on certain Theoretical Opinions. 45 



2. You must be too well aware of the height at which you 

 stand, in the estimation of men of science, to doubt that I en- 

 tertain with diffidence any opinion in opposition to yours. 

 I may say of you as in a former instance of Berzelius, that 

 you occupy an elevation inaccessible to unjustifiable criticism. 

 Under these circumstances, I hope that I may, from you, ex- 

 perience the candour and kindness which were displayed by 

 the great Swedish chemist in his reply to my strictures on his 

 nomenclature. 



3. I am unable to reconcile the language which you hold 

 in paragraph 1615, with the fundamental position taken in 

 1165. Agreeably to the latter, you believe ordinary induc- 

 tion to be the action of contiguous particles, consisting of a 

 species of polarity, instead of being an action of either parti- 

 cles or masses at " sensible distances." Agreeably to the 

 former, you conceive that " assuming that a perfect vacuum 

 was to intervene in the course of the line of inductive action, 

 it does not follow from this theory that the line of particles 

 on opposite sides of such a vacuum would not act upon 

 each other." Again, supposing " it possible for a positively 

 electrified particle to be in the centre of a vacuum an inch 

 in diameter, nothing in my present view forbids that the 

 particle should act at a distance of half an inch on all 

 the particles forming the inner superficies of the bounding 

 sphere." 



4. Laying these quotations before you for reconsideration, 

 I beg leave to inquire how a positively excited particle, si- 

 tuated as above described, can react " inductrically " with 

 any particles in the superficies of the surrounding sphere, if 

 this species of reaction require that the particles between 

 which it takes place be contiguous. Moreover if induction 

 be not " an action either of particles or masses at sensible 

 distances," how can a particle situated as above described, 

 " act at the distance of half an inch on all the particles forming 

 the disk of the inner superficies of the bounding sphere ?" What 

 is a sensible distance, if half an inch is not ? 



5. How can the force thus exercised obey the " well-known 

 law of the squares of the distances," if as you state (1375) the 

 rarefaction of the air does not alter the intensity of the in- 

 ductive action ? In proportion as the air is rarefied, do not 

 its particles become more remote ? 



6. Can the ponderable particles of a gas be deemed con- 

 tiguous in the true sense of this word, under any circum- 

 stances? And it may be well here to observe, that admitting 

 induction to arise from an affection of intervening ponderable 

 atoms, it is difficult to conceive that the intensity of this af- 



