364 THE INTELLECTUAL RISE IN ELECTRICITY. 



reasoning. Why not have deduced "their nature" from 

 intuition? 



Yet the speculation whereby he endeavors to account for 

 electric attraction is one of the most remarkable of all. 

 He begins by denying absolutely the notion of emanations 

 of an apparently glutinous character which emerge, seize 

 upon the chaff, and, on retracting, bring it back to the 

 electric. There is no warrant for such an hypothesis, he 

 thinks, and for it he substitutes the following: 



The pores of the electric are slits of extreme narrowness. 

 Nothing but the globules of the most subtle ether can 

 enter them. But when they are filled these globules unify 

 and form little ribbons (bandelettes), which move to and 

 fro in the pores, and are molded to their shapes. They 

 cannot of themselves leave the electric, because there are 

 no passages in the air which they fit. But when the elec- 

 tric is rubbed it is heated. Its shape, and hence that of its 

 pores, is deformed, and the ribbons are crowded out, and 

 hence are moved toward other bodies. Not being able to 

 find any suitable conduits in these bodies through which 

 they can proceed, they engage merely in the pores of light 

 chaff. As the electric, after rubbing, resumes its normal 

 condition, they shrink back and bring the chaff with them. 



It is a very far-fetched theory, and the ribbons are no. 

 better than Gilbert's effluvia. But there is something novel 

 in Descartes' commentary upon it. After explaining how 

 it is the nature of the element, whereof these ribbons are 

 composed, to keep swiftly moving within the pores of the 

 electric, he says, u and sometimes, on the other hand, they 

 pass in a very short time to far distant places, never meet- 

 ing a body in their path capable of stopping or diverting 

 them. And then meeting afar like matter disposed to 

 receive their action, they produce effects entirely rare and 

 marvelous, such as causing the wounds of a corpse to bleed 

 when the murderer approaches, exciting the imagination 

 of those who sleep, and even of the waking, and creating 

 in people thoughts which warn them of events happening 



