A letter to Prof. Faraday. 9 



kind entertain with more firmness than that of the existence of 

 matter in that ponderable form, in which it is instinctively recog- 

 nized by people of common sense. Not perceiving that this con- 

 viction can only be supported as a theoretic deduction from our 

 perception of the properties ; there is a reluctance to admit the 

 existence of other matter, which has not in its favor the same 

 instinctive conception, although theoretically similar reasoning 

 would apply. But if one kind of matter be admitted to exist 

 because we perceive properties, the existence of which cannot 

 be otherwise explained, are we not warranted, if we notice more 

 properties than can reasonably be assigned to one kind of mat- 

 ter, to assume the existence of another kind of matter ? 



Independently of the considerations which have heretofore led 

 some philosophers to suppose that we are surrounded by an 

 ocean of electric matter, which by its redundancy or deficiency 

 is capable of producing the phenomena of mechanical electricity, 

 it has appeared to me inconceivable that the phenomena of gal- 

 vanism and electro-magnetism, latterly brought into view, can be 

 satisfactorily explained without supposing the agency of an inter- 

 vening imponderable medium by whose subserviency the induc- 

 tive influence of currents or magnets is propagated. If in that 

 wonderful reciprocal reaction between masses and particles, to 

 which I have alluded, the polarization of condensed or accumu- 

 lated portions of intervening imponderable matter, can be brought 

 in as a link to connect the otherwise imperfect chain of causes ; it 

 would appear to me a most important instrument in lifting the 

 curtain which at present hides from our intellectual vision, this 

 highly important mechanism of nature, 



Havmg devised so many ingenious experiments tending to 

 show that the received ideas of electrical induction are inadequate 

 to explain the phenomena without supposing a modifying influ- 

 ence in intervening ponderable matter, should there prove to be 

 cases in which the results cannot be satisfactorily explained by 

 ascribing them to ponderable particles, I hope that you may be 

 induced to review the whole ground, in order to determine 

 whether the part to be assigned to contiguous ponderable parti- 

 cles, be not secondary to that performed by the imponderable 

 principles by which they are surrounded. 



But if galvanic phenomena be due to ponderable matter, evi- 

 dently that matter must be in a state of combination. To 



Vol. xxxvni, No. 1.— Oct.-Dec. 1839. 2 



