If therefore we take as dielectric the air of which the specific inductive capacity is perceptibly the same as that of a vacuum, the displacement, according to the idea of Lorentz, will be null; while, on the contrary, according to Hertz, it will have a finite value.

M.Blondlot has made the experiment.

He sent a current of air into a condenser placed in a magnetic field, and was never able to notice the slightest trace of electrification.

No displacement, therefore, is effected in the dielectric.

The experiment being a negative one, is evidently less convincing than one giving a positive result, but it furnishes a very powerful argument in favour of the theory of Lorentz.
This theory, therefore, appears very seductive, yet it still raises objections on the part of those who oppose to it the principles of ordinary mechanics.