96 HISTORY OF GALVANISM. 



thesis was not difficult to see in a certain vague 

 and limited way. The conducting- wire and the 

 magnetic needle had a tendency to arrange them- 

 selves at right angles to one another. This might 

 be represented by supposing the wire to be made 

 up of transverse magnetic needles, or by supposing 

 the needle to be made up of transverse conducting- 

 wires; for it was easy to conceive forces which 

 should bring corresponding elements, either mag- 

 netic or voltaic, into parallel positions; and then 

 the general phenomena above stated would be 

 accounted for. And the choice between the two 

 modes of conception, appeared at first sight a matter 

 of indifference. The majority of philosophers at first 

 adopted, or at least employed, the former method, 

 as Oersted in Germany, Berzelius in Sweden, Wol- 

 laston in England. 



Ampere adopted the other view, according to 

 which the magnet is made up of conducting-wires 

 in a transverse position. But he did for his hypo- 

 thesis what no one did or could do for the other : 

 he showed that it was the only one which would 

 account, without additional and arbitrary supposi- 

 tions, for the facts of continued motion in electro- 

 magnetic cases. And he further elevated his theory 

 to a higher rank of generality, by showing that it 

 explained, not only the action of a conducting- 

 wire upon a magnet, but also two other classes of 

 facts, already spoken of in this history, the action 

 of magnets upon each other, and the action of 

 conducting-wires upon each other. 



