The Soul in Nature

THE LIFE OF H. C. OERSTED.

[He] represented the practice of science as a religious worship. Most of his time was also occupied with lectures, which he delivered daily for five hours during several winters; some of these were in German for the corps diplomatique original: "diplomatic corps".. He introduced a monthly lecture, which he continued until the end of his life, in which he gradually communicated and explained all the latest discoveries in experimental Natural Science. Around this time, he also discovered a galvanic copper-cell apparatus (kupferkasten apparat), together with a new method for blasting mines. In 1818 and 1819, by command of the king, he surveyed the Island of Bornholm, accompanied by the distinguished geologist Forchhammer of Holstein. This island had been neglected until then, but it was mineralogically interesting and rich in ironstone and coal.

At length came the year 1820, from which Oersted’s great fame may be dated, and which he himself called the happiest year of his life. He discovered “electro-magnetism,” or the law of reciprocity between electrified bodies and the magnet. The actual discovery of this previously unknown law of nature—which has already produced such extraordinary effects in the few years that have elapsed since—was developed during a course of lectures a privatissimum original: "a strictly private course"., which he delivered in the winter of 1819 and 1820 before some of the provectiores (the more advanced students). He had, however, carried the original idea, whose real existence now became a fact for the first time, in his mind for a long period. Even in the year 1813, in his aforementioned work, Views of Chemical Laws of Nature, he had expressed his anticipation of a near connection between electric, galvanic, and magnetic currents. If galvanism, he thought, is only a hidden form of electricity, then magnetism may also be only electricity in a still more hidden form. His efforts were directed toward inquiring whether electricity in a galvanic form might not exercise a perceptible effect upon the magnet. His continued