Concept
Electricity
Overview
physical phenomena associated with the presence and flow of electric charge
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
In the original texts
Passages from public-domain books where Electricity is discussed.
For instance, Faraday discovered by experiment, that voltaic electricity could be evolved from a natural magnet, provided a conducting body were set in motion at right angles to the direction of the magnet; and this he found to hold not only of small magnets, but of that great magnet, the earth. The law being thus established experimentally, that electricity is evolved, by a magnet, and a conductor moving at right…
John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive
names the idea; states what it is; opens on it
It is uniformly found, that the heat generated is great in proportion as the Motion lost is great; and that to diminish the arrest of motion, by diminishing the friction, is to diminish the quantity of heat evolved. The production of electricity by Motion is illustrated equally in the boy’s experiment with rubbed sealing-wax, in the common electrical machine, and in the apparatus for exciting electricity by the…
Herbert Spencer, First Principles
names the idea
Observe, before the shock, to let some one on the floor touch him to restore the equilibrium in his body; for in taking hold of the bottom of the bottle, he sometimes becomes a little electrised _minus_, which will continue after the shock; as would also any _plus_ Electricity, which he might have given him before the shock. For, restoring the equilibrium in the bottle does not at all affect the Electricity in the…
Benjamin Franklin, Experiments and Observations on Electricity Made at Philadelphia in America
names the idea; states what it is; the book is about it
Compare the varied effects which result from the augmentation of yellow and blue to red, from the combination of these two higher extremes to pure red, and the union of the two inferior extremes to green. What a far more varied scheme is apparent here than that in which magnetism and electricity are comprehended. These last phenomena may be said to be inferior again on another account; for though they penetrate and…
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Goethe's Theory of Colours
states what it is; names the idea; opens on it
Perhaps, however, the true interpretation may rather be that by nervous stimulation there is set up in these animal-batteries that particular transformation of molecular motion which it is their function to produce. But whether general or special, and in whatever manner produced, these evolutions of electricity are among the reactions of organic matter called forth by the actions to which it is subject. Though these…
Herbert Spencer, The Principles of Biology, Volume 1
states what it is; names the idea
Philosophers who discussed Electricity
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Place in the tradition
Part of American philosophy.