SUMMARY — NATURE OF INDUCTIVE ACTION. 39 



follow that the fewer there are of these intervening- particles opposing their tendency 

 to the assumption of the new state, the greater degree of change will they suffer, i. e. 

 the higher will be the condition they assume, and the larger the amount of inductive 

 action exerted through them. 



1304. I have used the phrases lines of inductive for-ce and curved lines of force (123 1 . 

 1297. 1298. 1302.) in a general sense only, just as we speak of the lines of magnetic 

 force. The lines are imaginary, and the force in any part of them is of course the re- 

 sultant of compound forces, every molecule being related to every other molecule in 

 all directions by the tension and reaction of those which are contiguous. The trans- 

 verse force is merely this relation considered in a direction oblique to the lines of in- 

 ductive force, and at present I mean no more than that by the phrase. With respect 

 to the term polarity also, I mean at present only a disposition of force by which the 

 same molecule acquires opposite powers on different parts. The particular way in 

 which this disposition is made will come into consideration hereafter, and probably 

 varies in different bodies, and so produces variety of electrical relation. All I am 

 anxious about at present is, that a more particular meaning should not be attached to 

 the expressions used than I contemplate. Further inquiry, I trust, will enable us by 

 degrees to restrict the sense more and more, and so render the explanation of elec- 

 trical phenomena day by day more and more definite. 



1305. As a test of the probable accuracy of my views, I have throughout this ex- 

 perimental examination compared them with the conclusions drawn by M. Poisson 

 from his beautiful mathematical inquiries*. I am quite unfit to form a judgment of 

 these admirable papers ; but as far as I can perceive, the theory I have set forth and 

 the results I have obtained are not in opposition to such of those conclusions as repre- 

 sent the final disposition and state of the forces in the limited number of cases he has 

 considered. His theory assumes a very different mode of action in induction to that 

 which I have ventured to support, and would probably find its mathematical test in 

 the endeavour to apply it to cases of induction in curved lines. To my feeling it is 

 insufficient in its mode of accounting for the retention of electricity upon the surface 

 of conductors by the pressure of the air, an effect which I hope to show is simple and 

 consistent according to the present view ; and it does not touch voltaic electricity, or 

 in any way associate it and what is called ordinary electricity under one common 

 principle. 



I have also looked with some anxiety to the results which that indefatigable phi- 

 losopher Harris has obtained in his investigation of the laws of induction-}-, knowing 

 that they were experimental, and having a full conviction of their exactness; but I 

 am happy in perceiving no collision at present between them and the views I have set 

 forth. 



1306. Finally, I beg to say that 1 put forth my particular view with doubt and fear, 



* Memoires de I'lnstitut, 1811, torn. xii. the first page 1, and the second paging 163. 

 t Philosophical Transactions, 1834, p. 213. 



