[38] Camb. Trans. vol. iii. p. 239.
Our business at present, however, is not with instruments which might be devised for measuring sensible qualities, but with those which have been so used, and have thus been the basis of the sciences in which [356] such qualities are treated of; and this we have now done sufficiently for our present purpose.
24. There is another Idea which, though hitherto very vaguely entertained, has had considerable influence in the formation, both of the sciences spoken of in the present Book, and on others which will hereafter come under our notice: namely, the Idea of Polarity. This Idea will be the subject of the ensuing Book. And although this Idea forms a part of the basis of various other extensive portions of science, as Optics and Chemistry, it occupies so peculiarly conspicuous a place in speculations belonging to what I have termed the Mechanico-Chemical Sciences, (Magnetism and Electricity,) that I shall designate the discussion of the Idea of Polarity as the Philosophy of those Sciences.
BOOK V.
THE
PHILOSOPHY
OF THE
MECHANICO-CHEMICAL SCIENCES.
En donnant à ces côtés le nom de poles, j’appelerai polarisation la modification qui donne à la lumière des propriétés relatives à ces poles. J’ai tardé jusqu’à présent à admettre ce terme dans la description des phénomènes physiques dont il est question; je n’ai pas osé l’introduire dans les mémoires où j’ai publié mes dernières expériences; mais les variétés qu’offre ce nouveau phénomène, et la difficulté de les décrire, me forcent à admettre cette nouvelle expression, qui signifie simplement la modification que la lumière a subie en acquérant de nouvelles propriétés qui ne sont pas relatives à la direction du rayon, mais seulement à ses côtés considérés à angles droits et dans un plan perpendiculaire à sa direction.
Malus (1811), Mém. de Inst. tom. xi. p. 106.