Such was the system pursued
by Newton. It has, in general, been adopted in France by the scholars
to whom physics owe the great progress made of late years, and it has
served as my guide in all my researches on electrodynamic
phenomena.... It is for this reason that I have avoided speaking of
the ideas I may have on the nature of the cause of the force emanating
from voltaic conductors."
Thus did Ampere express himself. The illustrious physicist rightly
considered the results obtained by him through following this wise
method as worthy of comparison with the laws of attraction; but he
knew that when this first halting-place was reached there was still
further to go, and that the evolution of ideas must necessarily
continue.
"With whatever physical cause," he adds, "we may wish to connect the
phenomena produced by electro-dynamic action, the formula I have
obtained will always remain the expression of the facts," and he
explicitly indicated that if one could succeed in deducing his formula
from the consideration of the vibrations of a fluid distributed
through space, an enormous step would have been taken in this
department of physics.
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