Prof. Faraday on some Points of Magnetic Philosophy. 91 



each solution in its complex arrangement being affected exactly 

 in the same way and degree as if it filled the whole of the mag- 

 netic field, although in these particular arrangements it sometimes 

 points like iron, and at other times like bismuth (2362.2414.). 



3316. These motions and pointings of the same or of different 

 solutions, contain every action and indication which is supposed 

 to distinguish the contrary polarities of paramagnetic and dia- 

 magnetic bodies from each other, and the solutions / and m in 

 air repeat exactly the phenomena presented in air by phosphorus 

 and platinum, which are respectively diamagnetic and paramag- 

 netic substances. But we know that these actions are due to 

 the differential result of the masses of the moving or setting 

 solution and of that (or the air) surrounding it. No structural 

 or internal polarity, having opposite directions, is necessary to 

 account for them (2361. 2757.). If, therefore, it is still said 

 that the solution m has one polarity in / and the reverse polarity 

 in n, that would be to make the polarity depend upon the mass 

 of m independently of its particles ; for it can hardly be supposed 

 that the particles of m are more affected by the influence upon 

 them of the surrounding medium (itself under like inductive 

 action only, and almost insensible as a magnet), than they are 

 by the dominant magnet*. It would be also to make the polarity 

 of m as much, or more, dependent upon the surrounding medium 

 than upon the magnet itself; — and it would be, to make the masses 

 of m and / and even their form the determining cause of the 

 polarity; which would remove polarity altogether from depend- 

 ence upon internal molecular condition, and, I think, destroy 

 the last remains of the usual idea. For my own part, I cannot 

 conceive that when a little sphere of m in the solution I is 

 attracted upon the approach of a given magnetic pole, and re- 

 pelled under the action of the same pole when it is in the solu- 

 tion n, its particles are in the two cases polar in two opposite 

 directions ; or that if for a north magnetic pole it is the near 

 side of the particles of m when in / that assume the south state, 

 it is the further side which acquires the same state when the 

 solution / is changed for n. Nor can I think that when the 

 particles of m have the same polar state in both solutions, the 

 whole, as a mass, can have the opposite states. 



3317. These differential results run on in one uninterrupted 



* If the polarity of the inner mass of solution is dependent upon that of 

 the outer, and cannot be affected but through it, then why is not air and 

 space admitted as being in effective magnetic relation to the bodies sur- 

 rounded by them ? How else could a distant body be acted upon by a 

 magnet, if the inner solution of sulphate of iron Lb so acted on? Are we 

 in nwnmf one mode of action by contiguous masses or particles in one case, 

 and another through distance in another case ? 



