298 HISTORY OF CHEMISTRY. 



ascribed to the attraction of the poles. 12 " As the substances evolved 

 in cases of electro-chemical decomposition may be made to appear 

 against air, 13 which, according to common language, is not a con- 

 ductor, nor is decomposed ; or against water, 14 which is a conductor, 

 and can be decomposed ; as well as against the metal poles, which are 

 excellent conductors, but undecomposable ; there appears but little 

 reason to consider this phenomenon generally as due to the attraction 

 or attractive powers of the latter, when used in the ordinary way, 

 since similar attractions can hardly be imagined in the former in- 

 stances." 



Faraday's opinion, and, indeed, the only way of expressing the 

 results of his experiments, was, that the chemical elements, in obe- 

 dience -to the direction of the voltaic currents established in the 

 decomposing substance, were evolved, or, as he prefers to say, ejected 

 at its extremities. 16 He afterwards states that the influence which is 

 present in the electric current may be described 16 as an axis of power, 

 having [at each point] contrary forces exactly equal in amount in con- 

 trary directions. 



Having arrived at this point, Faraday rightly wished to reject the 

 term poles, and other words which could hardly be used without sug- 

 gesting doctrines now proved to be erroneous. He considered, in the 

 case of bodies electrically decomposed, or, as he termed them, electro- 

 lytes, the elements as travelling in two opposite directions ; which, 

 with reference to the direction of terrestrial magnetism, might be 

 considered as naturally east and west ; and he conceived elements as, 

 in this way, arriving at the doors or outlets at which they finally 

 made their separate appearance. The doors he called electrodes, and, 

 separately, the anode and the cathode ; 1T and the elements which thus 

 travel he termed the an'ion and the cat'ion (or cath'ion).* 6 By means 

 of this nomenclature he was able to express his general results with 

 much more distinctness and facility. 



But this general view of the electrolytical process required to be 

 pursued further, in order to explain the nature of the action. The 

 identity of electrical and chemical forces, which had been hazarded as 



12 Researches, Art. 497. n Researches, Arts. 465, 469. 



14 495. 16 493. 16 517. 1T 663. 



18 The analogy of the Greek derivation requires cat'ion; but to make the 

 elation to cathode obvious to the English reader, and to avoid a violation of 

 the habits of English pronunciation. I should prefer cathlon. 



