604 Dr. Hare on a recent " Speculation " hy Faraday. 



to which those properties appertain. Yet I cannot concur hi 

 the idea, that because it is only with "w" that we are ac- 

 quainted, the existence of "a" must not be inferred; so that 

 bodies are to be considered as constituted of their materiahzed 

 powers. I use the word materialized, because it is fully ad- 

 mitted by Faraday, that by dispensing with an impenetrable 

 atom " a" we do not get rid of the idea of matter, but have 

 to imagine each atom as existing throughout the whole sphere 

 of its force, instead of being condensed about the centre. 

 This seems to follow from the following language : — 



" The view now stated of the constitution of matter would 

 seem to involve necessarily the conclusion that matter Jills all 

 space, or at least the space to which gravitation extends, inclu- 

 ding the sun and its system, for gravitation is a property of 

 matter dependent on a certain force, and it is this force which 

 constitutes matter" 



Literally this paragraph seems to convey the impression, 

 that agreeably to the new idea of matter, the sun and his 

 planets are not distinct bodies, but consist of certain material 

 powers reciprocally penetrating each other, and pervading a 

 space larger than that comprised within the orbit of Uranus. 

 We do not live upon, but within the matter of which the 

 earth is constituted, or rather within a mixture of all the solar 

 and planetary matter belonging to our solar system. I cannot 

 conceive that the sagacious author seriously intended to sanc- 

 tion any notion involving these consequences. I shall ^is- 

 sume, therefore, that excepting the case of gravitation, his 

 new idea of matter was intended to be restricted to those 

 powers which display themselves within masses at insensible 

 distances, and shall proceed to state the objections which 

 seem to exist against the new idea as associated with those 

 powers. 



Evidently the arguments of Faraday against the existence, 

 in potassium and other masses of matter, of impenetrable 

 atoms endowed with cohesion, chemical affinitj^, momentum, 

 and gravitation, rest upon the inference that in metals there 

 is nothing to perform the part of an electrical conductor be- 

 sides continuous empty space. This illustrious philosopher 

 has heretofore appeared to be disinclined to admit the exist- 

 ence of any matter devoid of ponderability. The main object 

 of certain letters which I addressed to him, was to prove that 

 the phajnomena of induction could not, as he had represented, 

 be an " action " of ponderable atoms, but, on the contrary, 

 must be considered as an affection of them conse(|uent to the 

 intervention of an imponderable matter, without which the 



