DISCOVERY OF VOLTAIC ELECTRICITY. 239 



never to have acquired much general knowledge of electricity : Volta, 

 on the other hand, had labored at this branch of knowledge from the 

 age of eighteen, through a period of nearly tl irty years ; and had in- 

 vented an electrophorus and an electrical condenser, which showed great 

 experimental skill. When he turned his attention to the experiments 

 made by Galvani, he observed that the author of them had been far 

 more surprised than he needed to be, at those results in which an 

 electrical spark was produced ; and that it was only in the cases in 

 which no such apparatus was employed, that the observations could 

 justly be considered as indicating a new law, or a new kind of elec- 

 tricity. 2 He soon satisfied himself (about 1794) that the essential con- 

 ditions of this kind of action depended on the metals ; that it is brought 

 into play most decidedly when two different metals touch each other, 

 and are connected by any moist body ; and that the parts of animals 

 which had been used discharged the office both of such moist bodies, 

 and of very sensitive electrometers. The animal electricity of Galvani 

 miijlit, he observed, be with more propriety called metallic electricity. 



The recognition of this agency as a peculiar kind of electricity, arose 

 in part perhaps, at first, from the confusion made by Galvani between 

 the cases in which his electrical machine was, and those in which it 

 was not employed. But the identity was confirmed by its being found 

 that the known difference of electrical conductors and non-conductors 

 regulated the conduction of the new influence. The more exact deter- 

 mination of the new facts to those of electricity was a succeeding step 

 of the progress of the subject. 



The term " animal electricity" has been superseded by others, of 

 which galvanism is perhaps the most familiar. I think it will appear 

 from what has been said, that Volta's office in this discovery is of a 

 much higher and more philosophical kind than that of Galvani ; and 

 it would, on this account, be more fitting to employ the term voltaic 

 electricity ; which, indeed, is very commonly used, especially by our 

 most recent and comprehensive writers. 



Volta more fully still established his claim as the main originator of 

 this science by his next step. When some of those who repeated the 

 experiments of Galvani had expressed a wish that there was some 

 method of multiplying the effect of this electricity, such as the Leyden 

 phial supplies for common electricity, they probably thought their 

 wishes far from a realization. But the voltaic pile, which Volta 



Phil. Trans. 1793, p. 21. 3 See Fischer, viii. 625. 



