You have learnt that certainly one fundamental property of electric charge is its existence in the two varieties that were long ago named positive and negative. The observed fact is that all charged particles can be divided into two classes such that all members of one class repel each other, while attracting members of the other class. If two small electrically charged bodies, A and B, some distance apart, attract one another, and if A attracts some third electrified body C, then we always find that B repels C.

Thus, electrostatic phenomena arise from the forces that electric charges exert on each other. The interaction between the two types of charges is governed by the basic laws of electrostatics, which are defined as Like charges repel each other and unlike charges attract each other.