THE ASTRONOMICAL VIEW OF NATURE. 367 



electric circuits the phenomena of electro -magnetism, 

 diamagnetism, and induction were all resolved into 

 elementary processes of attraction and repulsion, and 

 summed up in a formula which looked like an extension 

 of the Newtonian gravitation formula, revealing the mys- 

 terious influence of molecular forces. 



" Oersted had found that an electric current acts on a 

 magnetic pole, but that it neither attracts it nor repels it, 

 but causes it to move round the current. He expressed 

 this by saying that the electric conflict acts in a revolving 

 manner. The most obvious deduction from this new fact 

 was, that the action of the current on the magnet is not 

 a push-and-pull force, but a rotary force, and accordingly 

 many minds began to speculate on vortices and streams 

 of ether, whirling round the current. But Ampere, by a 

 combination of mathematical skill and experimental in- 

 genuity, first proved that two electric currents act on one 

 another, and then analysed this action into the resultant 

 of a system of push-and-pull forces between the elemen- 

 tary parts of these currents." l 



Weber in Germany took up the work where Ampere 

 had left it. 2 One of his objects was to combine the 



1 Clerk Maxwell " On Action at was his experimental investigation 



a Distance" ('Scientific Papers,' j of wave-motion ('Die Wellenlehre 



vol. ii. p. 317). I auf Experimente gegrlindet,' 1825), 



- Weber's interest was twofold, i the other the still more delicate at- 



The primary object was to put 

 accurate quantitative data in the 

 place of merely qualitative descrip- 

 tions or mere estimates of pheno- 



terupt to treat a physiological pheno- 

 menon, the mechanism of the organs 

 of locomotion, on exact mechanical 

 principles (1836). This rare gift of 



mena. He had then already pub- exactness, invaluable at all times, 

 lished together with his brothers but almost unique at that time iu 

 (see supra, p. 196, note 3) two ! Germany, where philosophical vague- 

 works in which in a similar way j ness was only too common, attract- 

 exact research has taken the place ed the notice of Gauss, who brought 

 of inexact description. The first Weber to Gottingen in 1830 after 



