Note 58 — APPENDIX.
Reading edition
According to Farraday’s researches and general experience, we have reason to believe that all particles of matter are endowed with one or the other of two species of polarity. This word polarity conveys the idea that two terminations in each particle are respectively endowed with forces which are analogous, but contrary in their nature; so that of any two homogeneous particles, the similar poles repel each other, while the dissimilar attract; likewise, when freely suspended, they take a certain position relatively to each other, and on due proximity, the opposite polar forces, counteracting each other, appear to be extinct. When deranged from this natural state of reciprocal neutralization, their liberated poles react with the particles of adjacent bodies, or those in the surrounding medium. Under these circumstances, any body which may be constituted of the particles thus reacting is said to be polarized, or in a state of polarization.
Statical implies stationary; undulatory, wave-like.