90 HISTORY OF GALVANISM. 



attraction and repulsion of conducting voltaic wires 

 was a fundamental supposition. The supposition 

 was immediately verified by direct trial; and the 

 laws of this attraction and repulsion were soon 

 determined, with great experimental ingenuity, and 

 a very remarkable command of the resources of 

 analysis. But the experimental and analytical in- 

 vestigation of the mutual action of voltaic or electri- 

 cal currents, was so mixed up with the examination 

 of the laws of electro-magnetism, which had given 

 occasion to the investigation, that we must not 

 treat the two provinces of research as separate. 

 The mention in this place, premature as it might 

 appear, of the labours of Ampere, arises inevitably 

 from his being the author of a beautiful and com- 

 prehensive generalization, which not only included 

 the phenomena exhibited by the new combinations 

 of Oersted, but also disclosed forces which existed 

 in arrangements already familiar, although they 

 had never been detected till the theory pointed 

 out how they were to be looked for. 



