122 RemarliS on Professor Hansteen’s 
ture gains probability from the preceding remarks on the daily 
oscillations of the needle. Upon this principle, the son may be 
conceived as possessing one or more magnetic axes, which, by 
distributing the force, occasiop a magnetic difference in the 
earth, the jpoon, and all those planets, whose internal Structure 
admits of such a difference. Yet, allowing all this, the main 
diffipulty seems not to be overcomcj but merely removed from 
the eyes to a greater distance \ for the question may still be 
asked with equal justice : Whence did the sun acquire its mag^ 
mtic force ? And jf from the sup we have recourse to a cen- 
tral sun, and from that again to a general magnetic direction 
tliroughout the universe, having the milky-way for its equator, 
we bnt lengthen an unrestricted chain, every link of which 
hangs on the preceding link, no one of them on a point pf sup- 
port. All things considered, the following mode of represent- 
ing the subject, appears to me most plausible. If a single globe 
were left to move alone freely in the immensity of space, the 
opposite forces existing in its material structure would soon ar? 
rive at an equilibrium conforpiable to their nature, if they were 
not so at first, and all activity would soon come to an end. 
But if we imagine another globe to be introduced, a mutual re- 
lation will arise between tlie two ; and one of its results will be 
a reciprocal tendency to unite, which is designated and some^ 
times thought to be explained by the merely descriptive word, 
attraction. Now, would diis tendency be the only consequence 
of that relation ? Is it not more likely that the fundamental 
forces being driven from their state of .indifference or rest, 
would exhibit their energy in all possible directions, giving rise 
to all kinds of contrary action ? The electric force is excited, 
not by friction alone, but also by contact, and probably also, 
though in smaller degrees, by the mutual action of two bodies 
at a distance, — for contact is nothing but the smallest possible 
flistance, and that, moreover, only for a few small particles. Is 
it not conceivable that magnetic force may likewise originate in 
a similar manner ? When the natural philosopher and the 
madiematician pay regard td no other effect of the reciprocal 
relation between two bodies at a distance, except the tendency 
to unite, — they proved logically, if their investigations require 
nothing more than a moving power ; but should it be maintain- 
