that, like his immediate predecessor in discovery, Oersted the Dane, his rapid intellectual development drew down upon him ominous expressions from those who knew him, he more than fulfilled the highest promise of his early years. His was no one-sided genius. He was interested in everything, and his memory was as retentive as his intellect was comprehensive. He grew up, indeed, to be a young man of the widest possible interests. Literature never failed to have its attraction for him, though science was his favorite study and mathematics his hobby. ”

“ To such a man may well be applied these beautiful words with which Priestley begins his "History of Electricity": "A life spent in the contemplation of the productions of divine power, wisdom and goodness, would be a life of devotion. The more we see of the wonderful structure of the world and of the laws of nature, the more clearly do we comprehend their admirable uses to make all percipient creation happy, a sentiment which cannot but fill the heart with unbounded love, gratitude and joy." ”

“ The man who worked this revolution in electrical science was no mere inventor who, by a happy chance, brought together practical factors that had been well known before but had never been combined. He was one of the greatest scientists of a period particularly rich in examples of original scientific genius of a high order. Before his death, he came to be acknowledged by the scientific world of his time as one of the greatest leaders of thought, not alone in electricity, but in all departments of the physical sciences. ”

“ Above all things, however, it is beautiful to see what sublime things Christianity wrought in his great soul; this admirable simplicity, the unassumingness of a mind that recognized everything except its own genius; this high rectitude in matters of science, now so rare, seeking nothing but the truth and never rewards and distinction; the pleasant and ungrudging amiability; and lastly, the kindness with which he met everyone, especially young people. I can say that those who know only the intelligence of the man, know only the less perfect part. ”

“ It is evident, from the lives of such men as Oersted, Faraday, Kepler, Ohm, and others who were brought up in the lap of poverty, that it is not so much educational opportunity that is needed for the development of mind which we call education, as the earnest determination and the abiding desire to have it. Even boyhood creates its own opportunities for education despite intervening obstacles, if it has only a decided eagerness, a pronounced thirst for knowledge. ”

“ It is, of course, the old story, that men rise on stepping-stones of their dead selves, and that the successive deaths of self represent a triumphant progress, but it comes with a new vigor from this great scientist. We all know that it is the man who has suffered who is able to do things, and we are all well aware that the man who has lived in comfort all his life is almost sure to be lacking in character when a great crisis comes upon him. Indeed, as Clerk Maxwell re-states it, this is such a commonplace that one wonders why the problem of pain should have seemed so hard to understand. ”

“ Ohm was buried in the old Munich graveyard, where his bones still rest, beneath the simple memorial not unworthy of the modest scientist who did his work patiently and quietly, yet with never-failing persistency; who cared not for the applause of the multitude, and accomplished so much quite independently of any of the ordinary helps from others and from great educational institutions that are often supposed to be almost indispensably necessary for the accomplishment of original scientific work. ”

“ While he was so great a scientist that Arago, so little likely to exaggerate his French contemporary's merit, has said of Ampère's discovery identifying magnetism and electricity, that "the vast field of physical science perhaps never presented so brilliant a discovery, conceived, verified, and completed with such rapidity," his friends knew this great scientist as one of the kindliest and most genial of men, noted for his simplicity, his persuasive sympathy and his tender regard for all those with whom he was brought into intimate relations. ”

“ Clerk Maxwell was known and esteemed by all the great physical scientists of the world. His name is less widely known than that of most of the great discoverers in electricity, because mathematical achievement always has less popular attraction; but he deserves to be known by all who are interested in science, not only because of his magnificent contributions to mathematical electricity, but quite as much for qualities of heart and mind that stamp him as one of the very great men of the century so rapidly receding from us. ”

“ The problem was indeed alluring, but some of the best minds in nineteenth century science in Europe had been engaged at it, without bringing much order out of the chaos, and it would have looked quite unpromising to anyone but Ohm, to whom, the greater the difficulty of a subject, the more the attraction it possessed. With his wonderful power of synthesis and his capacity to discover a clue to the way through a maze of difficulties, Ohm succeeded in finding a formula of great simplicity and beauty and which covered all the individual colors. ”

“ Why does he not apprehend universal ruin, dissolution, confusion, conflagration and stupendous celestial and super-celestial calamities from a motion (that of the starry sphere) which surpasses all imagination, all dreams and fables and poetic license, a motion ineffable and inconceivable?"
Gilbert is not clear and emphatic on the other doctrine of Copernicus, the revolution of the earth and planets around the sun. He does, however, say that each of the moving globes "has circular motion either in a great circular orbit or on its own axis, or in both ways." ”

“ In the section entitled "Scientia Experimentalis," he affirms that "Without experiment, nothing can be adequately known. An argument proves theoretically, but does not give the certitude necessary to remove all doubt, nor will the mind repose in the clear view of truth, unless it find it by way of experiment." And in his Opus Tertium: "The strongest arguments prove nothing, so long as the conclusions are not verified by experience. Experimental science is the queen of sciences and the goal of all speculation." ”

“ Happy is it for all of us, that the true good lies not in them. As they ebb, may they leave us as little children, trusting in the Father of Mercies and accepting His unspeakable gift." And when the dark shadow was creeping over him, he wrote to the Comte de Paris: "I bow before Him who is the Lord of all, and hope to be kept waiting patiently for His time and mode of releasing me, according to His divine word and the great and precious promises whereby His people are made partakers of the divine nature." ”

“ Some of what Coulomb accepted as principles in electricity have proved in the course of time, not to be the realities that he thought them; but the progress that has led to such contradictions of his opinions has been mainly rendered possible by his own discoveries. The fable of the eagle stricken by the arrow containing some of its own feathers, is so old that one might think that, when the progress of a science due to a scientist brings men beyond the position he occupied, they would not blame him for backwardness. ”

“ The trunk line of his work was magnetism; electricity was only a siding. One was the main subject of a life-long quest while the other was only a digression. It was a digression in which the qualities of the native-born investigator are seen at their very best: alertness and earnestness, resourcefulness and perseverance, all rewarded by a rich harvest of valuable results. It is refreshing and inspiring to read the Second Book of Gilbert's treatise, De Magnete, in which are recorded in quick succession the twenty important discoveries which he made in his new field of labor. ”

“ I know of only one person who deserves praise for his work in experimental philosophy, because he does not care for the discourses of men or their wordy warfare, but quietly and diligently pursues the works of wisdom. Therefore it is that what others grope after blindly, as bats in the evening twilight, this man contemplates in all their brilliancy because he is master of experiment. ”

“ When I consider the multitude of associate forces which are diffused through nature; when I think of that calm and tranquil balancing of their energies which enables elements, most powerful in themselves, most destructive to the world's creatures and economy, to dwell associated together and be made subservient to the wants of creation, I rise from the contemplation more than ever impressed with the wisdom, the beneficence, and grandeur beyond our language to express, of the Great Disposer of all! ”

“ Franklin concludes this magnificent expression of his religious faith by the solemn warning: "I would advise you, therefore, not to attempt unchaining the tiger, but to burn this piece before it is seen by any other person; whereby you will save yourself a great deal of mortification by the enemies it may raise against you, and perhaps a good deal of regret and repentance. If men are so wicked with religion, what would they be without it?" ”

“ When all three, Germans and French and English, are agreed as to the value of a scientific discovery, then it may be looked upon as having some of the absoluteness, or at least possesses for the moment the finality of scientific truth. If this triple agreement be taken as the criterion of the significance of a great scientist's work, then must Michael Faraday be considered as without doubt one of the greatest scientists of our time, and probably the greatest experimental scientist that the world has known. ”

“ There is no livelier picture in all the history of science, of how a man will, in spite of all obstacles, get the things he cares for, if he really cares for them, than that of Faraday thus teaching himself science in the face of what seems almost insurmountable discouragement. Fortunately, not long after he had been thus forcibly called to the attention of Sir Humphry Davy, the former assistant in the laboratory of the Royal Institution not only neglected his duties, but became a source of considerable annoyance. ”

“ In private life, Clerk Maxwell was one of the most lovable of men, a sincere and unostentatious Christian. Though perfectly free from any trace of envy or ill-will, he yet showed on fit occasions his contempt for that pseudo-science which seeks for the applause of the ignorant by professing to reduce the whole system of the universe to a fortuitous sequence of uncaused events. ”

“ There is no doubt but that Maxwell, above all men of the nineteenth century, was in a position to judge of the meaning of Faraday's work. He was not the sort of a man to say things in a panegyric mood, and his article on Faraday is indeed a model of well-considered judgment and critical illumination. Summing up the significance not only of Faraday's great discovery of induction, but also his theory in explanation of that discovery, he does not hesitate to say that his (Faraday's) opinion is the nearest approach to truth that has been advanced in this much-discussed subject. ”

“ In seeking for some evidence of a physical interaction between electricity and magnetism, Oersted on one occasion, placed a wire conveying a current vertically across a compass-needle; and, on obtaining no result, seemed greatly disappointed. He evidently expected the needle to respond in some way to the energy of the current; and so it would have responded had he placed the wire in any other position than the particular one which he selected. The Danish philosopher now hesitates; and for lack of coolness, patience and resourcefulness, runs the risk of losing the crowning glory of his life. ”

“ For nearly five years after he had given up to a great degree his work at the Royal Institution, he faced death, not with the equanimity of the stoic, but with the peaceful happiness of the believer in Providence and a hereafter. Even the loss of his memory, dear as it must have been to a man who had spent all his life in storing it with the great facts of science, does not seem seriously to have disturbed him. ”

“ A glowing mass that happens to come down in the track of the discharge is a meteorite, a body of cosmic not terrestrial origin, a visitor from space that chose the rarefied path of the flash for its descent to earth.
Again, there are no thunder-clouds in nature, only electric clouds or lightning clouds; nor is there ever thunder in the air save when the lightning breaks from cloud to cloud, or leaps from cloud to earth, or strikes from earth to cloud. ”

“ If some of my faults and negligences may have by chance given occasion to some one to suspect me of infidelity, I am ready, as some reparation for this and for any other good purpose, to declare to such a one and to every other person and on every occasion and under all circumstances that I have always held, and hold now, the Holy Catholic Religion as the only true and infallible one, thanking without end the good God for having gifted me with such a faith, in which I firmly propose to live and die, in the lively hope of attaining eternal life. ”

“ Everything seemed to be against his acquiring a thorough knowledge of science, yet he succeeded in creating for himself the equivalent of a good scientific course out of his meagre chances to hear lectures and read books on his favorite subject in the intervals of a busy life as book-seller and book-binder.
Things did not always continue to run along as pleasantly in life for young Faraday as while he was working for his book-binder friend as an apprentice. With the conclusion of his apprenticeship he became a journeyman book-binder, and his first employer proved to be a hard task-master. ”

“ Hence we speak with propriety of the conservation of mass just as we speak with equal propriety of the conservation of energy; but we may never speak or write of the conservation of weight. The mass of our iron ball is precisely the same away from the surface of the earth as it is anywhere on the surface, whether a thousand miles below the surface or a thousand miles above it; and the same it would be found in any part of the solar system or of the starry universe to which it might be taken. ”