conclusion was that from precisely such an examination the strongest arguments for Christianity are to be derived. The lesson from Volta's life is that there is no mind so rich and lofty but can find perfect content within the Christian dispensation.

Of the great Ampère, who, taking up Volta's work in electricity, developed it in many directions, the same is to be recorded. André Marie Ampère1 was, according to the judgment of all who knew him and as his discoveries show, a man remarkable alike for acuteness and width of mind, a many-sided genius. His point of departure in science was Oerstedt's accidental discovery of the influence of a galvanic current on a magnetised needle. This at once suggested to Ampère a truth of much larger scope, namely, that magnetism. could be transformed into electricity, and that electric currents in general exercised an influence on one another. He devised apparatus for the investigation of this hypothesis, and in a short time had established its truth, and formulated the laws according to which currents attract and repel one another, and cause deflections of magnetic needles. These discoveries have proved inexhaustible in their consequences, and mark the first step towards a true understanding of earth-magnetism and of magnetism in general. While the general course of scientific discovery is the establishment of the facts by one investigator, a general explanation of them by a second, and an exact formulation of the laws governing them by a third, in the case of electro-dynamics the three

1 For Ampère cf. our article in the Stimmen aus Maria-Laach LXI (1901) 20-36 151-165. Cf. also two letters of Ampère's in the Comptes rendus of the Academy of Science 92, Paris 1881, 398 954.

stages were performed by the single mind of Ampère. "A man who possessed all the characteristics of scientific genius, spacious vision, acuteness, and infallible accuracy in deduction", is the estimate of Ampère given by Clausius 1, surely a competent judge. And Bertrand says: "Ampère's essay is one of the most wonderful productions of modern science, and forms the foundation of the vastest and most perfect construction erected by natural philosophy since the time of Newton.” 2

Science owes to Ampère other discoveries in addition to those which have made his name immortal. He opened his career with mathematical works of great brilliancy, and it was, indeed, through these that he obtained his position in Paris and Membership of the Academy of Sciences. In Chemistry he had independently re-established the important law discovered by Avogadro3 in 1811 but since then completely forgotten: and in the controversy on the nature of chlorine he was a vigorous upholder of the true view at a time when the greatest specialists in Chemistry confessed themselves puzzled +. In Zoology and Botany he was also thoroughly grounded. But it was philosophy proper that interested him most, and his last work was an essay in the classification of the sciences.

Ampère's religious experience included an early period of indifference, and after his return to Christianity a

1 Über den Zusammenhang zwischen den großen Agentien der Natur, Bonn 1885, 18.

2 Éloges académiques, Paris 1890, 56.

3 H. Kopp, Die Entwicklung der Chemie in der neueren Zeit, München 1873, 354-357.

4 Ib. 473.

A.-M. Ampère et J.-J. Ampère, Correspondance

et Souvenirs I, Paris 1875, 87.

period of great doubt and distress. These were however merely stages in his development. At the time of his great discoveries he was once more a zealous and convinced Christian, and in this faith he remained to the end. Ozanam, who lived for some time in Ampère's household expresses himself unmistakably on this point.

"But over and above his scientific achievements there is something more to be said: for us Catholics, this rare genius has other titles to our veneration and love. He was a brother in the Faith.... Religion presided over the labours of his mind, shed its light over every field of his thought: and it was from this sublime point of view that he judged all things, even science itself.... This venerable head, with all its wisdom and glory, bowed unreservedly before the mysteries of the Divine Teaching. He knelt at the same altar as Descartes and Pascal, side by side with poor women and children, humbler in soul than the least of them. No one could have observed more scrupulously the austere, and yet sweet discipline of the Church. . . . But most beautiful of all was the operation of Christianity in the interior of his noble soul: that admirable simplicity, the modesty of a genius which, knowing everything, was content to be ignorant of its own greatness: that high scientific probity, eager not after glory, but after truth alone, nowadays so rare: that affable and communicative temper, pouring out in familiar conversation treasures beyond count, so communicative indeed that its ideas lay at the mercy of the plagiarist; finally that benevolence towards all he met but especially the young. . . . We know more than one, towards whom he showed the care and affection of a father. I say emphatically that those who knew only his intellect knew the less perfect part of him. For if he thought deeply, he

loved more deeply still."1

Ampère's discussions with Ozanam hardly ever concluded without some mention of the name of God.

1 Oeuvres complètes de A.-F. Ozanam VIII, Paris 1872, 89.

"Then Ampère took his broad brow between his hands and cried out: 'How great God is, Ozanam, how great God is! All our knowledge is absolutely nothing.'

We add to Ozanam's testimony that of Sainte-Beuve, a witness certainly not open to the charge of prejudice:

"The religious doubts and struggles of his early life had ceased: or at least his trouble of mind was no longer so acute. For years many things had been leading him back to the faith and submission of mind which he had so well expressed in 1803, in an affecting document which no doubt he had often re-read in the interval. Interior sorrows, his instinct for the infinite, active correspondence with his old friend Father Barret2, the very atmosphere of the Restoration, all drew him back. Throughout all the years that followed down to the very end, we saw him effecting without effort and in a fashion to arouse admiration and respect, a reconciliation and alliance of faith and science, of belief and hope in human thought and adoration before the Revealed Word." 3

In Ampère's own writings we find many passages in which he speaks of Nature as leading up to God:

"We can see only the works of the Creator but through them we rise to a knowledge of the Creator Himself. Just as the real movements of the stars are hidden by their apparent movements, and yet it is by observation of the

1 Oeuvres complètes de A.-F. Ozanam X 37.

2 Klemens Barret, one of Ampère's friends in Lyons, entered the Society of Jesus in 1814, died 1848.

3 Les anciens doutes et les combats religieux avaient cessé. . . Jusqu'à la fin, et pendant les années qui suivirent, nous l'avons toujours vu allier et concilier sans plus d'effort et de manière à frapper d'étonnement et de respect, la foi et la science, la croyance et l'espoir en la pensée humaine et l'adoration envers la parole révélée (SainteBeuve in his Introduction to Ampère's Essai sur la philosophie des sciences II, Paris 1843, L).

one that we determine the other: so God is in some sort hidden by His works, and yet it is through them that we discern Him and catch a hint of the Divine attributes."

One of the most striking evidences of the existence of God is the wonderful harmony by which the universe is preserved and living beings are furnished in their organization with everything necessary to life, multiplication, and the enjoyment of all their powers, physical and intellectual." 1

The third of the great founders of the Theory of Electricity was Michael Faraday 2. His pre-eminence in the science is certified by every authority. "Taking him for all in all", says Tyndall, "I think it will be conceded that Michael Faraday was the greatest experimental philosopher the world has ever seen." Du Bois-Reymond echoes these words almost literally. He describes Faraday as "the greatest experimental philosopher of all time". J. B. Dumas the famous chemist, in his memorial speech to the French Academy of Science on May 18th 1868 characterised Faraday as “the greatest scientist the Academy had ever counted among its members" 3.

1 Essai sur la philosophie des sciences II, Paris 1843, 24 f. 2 Bence Jones, The Life and Letters of Faraday 2, 2 vols, London 1870. John Tyndall, Faraday as a Discoverer, London 1868; Fragments of Science 5, London 1876, 246–267. J.-B. Dumas, Discours et Éloges Académiques I, Paris 1885, 51-124. Silvanus P. Thompson, Michael Faradays Leben und Wirken. Autorisierte Übersetzung von Agathe Schütte und Dr Heinrich Danneel, Halle a. S. 1900.

Dumas,

3 Tyndall, Faraday as a Discoverer 147. E. Du Bois-Reymond, Reden, Zweite Folge, Leipzig 1887, 389 502. Discours I 53. Cf. v. Martius in the Sitzungsberichten der Münchener Akademie 1868, I 440: "Man hat Faraday den größten Experimentator seiner Epoche genannt, und wohl mit Recht."