And now he seeks to break down the wall of partition between conductors and insulators.
'Can we not,' he says, 'by a gradual chain of association carry up discharge from its occurrence in air through spermaceti and water, to solutions, and then on to chlorides, oxides, and metals, without any essential change in its character ?' Even copper, he urges, offers a resistance to the transmission of electricity.

The action of its particles differs from those of an insulator only in degree.

They are charged like the particles of the insulator, but they discharge with greater ease and rapidity; and this rapidity of molecular discharge is what we call conduction.

Conduction then is always preceded by atomic induction; and when, through some quality of the body which Faraday does not define, the atomic discharge is rendered slow and difficult, conduction passes into insulation.
Though they are often obscure, a fine vein of philosophic thought runs through those investigations.

The mind of the philosopher dwells amid those agencies which underlie the visible phenomena of Induction and Conduction; and he tries by the strong light of his imagination to see the very molecules of his dielectrics.