804. Magnetism and electrism are correlated, as iron and sulphur, as gravity and light, as centre and periphery. The same spirit, which when ruling in the dark, exhibits itself as magnetic, is manifested when it has attained to light in sulphur as electrical. Magnetism is only the electricity identified.
805. We may therefore speak of idiomagnetic metals as well as idioelectric bodies.
806. Magnetism therefore stands in accordance with these relations in opposition to electrism; they mutually change or annihilate each other.
807. Electrism has, in accordance with its signification, the power of manifesting itself with one pole accumulated or set free from the other, as e. g. the negative in a cake of resin; in magnetism, on the contrary, both poles are always together and inseparable. The radius is divided into two in every part of its length.
808. As the functions of metal and of sulphur are correlated, so also are their substances; they are opposed, and hence the metallization by means of sulphur with all its results. This antagonism is, however, dormant or concealed; that of the functions manifests itself much more clearly.
809. The metals, as being dense, central, and linear masses, must fall into a state of tension with electricity as with heat; this is called conduction. The metals are therefore conductors of electrism. In antagonism to the conducting power of the metals sulphur is naturally an isolator; for what is idioactive is virtually also isolating. Iron may be likewise called an isolator of magnetism. There is only one series of bodies in nature, belonging to the peripheric and expansive functions, that conducts; the metals only are conductors. Isolation belongs to the essence of electricity. Isolating action and Electricity are one; for electricity is the surface-function, wherein the line, which is the only conductor, disappears.
810. Electrism does not tend towards the metals, and can therefore have no definite direction in the earth; there is neither an electric meridian, nor an electric equator. There is only an electrical surface to the earth, and this is alike in all regions of the world.
811. The metals must accordingly stand opposed to sulphur as positive bodies, if not as idiopositive, yet as such when brought into collision with sulphur. The metals, when rubbed with sulphur, constantly become positive, and the sulphur remains negative.
812. The earths also become positive when rubbed with sulphur; in short, everything which, in the genesis of the earth, ranks below sulphur, is positive. Heated bodies rubbed with cold, and rough bodies with smooth, must become negative.
813. Bodies become positive with sulphur, simply because the essence of sulphur is of a negative character, or because, in other words, it is nothing else but negativity; the persistency of one pole and the counter-resistance to every other, is called isolation. The metals are conductors, because they stand opposed to sulphur.