Faraday grapples with the subject experimentally.

By simple intuition he sees that action at a distance must be exerted in straight lines.

Gravity, he knows, will not turn a corner, but exerts its pull along a right line; hence his aim and effort to ascertain whether electric action ever takes place in curved lines.

This once proved, it would follow that the action is carried on by means of a medium surrounding the electrified bodies.

His experiments in 1837 reduced, in his opinion, this point of demonstration.