according to him, compounds with the electricities; when evolved at the poles, they are de-electrified.
252. I have sought amongst the various experiments quoted in support of these views, or connected with electro-chemical decompositions or electric currents, for any which might be considered as sustaining the theory of two electricities rather than that of one, but have not been able to perceive a single fact which could be brought forward for such a purpose: or, admitting the hypothesis of two electricities, much less have I been able to perceive the slightest grounds for believing that one electricity in a current can be more powerful than the other, or that it can be present without the other, or that one can be varied or in the slightest degree affected, without a corresponding variation in the other. If, upon the supposition of two electricities, a current of one can be obtained without the other, or the current of one be exalted or diminished more than the other, we might surely expect some variation either of the chemical or magnetical effects, or of both; but no such variations have been observed. If a current be so directed that it may act chemically in one part of its course, and magnetically in another, the two actions are always found to take place together. A current has not, to my knowledge, been produced which could act chemically and not magnetically, nor any which can act on the magnet, and not at the same time chemically.[1]
253. Judging from facts only, there is not as yet the slightest reason for considering the influence which is present in what we call the electric current,—whether in metals or fused bodies or humid conductors, or even in air, flame, and rarefied elastic media, as a compound or complicated influence. It has never been resolved into simpler or elementary influences, and may perhaps best be conceived of as 'an axis of power having contrary forces, exactly equal in amount, in contrary directions.
254. Passing to the consideration of electro-chemical decomposition, it appears to me that the effect is produced by an internal corpuscular action, exerted according to the direction of the electric current, and that it is due to a force either super-added to, or giving direction to the ordinary chemical affinity of the bodies present. The body under decomposition may be considered as a mass of acting particles, all those which are
- ↑ Thermoelectric currents are of course no exception, because when they fail to act chemically they also fail to be currents.
