concerned in the Pluenomena of ordinary Electricity, 6fc. 35 



placed within two or three inches of either end of the battery, 

 or over any of the terminal cells. Advantage was taken of this 

 to test whether any effect of tension could be observed when the 

 cu-cuit was completed; but the instant this was effected, the 

 leaves of the electroscope as instantly collapsed, nor could 1 de- 

 tect, either by the aid of the condenser or otherwise, the slightest 

 trace of tension ; it however immediately reappeared when the 

 circuit was again broken*/^ 



Thus, it is abundantly proved that as soon as the positive and 

 negative poles of a voltaic series are brought in communication 

 with each other, they comport themselves exactly as the positive 

 and negative poles or conductors do of a common electrical ma- 

 chine ; all symptoms of electricity cease. It is at this moment, 

 however, and not until now, that the connecting wire of the vol- 

 taic series becomes magnetic. Is there not in this fact something 

 repugnant to the idea that electricity is the agent ? The magnetic 

 properties appear when all electricity is neutralized and extin- 

 guished ; and the moment that electricity is made to reappear 

 by disconnecting the poles, the magnetism ceases. Professor 

 Faraday himself, when treating of a different subject, expressly 

 admits the neutralizing eflfects of the two electricities. Speaking 

 of voltaic action, he says " it produces a cm-rent in which the op- 

 posite forces are so equal as to neutralize each other." What 

 can neutralization mean if it be not that the properties of each 

 are for the time suspended, and can no longer act. 



To admit that the two states of electricity, after having neu- 

 tralized and virtually annihilated each other's properties, should 

 nevertheless at that moment be more active than ever in calling 

 into operation an energetic power of a totally different nature, is 

 contrary to every agency of electricity of which we have any 

 real knowledge. By the neutralization of the positive and ne- 

 gative states of electricity, the natural condition of equilibrium 

 is produced ; the electricity is then quiescent as it was previously 

 to the excitation that rendered it active ; it is, in short, in the in- 

 sensible state of the clement as it exists throughout all nature. 

 If in that state electricity be competent to excite magnetism, it 

 must be admitted by the defenders of this hypothesis, that all 

 bodies in nature are magnets, and even magnets of great power, 

 a position which carries its own I'cfutation. 



This objection ap])lics to the opinion of those who maintain 

 that electricity considered as a simple element is the cause of, or 

 is identical with, or excites magnetism ; but not to the view 

 which I suggested in the beginning of this essay of the com- 

 pound nature of the electric fluid, one of its constituent elements 

 being magnetism. 



* Philosophical Magazine, 1844, p. 290. 

 1)2 



