[ I40 ] 



denominated negative eledricity. Dodor Franklin* acknowledged' 

 that he could not affign a fatisfadory reafon for it; and Dodtor 

 Prieftley f has propofed it, as one of the queries remaining to be 

 folved for completing the fcience of eledricity. Many attempts 

 have been made to obviate this apparent objcdion to the fimple 

 theory of a fingle fluid ; but the difficulty feems fiill to be as great 

 dTs it was in the time of Franklin. 



I iEpiNUS has applied a very elaborate fyftem of mathematical 

 reafoning to the folution of eledrical phasnomena, and has adopted 

 as the bads of his theory, the fame opinion which Franklin 

 had entertained concerning the nature of the eledric fluid ; 

 but he has combined with this opinion other principles fo in- 

 admifllble, that his reafonings cannot be regarded as juft expli- 

 cations of the phaenomena. He has aflTumed, apparently without 

 any other reafon than its importance to his conclufions, that the 

 particles of all other fubftances repel each other. His fyftem muft 

 therefore be confidered, not as a phyfical folution agreeable to the 

 known laws of natural operations, but merely as an ingenious 

 exercife of mathematical ability. 



M. DeLuc, who rejeded the folutions of yEpinus has endea- 

 voured to fupply the deficiency. § Having remarked that the 



divergence 



• Dr. Prieftley's Hiftory of Eleftricity, p. 165. f Ibid. p. 492. 



J Journal de PhyCque, Dec. 1787. § Journal de Phyfique, Juin 1790. 



