*

While keeping strictly to the historical order of things, we shall try
first to form a picture of what happens when we connect two
electrically charged bodies by a conductor. We know that we rightly
describe the change of the dynamic properties of the part of space, in
which the two bodies are present, by saying that a certain electric
field prevails in it. This field possesses different 'potentials' at
its various points and so there exists a certain potential difference
between the two electric charges. What then happens when a so-called
'conductor' is brought into such a field?

From the point of view of the field-concept, conductivity consists in
the property of a body not to allow any change of potential along its
surface. Such a surface, therefore, is always an equipotential. In the
language of alchemy, conductivity is a mercurial property. In the
presence of such a body, therefore, no Salt-Sulphur contrasts can
obtain. In view of what we found above as the mean position of the
metals in the alchemic triad, it is significant that they, precisely,
should play so outstanding a role as electrical conductors.

If we keep to pure observation, the only statement we can make
concerning the effect produced by the introduction of such a body into
the electric field is that this field suddenly disappears. We shall see
later in which direction this vanishing occurs. For the present it is
sufficient to have formed the picture of the disappearance of the
electrical condition of space as a result of the presence of a body
with certain mercurial properties.