ON SOME CHEMICAL AGENCIES OF ELECTRICITY. SI 



rent electrical states, and those states sufficiently exalted to Relations be- 

 give them an attractive lorce superior to the power ol aggre- tri( . al ener „ iw 

 gation, a combination would take place which would be more of bodies and 

 or less intense according as the energies were more or less af^iesT*"* 3 ; 

 perfectly balanced; and the change of properties would be 

 correspondent ly proportional. 



This would be the simplest case of chemical union. But 

 different substances have different decrees of the same elec- 

 trical energy in relation to the same body: thus the different 

 acids and alkalis are possessed of different energies with re- 

 gard to the same metal ; sulphuric acid, for instance, is more 

 powerful with lead than muriatic acid, and solution of pot- 

 ash is more active with tin than solution of soda. Such 

 bodies likewise may be in the same state or repellent with 

 regard to each other, as apparently happens in the cases just 

 mentioned ; or they may be neutral ; or they may be in op- 

 posite or attracting states, which last seems to be the condi- 

 tion of sulphur and alkalis that have the same kind of energy 

 with regard to metals. 



When two bodies repellent of each other act upon the 

 same body with different degrees of the same electrical at- 

 tracting energy, the combination would be determined by 

 the degree; and the substance possessing the weakest ener- 

 gy would be repelled; and this principle would aford an 

 expression of the causes of elective affinity, and the decom- 

 positions produced in consequence. 



Or where the bodies having different decrees of the same 

 energy, with regard to the third body, had likewise different 

 energies with regard to each other, there might be such a 

 balance of attractive and repellent powers as to produce a 

 triple compound ; and by the extension of this reasoning, 

 complicated chemical union may be easily explained. 



Numerical illustrations of these notions might be made * 



without difficulty, and they might be applied to all cases of 

 chemical action ; but in the present state of the inquiry, a 

 great extension of this hypothetical part of the subject would 

 be premature. 



The general idea will, however, afford an easy explanation 

 of the influence of affinity by the masses of the acting sub- 

 stances, as elucidated by the experiments of M. Berthollet; 



E 2 for 



