40 Mr Faraday's Reply to Dr John Davy's Remarks. 



it perfectly clear ; so obscure, indeed, as to leave on his mind 

 the conviction of a meaning the very reverse of that which it 

 bears to Mr Brandeand Dr Ure. Thus Dr Davy puts his seal 

 to the truth of Dr Turner''s observation* by the very act of 

 denying it. 



What makes the matter still more remarkable is, that Dr 

 Davy charges it upon me as a fault, that I, and / alone^ have 

 said what he denies in words, but proves in fact ; whereas / have 

 not said it, and others have. 



If Sir Humphry Davy^s meaning is thus obscure to his bro- 

 ther, I have no right to expect that mine should have been 

 rightly taken ; and therefore it is that I suspect, as I said be- 

 fore, that Dr Davy, generally, does not understand me in my 

 papers. 



That " probably a dozen precise schemes of electro-chemical 

 action might be drawn up differing from each other, but all 

 agreeing with Sir Humphry Davy'sgeneral statement,"" isnoexag* 

 geration. I have in the very paper which is the subject of Dr 

 Davy's remarks quoted six: 1. that of Grotthus (481) ; 2. of 

 Sir Humphry Davy himself (482); 3. of Riffault and Chom- 

 pre (485) ; 4. of Biot (486) ; 5. of De la Rive (489) ; and 6. 

 my own (518, &c.). These refer to modes of decomposition 

 only ; but as I spoke in the passage above quoted of " electro- 

 chemical action,'' in reference to chemical effects and their cause 

 generally, I may now quote other particular views. Volta, Pfaff, 

 Marianini, &c., consider the electricity of the voltaic pile due to 

 contact alone. Davy considered it as excited by contact, but 

 continued by chemical action. WoUaston, De la Rive, Parrot, 

 Pouillet, &c., considered it as of a purely chemical origin. Davy, 

 I beheve, considered the particles of matter as possessing an in- 

 herent electrical state, to which their chemical properties were 

 due ; but I am not sure of his meaning in this respect. Ber- 

 zelius, according to Turner, views them as being naturally indif- 

 ferent, but having a natural appetency to assume [one state in 

 preference to anotherf, and this appears to be the theory of M. 

 Fechner also J. Again, electro-chemical phenomena have been 

 hypothetically referred to vibrations by Pictet, Savary, myself, 



• And to that Mr Prideaux's also. 



f Turner's Elements, 5th edit., p. 167. 



X Quarterly Journal of Science, Tol. xxvi. p. 428. 



