Experimental investigation of the spirit manifestations, [electronic ...

444 APPENDIX.25. Having stated my objections to the electrical theories heretoforeadvanced, it may be proper that I should suggest any hypothetical viewswhich may appear to me of a character to amend or to supersede those towhich I have objected. But however I may have been emboldened topoint out defects which have appeared to me to be inherent in the theoriesheretofore accredited, I am far from presuming to devise any substitutewhich will be unobjectionable. I am fully aware that there is an obscurityas respects the nature and mutual influence of chemical affinity, heat, light,electricity, magnetism, and vitality, which science can only to a minuteextent dispel.2G. The hypothesis which I now deem preferable is so much indebtedto the researches and suggestions of Farraday and others, that, were ittrue, I could claim for myself but a small share of the merit of itsorigination.That sagacious electrician employs the following language : "/??the long-continued course of experimental inqiiiry^ in loliich I have Jjcenengaged,this general result has pressed u^jon me constantly— namely, thenecessity of admitting two forces or directions of force, combined withthe imiiossi.hilify of separating these two forces or electricities from eachother." (^Experimental Researches, 1163.)*27. Subsequently, (1244,) after citing another proof of the inseparabilityof the two electric forces, he alleges it to he ^^ another argument infavour of the view that induction and its concomitant phenomena dependupon a polarity of the particles of matter VSup)posed grounds for a Theory.28. The grounds upon which I venture to advance a theory are asfollowsThe existence of two heterogeneous polar forces acting in opposite directions,and necessarily connate and coexistent; yet capable of reciprocalneutralization, agreeably to the authority of Farraday and others : thepolarity of matter in general, as displayed during the crystallization andvegetation of salts : also as made evident by Farraday's late researches,and the experiments and observations of Hunt : the very small proportionof the space in solids, as in the instance of potassium and other metals,which are apparently occupied by the ponderable atoms ; while, agreeablyto the researches and speculations of Farraday, (rightly interpreted,) theresidual space must be replete with imponderable matter : the experimentsand inferences of Davy and others, tending to sanction the idea that animponderable ethereal fluid must pervade the creation : the perfect identityof the polarizing effects, transiently created in a wire by subjection to agalvanic discharge, with those produced by the permanent polarizing powerof a steel magnet : the utter heterogeneousness of the powers of galvanicand frictional electricity, as respects ability to produce sparks before contact,and likewise of the polarities which they respectively produce : andsuperficiality of electricity proper during discharge as well as when existingupon insulated surfaces, as demonstrated by atmospheric electricity whenconveyed by telegraphic wires, agreeably to Henry ; the sounds observed* This seems to have been cntirel}' overlooked in his suggestions respecting the natureof material atoms. It appears to me that the characteristics thus insisted upon are incompatiblewith tlie idea that each property is of itself a diffusible matter, and that in suchatoms two polarities can exist inseparable from each other.