On the Source of Electricity in the Voltaic Pile, 35 



and examining the facts, and then use his own judgement on 

 them in preference to that of others. 



876. This state of the subject must, to those who have made 

 up their minds on the matter, be my apology for entering upon 

 its investigation. The views I have taken of the definite ac- 

 tion of electricity in decomposing bodies (783*.)) and the iden- 

 tity of the power so used with the power to be overcome (855.), 

 founded not on a mere opinion or general notion, but on facts 

 which, being altogether new, were to my mind precise and 

 conclusive, gave me, as I conceived, the power of examining 

 the question with advantages not before possessed by any, and 

 which might compensate, on my part, for the superior clear- 

 ness and extent of intellect on theirs. Such are the consider- 

 ations which have induced me to suppose I might help in 

 deciding the question, and be able to render assistance in that 

 great service of removing doubtful kno'mledge. Such know- 

 ledge is the early morning light of every advancing science, 

 and is essential to its development ; but the man who is en- 

 gaged in dispelling that which is deceptive in it, and revealing 

 more clearly that which is true, is as useful in his place, and 

 as necessary to the general progress of the science, as he who 

 first broke into the intellectual darkness, and opened a path 

 into knowledge before unknown to man. 



877. The identity of the force constituting the voltaic cur- 

 rent or electrolytic agent, with that which holds the elements 

 of electrolytes together (855.), or in other words with chemi- 

 cal affinity, seemed to indicate that the electricity of the pile 

 itself was merely a mode of exertion, or exhibiuon, or exist- 

 ence o^ true chemical action^ or rather of its cause; and I have 

 consequently already said that 1 agree with those who believe 

 that the supply of electricity is due to chemical powers (857.). 



878. But the great question of whether it is originally due 

 to metallic contact or to chemical action, i, e, whether it is the 

 first or the second which originates and determines the cur- 

 rent, was to me still doubtful ; and the beautiful and simple 

 experiment with amalgamated zinc and platina, which I have 

 described minutely as to its results (863, &c.), did not decide 

 the point ; for in that experiment the chemical action does not 

 take place without the contact of the metals, and the metallic 

 contact is inefficient without the chemical action. Hence 

 either might be looked upon as the determining cause of the 

 current. 



879. I thought it essential to decide this question by the 



[* All the numbers referred to in Mr. Faraday's Eighth Series, now 

 given, from 661 to 874 both inclusive, will be found in the Seventh Series, 

 given in. our last volume.— Edit.] 



F2 



