— 215 —

enquirics poured in upon me that I thought it better to stopthe inpouring flood by letting all know at once what my viewsand thoughts were. 1 What a weak, credulous, incredulous, un-believing, superstitious, bold, frightencd, what a ridiculous worldours is, as far as concerns the mind of man. How füll of in-consistencies, contradictions and absurdities it is. I declarethat taking the average of many minds that have recently comebefore me (and apart from that spirit which God has placedin each) and accepting for a moment that average as a Stan-dard, I should far prefer the obcdience, affections and instinctof a dog before it. Do not whisper this however to others.There is One above vvho worketh in all things and vvho governseven in the midst of that misrule to which the tendencies andpowers of man are so easily perverted. 2

The Ozone question appears indeed to have been consi-derably illuminated by the researches in Bunsen's laboratory.

— But why do you think it wonderful that Oxygen shouldassume an allotropic condition ? Wc are only beginning toenter upon the understanding of the philosophy of moleculesand I think, by what you say in former letters, that you arefeeling it to be so. Oxygen is of all bodies to me the mostwonderful, as it is to you. And truly, the views and expec-tations of the philosopher in relation to it would be as wildas those of any table turner etc. etc. etc. were it not that thephilosopher has respect to the laws under which the wonderfulthings that he acknowledges come to pass, and to the neverfailing recurrence of the effect when the cause of it is present.

— At the closc of our Friday Evenings I gave a little aecount

1 Faräday after opening the question, which had taken so strong a holdof the public mind, in a letter to the "Times", in June, so Bence Jones teilsus, wrote a long letter to the Athenäum for Juli 2 1853, of which he was alittle ashamed for "I think it ought not to have been required". He does nothope to convince all who refer this purely physical subjeet to electricity, or tosome unrecognised physical force, or even to some supernatural agency.

2 This passage is given in Thompsons Life and Work of Faraday. p. 252.