256 HISTORY OF GALVANISM. 



and with the same angular velocity, electrical currents are called intc 

 play in the mass. 



This rule, thus simple from its generality, though inevitably com- 

 plex in every special case, may be looked upon as supplying the first 

 demand of philosophy, the law of the phenomena ; and accordingly 

 Dr. Faraday has, in all his subsequent researches on magneto-electric 

 induction, applied this law to his experiments ; and has thereby un- 

 ravelled an immense amount of apparent inconsistency and confusion, 

 for those who have followed him in 'his mode of conceiving the 

 subject. 



But yet other philosophers have regarded these phenomena in other 

 points of view, and have stated the laws of the phenomena in a man- 

 ner different from Faraday's, although for the most part equivalent to 

 his. And these attempts to express, in the most simple and general 

 form, the law of the phenomena of magneto-electrical induction, have 

 naturally been combined with the expression of other la\vs of electrical 

 and magnetical phenomena. Further, these endeavors to connect and 

 generalize the Facts have naturally been clothed in the garb of 

 various Theories : the laws of phenomena have been expressed in 

 terms of the supposed causes of the phenomena ; as fluids, attractions 

 and repulsions, particles with currents running through them or 

 round them, physical lines of force, and the like. Such views, and 

 the conflict of them, are the natural and hopeful prognostics of a 

 theory which shall harmonize their discords and include all that each 

 contains of Truth. The fermentation at present is perhaps too great 

 to allow us to see clearly the truth which lies at the bottom. But a 

 few of the leading points of recent discussions on these subjects will be 

 noticed in the Additions to this volume. 



CHAPTER IX. 



TRANSITION TO CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 



fTlHE preceding train of generalization may justly appear extensive, 

 J- and of itself well worthy of admiration. Yet we are to consider 

 all that has there been established as only one-half of the science to 

 which it belongs, one limb of the colossal form of Chemistry. We 



