Summary : Nature of Inductive Action. 429 



All I am anxious about at present is, that a more particular 

 meaning should not be attached to the expressions used than 

 I contemplate. Further inquiry, I trust, will enable us by 

 degrees to restrict the sense more and more, and so render 

 the explanation of electrical phsenomena day by day more 

 and more definite. 



1305. As a test of the probable accuracy of my views, I 

 have throughout this experimental examination compared 

 them with the conclusions drawn by M. Poisson from his 

 beautiful mathematical inquiries *. I am quite unfit to form 

 a judgement of these admirable papers; but as far as I 

 can perceive, the theory I have set forth and the results 

 I have obtained are not in opposition to such of those con- 

 clusions as represent the final disposition and state of the 

 forces in the limited number of cases he has considered. His 

 theory assumes a very different mode of action in induction 

 to that which I have ventured to support, and would pro- 

 bably find its mathematical test in the endeavour to apply 

 it to cases of induction in curved lines. To my feeling it is 

 insufficient in its mode of accounting for the retention of elec- 

 tricity upon the surface of conductors by the pressure of the 

 air, an effect which I hope to show is simple and consistent 

 according to the present view ; and it does not touch voltaic 

 electricity, or in any way associate it and what is called ordi- 

 nary electricity under one common principle. 



1 have also looked with some anxiety to the results which 

 that indefatigable philosopher Harris has obtained in his in- 

 vestigation of the laws of induction f , knowing that they were 

 experimental, and having a full conviction of their exactness ; 

 but I am happy in perceiving no collision at present between 

 them and the views 1 have set forth. 



1306. Finally, I beg to say that I put forth my particular 

 view with doubt and fear, lest it should not bear the test of 

 general examination, for unless true it will only embarrass the 

 progress of electrical science. It has long been on my mind, 

 but I hesitated to publish it until the increasing persuasion 

 of its accordance with all known facts, and the manner in 

 which it linked together effects apparently very different in 

 kind, urged me to write the present paper. I as yet see no 

 inconsistency between it and nature, but, on the contrary, 

 think I perceive much new light thrown by it on her opera- 

 tions; and my next papers will be devoted to a review of the 

 phaenomena of conduction, electrolyzation, current, mag- 



* Memoires dePImtitut, 1811, torn. xii. the first page 1, and the second 

 paging 163. t Philosophical Transactions, 1834, p. 213. 



