446 Mr. H. Sloggett on the Constitution of Matter. 



no assigned position being given to electricity in its combina- 

 tion with matter. This being done, the solution is easy, and 

 if it be done satisfactorily, the two-fluid theory must be esti- 

 mated as nothing but a superfluity. In a sphere, the com- 

 bined atoms of matter concentrate their power in its centre. 

 Thus the exterior atoms have their atmospheres less strongly 

 attached to them than the interior ones, since the tendency of 

 all the combined atoms to attract electricity to the centre of 

 the sphere is greatest at the surface, varying as the distance 

 from the centre ; and because this tendency and the force with 

 which the atom attracts its atmosphere are in opposition. 

 Now it is manifest that a force must act when the resistance 

 to it is least ; hence if electricity be abstracted from the sphere 

 it must be from the surface, or rather from the atoms on the 

 surface. If the surface be not covered with a non-conducting 

 medium, the atoms will necessarily supply their deficiency 

 from the contiguous conducting ones, and thus cause an equi- 

 librium. It has however yet to be shown how negatively elec- 

 trified bodies repel each other ; indeed electrical attraction and 

 repulsion generally must be explained before the validity of 

 the theory can be assented to; but as both the received theo- 

 ries do this in a nearly similar manner to the present one, it 

 need not now be entered upon. My object has been briefly 

 to prove the sufficiency of one electric agent to elucidate what 

 it has been considered possible to do only by two, and by so 

 doing to furnish a basis for the explanation of the whole series 

 of electrical phaenomena. Statical electricity has alone fur- 

 nished exercise for legitimate theory ; and although the iden- 

 tity of it and voltaic electricity has never been doubted, the 

 connexion between their effects has received no solution. 

 The relation between the atoms of bodies and statical electri- 

 cal excitement, here suggested, seems to furnish a clue by which 

 dynamical electricity may become more intelligible. By dy- 

 namical electricity, I mean voltaic effects generally. This 

 may perhaps more clearly appear by considering the influences 

 to which the particles might be conceived to be subject. In 

 order to this, we must have some standard by which we may 

 compare different atoms or centres of matter ; so we will assume 

 an unit for that purpose. Not that an atom must consist of 

 one unit only, but that different atoms may consist of different 

 definite units. 



Let the repulsion between one unit of matter and another 

 be called R, the repulsion between units of electricity ?•, the 

 attraction between units of electricity and matter a ; let the 

 respective quantities of matter in two different atoms be M 

 and m t and the respective quantities of electricity E and e. 



