Mr. W. R. Browne on Action at a Distance. 129 



the induced current produced by the contact of the con- 

 ductor. 



The experiments described have been carried out in the 

 Physical Museum of the University of Prague. 



XVIII. On Action at a Distance. By Walter R. Browne, 

 M.A., M. Inst. C.E.j late Fellow of Trinity College, Cam- 

 bind ge*. 



THE three several communications in the January Number 

 of the Philosophical Magazine, commenting on my paper 

 upon " Action at a Distance," seem to demand some reply 

 on my part. But I may be permitted to observe that the 

 gist of that paper lay in a few short pieces of purely physical 

 reasoning, designed to prove that certain known facts not only 

 were not, but could not be explained on the hypothesis that 

 action at a distance was impossible. Now not one of my 

 three opponents has pointed out a flaw in these reasonings. In 

 fact, they all appear to imply that in some of them at least 

 they can find none; therefore I do not think I need take 

 up much time in answering any counter arguments they may 

 employ. 



I will, however, devote a few words to each. Taking them 

 in reverse order for convenience, I may point out that Mr. 

 Allen's quotation from Clerk Maxwell has nothing to do with 

 action at a distance as compared with action by contact, but 

 only with action at great distances as compared with action 

 at small distances, Clerk Maxwell himself taking care to 

 observe that the one is really just as mysterious as the other. 

 Mr. Allen's own idea of an impalpable fluid will not serve, 

 until he shows how the laws of fluids are accounted for by 

 impact alone. It seems needful to insist on the fact that it 

 is not the action of molecules which is under discussion, much 

 less that of ordinary bodies, but the action of atoms, using 

 that word in its strict sense to designate those ultimate and in- 

 dividual elements of matter, which no known power can divide, 

 destroy, or alter in any way. This conception must not be 

 confounded, for instance, with that of the vortex atom, which, 

 it is true, forms a whole that is not broken up by any natural 

 process, but which by definition contains an immense number 

 of ultimate atoms, each having a separate motion of its own. 



Mr. Tolver Preston should explain what he means by 

 explanation. I know no meaning for that word except 

 that assigned to it by Mr. J. S. Mill and others, viz. the 



* Communicated by the Author. 

 Phil. Mag. S. 5. Vol. 11. No. Q6. Feb. 1881. K 



