degree, between atoms which belong to different molecules, thus producing the phenomena of cohesion. When an electric field is set up, a change takes place in the distribution of these forces; some are strengthened and some are weakened, the effect being symmetrical about the direction of the applied electric force.
Such a polarized condition acquired by a dielectric when placed in an electric field presents an evident analogy to the condition of magnetic polarization which is acquired by a mass of soft iron when placed in a magnetic field; and it was therefore natural that in discussing the matter Faraday should introduce lines of electric force, similar to the lines of magnetic force which he had employed so successfully in his previous researches. A line of electric force he defined to be a curve whose tangent at every point has the same direction as the electric intensity.
The changes which take place in an electric field when the dielectric is varied may be very simply described in terms of lines of force. Thus if a mass of sulphur, or other substance of high specific inductive capacity, is introduced into the field, the effect is as if the lines of force tend to crowd into it: as W. Thomson (Kelvin) showed later, they are altered in the same way as the lines of flow of heat, in a case of steady conduction of heat, would be altered by introducing a body of greater conducting power for heat. By studying the figures of the lines of force in a great number of individual cases, Faraday was led to notice that they always dispose themselves as if they were subject to a mutual repulsion, or as if the tubes of force had an inherent tendency to dilate.[1]
It is interesting to interpret by aid of these conceptions the law of Priestley and Coulomb regarding the attraction between two oppositely-charged spheres. In Faraday's view, the medium intervening between the spheres is the seat of a system of stresses, which may be represented by an attraction or tension along the lines of electric force at every point, together with a
- ↑ Esp. Res., §§ 1224, 1297 (1837).
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