Dr. Hare's Second Letter to Prof. Faraday. 467 



appear to me to justify your definition of electrical induction. 

 I think that, consistently with your own exemplification of 

 that process, you should have alleged ordinary induction to 

 be p7-odiictive of an affection of particles, causing in them a 

 species of polarity. In the case of the bodies A, B, C (4), 

 B is evidently passive. How then can we consider as active, 

 particles represented to be in an analogous state? If in B 

 there is no action, how can there be any action in particles 

 performing a perfectly similar part? Moreover, how can the 

 inductive power of an electrical accumulation upon A consist 

 of the polarity which it induces in B? 



^i. Having supposed (8) an electrified ball, A, an inch in 

 diameter, to be situated within a thin metallic sphere, C, of a 

 foot in diameter, you suggest, that where one thousand con- 

 centric metallic spheres interpose between A and the inner 

 surface of C, the electro-polar state of each particle in those 

 spheres would be analogous to that of B, already mentioned. 

 Of course, if there be any action of those particles, there must 

 be an action of B ; but this appears to me not only irrecon- 

 cilable with any previously existing theory, but also with your 

 own exposition of the process by which B is polaxized. 



45. Supposing concentric metallic hemispheres to be inter- 

 posed only upon one side of A, you aver that, agreeably to 

 your experience, more of the inductive influence would be 

 extended towards that side of the containing shell than before 

 (14). Admitting this, I cannot concede that the greater in- 

 fluence of the induction, resulting from the presence of the 

 metalhc particles, is the consequence of any action of theirs, 

 whether in contiguity or in proximity. Agreeably to my view, 

 the action is confined to the electrical accumulation in the 

 sphere A. Between the electricity accumulated in this sphere, 

 and that existing in or about the intervening ponderable parti- 

 cles, there may be a reaction ; but evidently these particles are 

 as inactive as are the steps of a ladder in the scaling of a wall. 



4G. Suppose a powerful magnet to be so curved as to have 

 the terminating polar surfaces parallel, and to leave between 

 them an interval of some inches. Place between these sur- 

 faces a number of short pieces of soft iron wire. These would, 

 of course, be magnetized, and would arrange themselves in 

 rows, the north and south poles becoming contiguous. Would 

 this be a sufficient reason for saying that the inductive influ- 

 ence of the magnetic poles was an action of the contiguous 

 wires? Would not the phaenomena be the consequence of 

 an affection of the contiguous [)ieces of wire, not of their uction'i 



47. As respects the word charge, I am not aware that I 

 have been in the habit of attaching any erroneous meaning to 



2 H 2 



