6 On Isomeric Transmutation^ and the Nature of 



much implied an expectation, that their decomposition was to 

 be brought about, by some successful violent effort to tear or 

 force asunder their constituents. Hence, the uselessly large 

 battery which Davy employed when he effected the decompo- 

 sition of the alkalis. But the more we learn of molecular 

 forces, the more we seem to become aware of the truth, that 

 the simple reversal or neutralization of the affinities which 

 bind the components of a body together, is all that is necessary 

 to effect its decomposition; and that this may be as fully 

 secured by the invisible action of a sunbeam, or the inappre- 

 ciable influence of an electric current, as by the most gigantic 

 galvanic battery, or a furnace heated seven times more than 

 is wont. 



Meanwhile, it remains to be acknowledged, that analysis 

 hitherto has done nothing to lessen the number of elementary 

 bodies ; on the other hand, it has continually been adding to 

 them. The ancients acknowledged but four, — air, earth, fire, 

 and water ; a later school had their three, — salt, sulphur, and 

 mercury ; and no class of chemists, down to the destruction of 

 the Phlogiston School, acknowledged, so far as I am aware, as 

 many as a dozen. Since the era of Lavoisier, we have been 

 steadily increasing the list, till now we count 55. Sir H. Davy 

 only altered the names of the elements with metallic bases, 

 without abridging the roll by one ; and since his death, several 

 new bodies have been ranked among simple substances. The 

 further result of analysis, whether with its present or with 

 additional powers, may be of the same kind. The fifty-five 

 elementary bodies may each be resolved into two, or three, 

 or four, unlike, and for the time, indecomponible substances ; 

 so that the list of elements shall be doubled, tripled, or qua- 

 drupled. But though this may be the first effect, analogy 

 and probability conspire unequivocally to assure us, that it 

 will not be the ultimate result of a victorious analysis of 

 matter. As we find the prevailing elements of the countless 

 organic bodies we examine, to be the constantly recurring 

 four, carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen ; and as Davy 

 found a common element, oxygen, in all the earths, so we may 

 expect, if the so-called elements are really compound, to find 



