CoTifirmationof sit Humphry Davy's Views, 18 J 



copper k, then those bodies becoming parts of electrolytes, 

 under the influence of the current, immediately travel ; but 

 considering their relation to the zinc b, it is evidently impos- 

 sible that they can travel in any other direction than what 

 will accord with its course, and therefore can never tend to 

 pass otherwise than Jrom the anode and to the cathode. 



964f, In such a circle as that delineated, therefore, all the 

 known anions may be grouped within, and all the cations 

 without. If any number of them enter as ions into the con- 

 stitution of electrolytes, and, forming one circuit, are simulta- 

 neously subject to one common current, the anions must move 

 in accordance with each other in one direction, and the cations 

 in the other. Nay, more than that, equivalent portions of 

 these bodies must so advance in opposite directions ; for the 

 advance of every 32*5 parts of the zinc b must be accompanied 

 by a motion in the opposite direction of 8 parts of oxygen at 

 d, of 36 parts of chlorine at^, of 126 parts of iodine at /; and 

 in the same direction by electro-chemical equivalents of hy- 

 drogen, lead, copper and tin, at e, h, k, and w. 



965. If the present paper be accepted as a correct expres- 

 sion of facts, it will still only prove a confirmation of certain 

 general views put forth by Sir Humphry Davy in his Bakerian 

 Lecture for 1806*, and revised and re-stated by him in an- 

 other Bakerian Lecture, on electrical and chemical changes, 

 for the year 1826 f. His general statement is, that " chemical 

 and electrical attractions were produced by the same cause, 

 acting in one case on particles, in the other ofi masses, of 

 matter ; and that the same property, under different modifica- 

 tions, was the cause of all the phcenomena exhibited by different 

 voltaic combinations X^ This statement I believe to be true; 

 but in admitting and supporting it, I must guard myself 

 from being supposed to assent to all that is associated with 

 it in the two papers referred to, or as admitting the experi- 

 ments which are there quoted as decided proofs of the truth 

 of the principle. Had I thought them so, there would have 

 been no occasion for this investigation. It may be supposed 

 by some that I ought to go through these papers, distinguish- 

 ing what I admit from what I reject, and giving good ex- 

 perimental or philosophical reasons for the judgement in both 

 cases. But then I should be equally bound to review, for 

 the same purpose, all that has been written both for and 



* Philosophical Transactions, 1807. 



t Ibid. 1826, p. 383. [or Phil. Mag. and Annals, N.S., vol. i. p. 31.] 



+ Ihld, 1826, p. 389. [Phil. Mag. and Annals, N.S., vol. i. p. 36.] 



