[14] See Faraday’s Historical Sketch, Researches, 481–492.
[15] Art. 524.
[16] In 1834. Eleventh Series of Researches. Art. 662.
[17] Hist. Ind. Sc. b. xiv. c. ix. sect. 2.
[18] Arts. 915, 916, 917.
7. It will, perhaps, be said that this beautiful train of discovery was entirely due to experiment, and not to any à priori conviction that co-existent polarities [379] must be connected. I trust I have sufficiently stated that such an à priori principle could not be proved, nor even understood, without a most laborious and enlightened use of experiment; but yet I think that the doctrine, when once fully unfolded, exhibited clearly, and established as true, takes possession of the mind with a more entire conviction of its certainty and universality, in virtue of the principle we are now considering. When the theory has assumed so simple a form, it appears to derive immense probability (to say the least) from its simplicity. Like the laws of motion, when stated in its most general form, it appears to carry with it its own evidence. And thus this great theory borrows something of its character from the Ideas which it involves, as well as from the Experiments by which it was established.
8. We may find in many of Mr. Faraday’s subsequent reasonings, clear evidence that this idea of the Connexion of Polarities, as now developed, is not limited in its application to facts already known experimentally, but, like other ideas, determines the philosopher’s researches into the unknown, and gives us the form of knowledge even before we possess the matter. Thus, he says, in his Thirteenth Series[19], ‘I have long sought, and still seek, for an effect or condition which shall be to statical electricity what magnetic force is to current electricity; for as the lines of discharge are associated with a certain transverse effect, so it appeared to me impossible but that the lines of tension or of inductive action, which of necessity precede the discharge, should also have their correspondent transverse condition or effect.’ Other similar passages might be found.
[19] Art. 1658.
I will now consider another case to which we may apply the Principle of Connected Polarities.
9. Connexion of Chemical and Crystalline Polarities.—The close connexion between the Chemical Affinity and the Crystalline Attraction of elements cannot be overlooked. Bodies never crystallize but when their elements combine chemically; and solid bodies which [380] combine, when they do it most completely and exactly, also crystallize. The forces which hold together the elements of a crystal of alum are the same forces which make it a crystal. There is no distinguishing between the two sets of forces.