the lines of force as something real, and as indicating something more than the mere resultant of two forces, whose seat of action is at a distance, and which do not exist there at all until a magnet is placed in that part of the field. We are dissatisfied with the explanation founded on the hypothesis of attractive and repellent forces directed towards the magnetic poles, even though we may have satisfied ourselves that the phenomenon is in strict accordance with that hypothesis, and we cannot help thinking that in every place where we find these lines of force, some physical state or action must exist in sufficient energy to produce the actual phenomena.
My object in this paper is to clear the way for speculation in this direction, by investigating the mechanical results of certain states of tension and motion in a medium, and comparing these with the observed phenomena of magnetism and electricity. By pointing out the mechanical consequences of such hypotheses, I hope to be of some use to those who consider the phenomena as due to the action of a medium, but are in doubt as to the relation of this hypothesis to the experimental laws already established, which have generally been expressed in the language of other hypotheses.
I have in a former paper[1] endeavoured to lay before the mind of the geometer a clear conception of the relation of the lines of force to the space in which they are traced. By making use of the conception of currents in a fluid, I showed how to draw lines of force, which should indicate by their number the amount of force, so that each line may be called a unit-line of force (see Faraday's `Researches,' 3122); and I have investigated the path of the lines where they pass from one medium to another.
In the same paper I have found the geometrical significance of the "Electrotonic State," and have shown how to deduce the mathematical relations between the electrotonic state, magnetism, electric currents, and the electromotive force, using mechanical illustrations to assist the imagination, but not to account for the phenomena.
I propose now to examine magnetic phenomena from a mechanical point of view, and to determine what tensions in, or motions of, a medium are capable of producing the mechanical phenomena observed. If, by the same hypothesis, we can connect the phenomena of magnetic attraction with electromagnetic phenomena and with those of induced currents, we shall have found a theory which, if not true, can only be proved to be erroneous by experiments which will greatly enlarge our knowledge of this part of physics.
- ↑ See a paper "On Faraday's Lines of Force," Cambridge Philosophical Transactions, vol. x. part I.
