OHM ON THE GALVANIC CIRCUIT. 445 



differential calculus, the difference of action itself to be infinitely 

 small, but terms it finite, and treats it also as such ; whence it is 

 immediately apparent that he in fact treats that which is infi- 

 nitely small at an infinitely short distance as finite. Disregard- 

 ing however the great certainty and distinctness which accom- 

 pany our manner of representation, there might still be some- 

 thing more to say, and perhaps with some justice, against La- 

 place's mode of treatment in favour of ours, in this respect, that 

 the former takes not the least account of the possible nature of 

 the given elements of bodies, but merely has to do with imagi- 

 nary elements of space, by which the physical nature of the 

 bodies is almost entirely lost sight of. We may, to render our 

 assertion intelligible by an example, undoubtedly imagine bo- 

 dies in nature which consist only of homogeneous elements, 

 but whose position to each other, taken in one direction, might 

 be different than when in another direction; such bodies, as 

 our mode of representation immediately shows, might conduct 

 the electricity in one direction in a different manner than in 

 another, notwithstanding that they might appear uniform and 

 equally dense. In such a case, did it occur, we should have to 

 take refuge, according to Laplace, in considerations which have 

 remained entirely foreign to the general process. On the other 

 hand, the mode in which bodies conduct affords us the means 

 by which we are enabled to judge of their internal structure, 

 which, from our almost total ignorance on the subject, cannot 

 be immediately shown. Lastly, we may add, that this, our hi- 

 therto developed view of molecidar actions, unites in itself the 

 two advanced by Laplace and by Fourier in his theory of heat, 

 and reconciles them with each other. 



8. We need now no longer hesitate about allowing the elec- 

 trical action of an element not to extend beyond the adjacent 

 surrounding elements, so that the action entii-ely disappears at 

 every finite distance, however small. The extremely limited 

 circle of action with the almost infinite velocity with which elec- 

 tricity passes through many bodies might indeed appear sus- 

 picious ; but we did not overlook on its admission, that our com- 

 parison in such cases is only effected by an imaginary relative 

 standard, which is deceitful, and does therefore not justify us to 

 vary a law so simple and independent until the conclusions 

 drawn from it are in contradiction to nature, which in our sub- 

 ject, however, does not seem to be the case. 



