Answer to Dr. Hare's Letter. 113 



xviii. I will now turn to such parts of your critical remarks as 

 may require attention. A man who advances what he thinks to 

 be new truths, and to develope principles which profess to be 

 more consistent with the laws of nature, than those already in 

 the field, is liable to be charged, first with self-contradiction ; then 

 with the contradiction of facts ; or he may be obscure in his ex- 

 pressions and so justly subject to certain queries ; or he may be 

 found in non-agreement with the opinions of others. The first 

 and second points are very important, and every one subject to 

 such charges, must be anxious to be made aware of, and also to 

 set himself free from, or to acknowledge them. The third is also 

 a fault to be removed if possible. The fourth is a matter of but 

 small consequence in comparison with the other three ; for as 

 every man, who has the courage, not to say rashness, to form 

 an opinion of his own, thinks it better than any from which he 

 differs, so it is only deeper investigation and, most generally, fu- 

 ture investigators who can decide which is in the right. 



xix. I am afraid I shall find it rather difficult to refer to your 

 letter. I will however reckon the paragraphs in order from the 

 top of each page, considering that the first which has its begin- 

 ning first in the page. In referring to my own matter, I will 

 employ the usual figures for the paragraphs of the experimental 

 researches, and small Roman numerals for those of this commu- 

 nication. 



XX. At par. 3, p. 1, you say you cannot reconcile my language 

 at 1615 with that at 1165. In the latter place I have said, I be- 

 lieve ordinary induction in all cases to be an action of contiguous 

 particles ; and in the former, assuming a very hypothetical case, 

 that of a vacuum, I have said nothing in my theory which for- 

 bids that a charged particle in the center of a vacuum should act 

 on the particle next to it, though that should be half an inch off. 

 With the meaning which I have carefully attached to the word 

 contiguous, (xvi,) I see no contradiction here in the terms used, 

 nor any natural impossibility, or improbability in such an action. 

 Nevertheless, all ordinary induction is to me an action of con- 

 tiguous particles, being particles at insensible distances ; induc- 

 tion across a vacuum is not an ordinary instance, and yet I do 

 not perceive that it cannot come under the same principle of 

 action. 



Vol. XXXIX, No. 1.— April-June, 1840. 15 



