24. From the preceding considerations, and others which will be stated, it follows that it has been erroneously inferred that the only difference between galvanic and frictional electricity is dependent on quantity and intensity. It must be evident that there is a diversity in the nature of these affections of matter, sufficient to create a line of demarcation between them.
25. Having stated my objections to the electrical theories heretofore advanced, it may be proper that I should suggest any hypothetical views which may appear to me of a character to amend or to supersede those to which I have objected. But however I may have been emboldened to point out defects which have appeared to me to be inherent in the theories heretofore accredited, I am far from presuming to devise any substitute which will be unobjectionable. I am fully aware that there is an obscurity as respects the nature and mutual influence of chemical affinity, heat, light, electricity, magnetism, and vitality, which science can only to a minute extent dispel.
26. The hypothesis which I now deem preferable is so much indebted to the researches and suggestions of Farraday and others, that, were it true, I could claim for myself but a small share of the merit of its origination. That sagacious electrician employs the following language: “In the long-continued course of experimental inquiry, in which I have been engaged, this general result has pressed upon me constantly—namely, the necessity of admitting two forces or directions of force, combined with the impossibility of separating these two forces or electricities from each other.” (Experimental Researches, 1163.)[64]
27. Subsequently, ([1244],) after citing another proof of the inseparability of the two electric forces, he alleges it to be “another argument in favour of the view that induction and its concomitant phenomena depend upon a polarity of the particles of matter!”
Supposed grounds for a Theory.
28. The grounds upon which I venture to advance a theory are as follows:
The existence of two heterogeneous polar forces acting in opposite directions, and necessarily connate and coexistent; yet capable of reciprocal neutralization, agreeably to the authority of Farraday and others: the polarity of matter in general, as displayed during the crystallization and vegetation of salts: also as made evident by Farraday’s late researches, and the experiments and observations of Hunt: the very small proportion of the space in solids, as in the instance of potassium and other metals, which are apparently occupied by the ponderable atoms; while, agreeably to the researches and speculations of Farraday, (rightly interpreted,) the residual space must be replete with imponderable matter: the experiments and inferences of Davy and others, tending to sanction the idea that an imponderable ethereal fluid must pervade the creation: the perfect identity of the polarizing effects, transiently created in a wire by subjection to a galvanic discharge, with those produced by the permanent polarizing power of a steel magnet: the utter heterogeneousness of the powers of galvanic and frictional electricity, as respects ability to produce sparks before contact, and likewise of the polarities which they respectively produce: and superficiality of electricity proper during discharge as well as when existing upon insulated surfaces, as demonstrated by atmospheric electricity when conveyed by telegraphic wires, agreeably to Henry; the sounds observed severally by Page, Henry, and Mairran, as being consequent to making and breaking a galvanic circuit through a conductor, or magnetizing or demagnetizing by means of surrounding galvanized coils.
Proofs of the existence of an enormous quantity of Imponderable Matter in Metals.
29. It has been most sagaciously pointed out by Farraday that four hundred and thirty atoms, which form a cube of potassium in the metallic state, must occupy nearly six times as much space as the same number of similar atoms fill, when existing in a cube of hydrated oxide of potassium of the same size; which, beside seven hundred metallic atoms, must hold seven hundred atoms of hydrogen and fourteen hundred of oxygen—in all two thousand eight hundred atoms; whence it follows that, in the metallic cube, there must be room for six times as many atoms as it actually holds.