"Before entering on this subject, I must make one distinction, which, however it may appear to others, is to me of the utmost importance. High as man is placed above the creatures around him, there is a higher and far more exalted position within his view; and the ways are infinite in which he occupies his thoughts about the fears, or hopes, or expectations of a future life. I believe that the truth of that future cannot be brought to his knowledge by any exertion of his mental powers, however exalted they may be; that it is made known to him by other teaching than his own, and is received through simple belief of the testimony given. Let no one suppose for a moment that the self-education I am about to commend, in respect of the things of this life, extends to any considerations of the hope set before us, as if man by reasoning could find out God. It would be improper here to enter upon this subject further than to claim an absolute distinction between religious and ordinary belief. I shall be reproached with the weakness of refusing to apply those mental operations which I think good in respect of high things to the very highest. I am content to bear the reproach. Yet even in earthly matters I believe 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;' and I have never seen anything incompatible between those things of man which can be known by the spirit of man which is within him, and those higher things concerning his future which he cannot know by that spirit." On more than one occasion the late Prince Consort had discussed physical questions with Faraday, and in 1858 the Queen offered him a house on Hampton Court Green. This was his home until August 25, 1867. He saw not only the magnetic spark, which he had first produced, employed in the lighthouses at the South Foreland and Dungeness, but he saw also his views respecting lines of electric induction examined and confirmed by the investigations of Thomson and Clerk Maxwell. Of the ninety-five distinctions conferred upon him, we need only mention that of Commandant of the Legion of Honour, which he received in January, 1856. JAMES CLERK MAXWELL.