roved to my own satisfaction that
magnetic forces extended their influence to a distance by the conjoined
action of the intervening particles in a manner analogous to that of
electrical forces, then I should have thought that the natural tension of
the lines of inductive action (1659.), or that state so often hinted at as
the electro-tonic state (1661. 1662.), was this related condition of
statical electricity.

1734. It may be said that the state of _no lateral action_ is to static or
inductive force the equivalent of _magnetism_ to current force; but that
can only be upon the view that electric and magnetic action are in their
nature essentially different (1664.). If they are the same power, the whole
difference in the results being the consequence of the difference of
_direction_, then the normal or _undeveloped_ state of electric force will
correspond with the state of _no lateral action_ of the magnetic state of
the force; the electric current will correspond with the lateral effects
commonly called magnetism; but the state of static induction which is
between the normal condition and the current will still require a
corresponding lateral condition in the magnetic series, presenting its own
peculiar phenomena; for it can hardly be supposed that the normal electric,
and the inductive or polarized electric, condition, can both have the same
lateral relation. If magnetism be a separate and a higher relation of the
powers developed, then perhaps the argument which presses for this third
condition of that force would not be so strong.

1735. I cannot conclude these general remarks upon the relation of the
electric and magnetic forces without expressing my surprise at the results
obtained with the copper plate (1724. 1725.). The experiments with the flat
helices represent one of the simplest cases of the induction of electrical
currents (1720.); the effect, as is well known, consisting in the
production of a momentary current in a wire at the instant when a current
in the contrary direction begins to pass through a neighbouring parallel
wire, and the production of an equally brief current in the reverse
direction when the determining current is stopped (26.). Such being the
case, it seems very extraordinary that this induced current which takes
place in the helix A when there is only air between A and C (1720.). should
be equally strong when that air is replaced by an enormous mass of that
excellently conducting metal co