ooded for a time: his
experiments on electrolysis had long filled his mind; he looked, as
already stated, into the very heart of the electrolyte, endeavouring to
render the play of its atoms visible to his mental eye. He had no doubt
that in this case what is called 'the electric current' was propagated
from particle to particle of the electrolyte; he accepted the doctrine
of decomposition and recomposition which, according to Grothuss and
Davy, ran from electrode to electrode. And the thought impressed him
more and more that ordinary electric induction was also transmitted and
sustained by the action of 'contiguous particles.'

His first great paper on frictional electricity was sent to the Royal
Society on November 30, 1837. We here find him face to face with an idea
which beset his mind throughout his whole subsequent life,--the idea of
action at a distance. It perplexed and bewildered him. In his attempts
to get rid of this perplexity, he was often unconsciously rebelling
against the limitations of the intellect itself. He loved to quote
Newton upon this point; over and over again he introduces his memorable
words, 'That gravity should be innate, inherent, and essential to
matter, so that one body may act upon another at a distance through a
vacuum and without the mediation of anything else, by and through which
this action and force may be conveyed from one to another, is to me
so great an absurdity, that I believe no man who has in philosophical
matters a competent faculty of thinking, can ever fall into it. Gravity
must be caused by an agent acting constantly according to certain laws;
but whether this agent be material or immaterial, I have left to the
consideration of my readers.'[1]

Faraday does not see the same difficulty in his contiguous particles.
And yet, by transferring the conception from masses to particles, we
simply lessen size and distance, but we do not alter the quality of the
conception. Whatever difficulty the mind experiences in conceiving
of action at sensible distances, besets it also when it attempts to
conceive of action at insensible distances. Still the investigation of
the point whether electric and magnetic effects were wrought out through
the intervention of contiguous particles or not, had a physical interest
altogether apart from the metaphysical difficulty. Faraday grapples with
the subject experimentally. By simple intuition he sees that action at a
distance must be exerted in st