The force of attraction in amber, wax, resin, and similar substances

184. The force of attraction in amber, wax, resin, and similar substances

Amber, jet, wax, resin, glass, and similar substances also have the ability to attract small objects.

My intention is not to explain here the nature of any particular body. I need to do experiments to reveal with certainty why amber or resin has such a virtue.

Nevertheless, the same virtue is in glass arising from the effects of fire. And so I have to explain this virtue in amber.

Some people think that the force of attraction in amber from rubbing is caused by tiny branched particles in the amber to go into the air.

• These particles remain linked together that they return to the amber.
• While doing so, they bring with them the small particles that they have encountered and which they have attached themselves to

They say that this the same principle as surface tension. For example, a stick with oil hanging on one end will stick to a loose object and then bring it back to the stick.

But I refute this because this principle [of surface tension] because it is difficult to conceive this happening with glass, at least if its nature is as described earlier.

Therefore, another cause must be attributed to this attraction in glass.

185. What causes this attraction in glass?

The formation of glass from liquid creates elongated channels between its particles. Only the middle of these channels is wide enough to allow passage to the air-aether particles. This makes glass transparent.

On the sides of these channels, there are tiny slits or crevices so narrow that only the fire-aether [as channels of electrons] can occupy them.*

The fire-aether always takes on the shape of the places where it is found.

While it flows through these tiny slits, its least agitated particles* cling to one another and form long, thin ribbons [of electrons].

These are extremely fine, yet have some width and much greater length, moving back and forth and swirling around the glass particles without ever straying far from them.*

This is because the passages they find in the air or other surrounding bodies are neither as precisely fitted to their size nor as suited to receiving them.

The fire-aether is highly fluid. But it nevertheless contains particles that are less agitated than other fire-aether.

• This was explained in Articles 87 and 88 of Part 3.

Its most fluid parts continuously pass from the air into the glass and from the glass into the air.*

But the less fluid parts within the glass remain in the slits that do not align with the pores or channels of the air.

There, joining together, they [electrons] form these ribbons. In a short time, they acquire shapes so stable that they cannot easily be altered.*

When one rubs the glass forcefully enough to slightly heat it, these ribbons are driven out of its channels into the air and other surrounding bodies.

These find no pores well-suited to receive them. And so they immediately return to the glass, bringing along with them straws or other small bodies whose pores they have become entangled in.

186. The same cause can be seen in other bodies as well.

For example, there are certain channels between the particles of some bodies that are too narrow to allow the air-aether to enter, so they only receive the fire-aether.

These channels are larger than those in the pores of the air [magnetic moment of atoms] where only the fire-aether can pass.

And so these channels retain within themselves the least agitated parts of this fire-aether [as electrons].

These join one another, forming strips within them that have diverse shapes according to the diversity of the pores through which they pass.

These are long, flat, flexible. They flow here and there between the particles of these bodies.

The channels that they go through are so narrow that the air-aether cannot enter them.

• But they are larger than those in air so that the least agitated parts of the fire-aether stop within them.
• This is while the other fire-aether continuously stream and exit through other pores of these bodies, just as it enters from the pores of the air.

This is why the general cause of attraction is that which I explained in glass.

• This is even if there are other causes of attraction for a few unique, and isolated cases.

187. The causes of the wonderful effects of the remaining bodies are not solely due to the aether, but rather to various other factors, which are inherent in the material itself.

These small ribbons or other small, long, and agitated parts form from the fire-aether in the channels of terrestrial bodies.

These cause not only the attractions in magnet and amber, but also of an infinite other effects.

For those that form in each body have something particular in their shape that makes them different from all those that form in other bodies.

They move very quickly ceaselessly.

Very unremarkable circumstances sometimes make them swirl here and there within the body that they occupy without leaving it.

Sometimes, on the contrary, they pass in a very short time to very distant places, without any body they encounter in their path being able to stop or divert them.

Upon encountering matter there disposed to receive their action, they produce entirely rare and marvelous effects.

Examples are:

• causing the wounds of a dead person to bleed when the murderer approaches them
• stirring the imagination of those who sleep, or even those who are awake, and giving them thoughts that warn them of things happening far away, by making them feel the great afflictions or great joys of an intimate friend, the wicked designs of an assassin, and similar things
• the properties of the magnet and fire
• how a single spark of fire can excite a great flame in a very short time when it falls into a large quantity of powder, producing a great force
• [the speed of light in a vacuum] the extreme distances that fixed stars extend their light in an instant

All these phenomena are based on the the size, shape, situation, and motion of the various parts of matter.

These explain all attraction and repulsion, and occult and rare material phenomena, those that are not based on thought or free will.

188. I had originally planned to write two more parts: one on living beings, or animals and plants, and another on man, but have decided against it.

This is because I do not know if I have the time to complete them.

I will briefly touch on some of the objects of the senses here.

For up to this point, I have described this world, including all of its observable aspects, as a machine, considering only shapes and motions.

However, our senses reveal many other things to us, such as colors, odors, sounds, and the like, which I would have to discuss in detail if I were to provide a complete explanation of natural phenomena