They at once shorten
their paths or circuits, collapsing upon the conductor as it were, and
continuing this action, cut the section of the conductor, and
apparently disappear in magnetic closed circuits of infinitesimal
diameter but of great strength of polarization. It appears to me that
we must either be prepared to give up the idea of lines of force or
take the position that the magnetic circuits precipitate themselves in
shortening their circuits and disappearing upon and cut the conductor.
It was Hughes who put forward the idea that an iron bar in losing its
apparent magnetism really short-circuits the lines in itself as
innumerable strongly magnetized closed circuits among the molecules.
In becoming magnetic once more these short circuits are opened or
extended into the air by some source of energy applied to strain the
lines, such as a current in a conductor around the bar.
May not this idea be extended, then, to include the magnetic medium,
the ether itself? Does it contain intensely polarized closed circuits
of magnetism which are ready to be stretched or extended under certain
conditions by the application of energy, which energy is returned by
the collapse of the extended circuits? This is doubtless but a crude
expression of the real condition of things, for the lines are only
symbols for a condition of strain in a medium which cannot be
represented in thought, as we know nothing of its real nature.
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