our knowledge; and as having the most direct and influential bearing on my
notions, I have always sought for experiments which would in any way tend
to elucidate that great inquiry. It was in attempts to prove the existence
of electricity separate from matter, by giving an independent charge of
either positive or negative power only, to some one substance, and the
utter failure of all such attempts, whatever substance was used or whatever
means of exciting or _evolving_ electricity were employed, that first drove
me to look upon induction as an action of the particles of matter, each
having _both_ forces developed in it in exactly equal amount. It is this
circumstance, in connection with others, which makes me desirous of placing
the remarks on absolute charge first, in the order of proof and argument,
which I am about to adduce in favour of my view, that electric induction is
an action of the contiguous particles of the insulating medium or
_dielectric_[A].

[A] I use the word _dielectric_ to express that substance through or
across which the electric forces are acting.--_Dec. 1838._

P ii. _On the absolute charge of matter._

1169. Can matter, either conducting or non-conducting, be charged with one
electric force independently of the other, in any degree, either in a
sensible or latent state?

1170. The beautiful experiments of Coulomb upon the equality of action of
_conductors_, whatever their substance, and the residence of _all_ the
electricity upon their surfaces[A], are sufficient, if properly viewed, to
prove that _conductors cannot be bodily charged_; and as yet no means of
communicating electricity to a conductor so as to place its particles in
relation to one electricity, and not at the same time to the other in
exactly equal amount, has been discovered.

[A] Memoires de l'Academie, 1786, pp. 67. 69. 72; 1787, p. 452.

1171. With regard to electrics or non-conductors, the conclusion does not
at first seem so clear. They may easily be electrified bodily, either by
communication (1247.) or excitement; but being so charged, every case in
succession, when examined, came out to be a case of induction, and not of
absolute charge. Thus, glass within conductors could easily have parts not
in contact with the conductor brought into an excited state; but it was
always found that a portion of the inner surface of the conductor was in an
opposite and equivalent state, or that another part of the glass itse