206 Hare on Electricity. 
with Franklin’s doctrine, as above stated: but how can wv 
be reconciled with the idea that the electricities are radi- 
eally different, that the same state of excitement may be 
confounded with either. It may, indeed, be alleged, that 
the fluid is never completely vitreous, or resinous, or neu- 
tral; that although the proportion of either fluid be great, it 
may still be imcreased : that one conductor may ——_ 
vitreous than a second, but less so than a third—o 
resinous than a second, but less so than a third; aa hence 
in either case, gn give sparks with either. | This i is, to me, 
complicated and ner ecmerie 6 solution of 
difficulty. 
Pursuant to the Franklinian theory, there can be no r 
ly neutral point; though the earth, as a reservoir, infinite-_ 
ly great, anmapared with any producible by: art, furnishes an 
invariable standard of intensity, above and below which, all 
bodies slecwriealiy excited, are said to be minus or plus.* 
It is perfectly consistent hey this theory, that sparks should 
pass, as they are often seen to do, from conductors in either 
state ; not only es one alk the other, but to bodies nomi- 
nally ‘neutralized by their communication with the earth. 
As the difference between the electrical states of the op 
sitely electrifi ies, must be greater than between A 
of their states, and that of the great reservoir, the sparks 
between.them will be longer, but, in all other characteris- 
tics, will be the same. This practical result is irreconcile- 
able with the doctrine of two fluids, according to which, 
there can be no electricity in the earth, which is not in the 
state of a neutral compound, formed by these opposite elec- 
tricities.. For it would be an anomaly, to suppose the re- 
action between a neutral compound, (a tertium quid,) and 
either of its ingredients, to resemble in intensity, and in its 
characteristic phenomen ena, the reaction which arises between 
the ingredients themselves. a“ well might we expect aque- 
ous vapour to explode with hydrogen or oxygen gas, as 
*In some discussions which took place some years ago, between Mr. 
Donovan and Mr. De Luc, in a Wendion son’s Journal, it was erroneously 
charged against Franklin’s doctrine, that he supposed that there was an ab- 
solute: state of neutrali doctrine of one universal fluid, is, to me, 
ed. 
sible degree, as the quantity < water in the ocean; and it ma’ 
he assnmed to be invariably the 
at idea, otherwise 1e.e: 
é quantity of electricity in ss globe, is as unalterable in any sen- 
i may therefore 
