Mr. Faraday's Reply to Dr. John Davy's Remarks. 341 



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's general statement," is no 

 exaggeration. 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 

 Chompre (485.); 4. of Biot (486.); 5. of De la Rive (489.); 

 and 6. my own (518. &c). These refer to modes of decom- 

 position only ; but as 1 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. 

 Wollaston, De la Rive, Parrot, Pouillet, &c. considered it as 

 of purely chemical origin. Davy, I believe, considered the 

 particles of matter as possessing an inherent electrical state to 

 which their chemical properties were due; but I am not sure 

 of his meaning in this respect. Berzelius, according to Tur- 

 ner, views them as being naturally indifferent, but having 

 a natural appetency to assume one state in preference to 

 another *, and this appears to be the theory of M. Fechner 

 alsof. Again, electro-chemical phaenomena have been hy- 

 pothetically referred to vibrations by Pictet, Savary, myself, 

 and others. Now, all these views differ one from another; 

 and there are, I think, a dozen of them, and it is very likely 

 that a dozen more exist in print if I knew where to look 

 for them ; yet I have no doubt that if any one of those above 

 could be proved by a sudden discovery to be the right one, it 

 would be included by Dr. Davy, and, as far as I can perceive, 

 by myself also, in Sir Humphry Davy's general statement. 

 What ground is there, therefore, for Dr. Davy's remarks on 

 this point ? 



In reference to another part of Dr. Davy's observations 

 I may remark, that I was by no means in the same relation 

 as to scientific communication with Sir Humphry Davy after 

 I became a fellow of the Royal Society in 1824, as before 

 that period, and of this I presume Dr. Davy is aware. But 

 if it had been otherwise, I do not see that I could have gone to 

 a fitter source for information than to his printed papers. 

 Whenever I have ventured to follow in the path which Sir 

 Humphry Davy has trod, I have done so with respect and 

 with the highest admiration of his talents, and nothing gave 



* Turner's Elements, Fifth Edit., p. 167. 



t Quarterly Journal of Science, vol. xxvi. p. 428. 



