to set forth, I am now very
much tempted to indulge in a few speculations respecting its lateral action
and its possible connexion with the transverse condition of the lines of
ordinary induction (1165, 1304.)[A]. 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 (1411.); 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 that discharge, should also have their correspondent
transverse condition or effect (951.).

[A] Refer for further investigations to 1709.--1736.--_Dec. 1838._

1659. According to the beautiful theory of Ampere, the transverse force of
a current may be represented by its attraction for a similar current and
its repulsion of a contrary current. May not then the equivalent transverse
force of static electricity be represented by that lateral tension or
repulsion which the lines of inductive action appear to possess (1304.)?
Then again, when current or discharge occurs between two bodies, previously
under inductrical relations to each other, the lines of inductive force
will weaken and fade away, and, as their lateral repulsive tension
diminishes, will contract and ultimately disappear in the line of
discharge. May not this be an effect identical with the attractions of
similar currents? i.e. may not the passage of static electricity into
current electricity, and that of the lateral tension of the lines of
inductive force into the lateral attraction of lines of similar discharge,
have the same relation and dependences, and run parallel to each other?

1660. The phenomena of induction amongst currents which I had the good
fortune to discover some years ago (6. &c. 1048.) may perchance here form a
connecting link in the series of effects. When a current is first formed,
it tends to produce a current in the contrary direction in all the matter
around it; and if that matter have conducting properties and be fitly
circumstanced, such a current is produced. On the contrary, when the
original current is stopped, one in the same direction tends to form all
around it, and, in conducting matter properly arranged, will be excited.

1661. Now though we perceive the effects only in that portion of matter
which, being in the neighbourhood, has conducting properties, yet
hypothetical