REVISIONS OF THE THEORY OF ELECTROLYSIS. 151 



the next year, and the memoir was also puVjlished in the Annales de 

 Chimie in 180G. Sir Humphry says : 



It is very natural to suppose that the repellent and attractive energies are 

 communicated from one particle to another particle of the same kind, so as to 

 establish a conducting chain in the fluid ; and that this is really the case seems 

 to be shown by many facts * * *. 



In the case of the separation of the constituents of water, and of solutions of 

 neutral salts forming the whole of the chain, there may possibly be a succession 

 of decompositions and recompositions throughout the fluid. 



Ostwald says (Elektrochemie, p. 307) that the different theories 

 jDroposed to explain the separate evolution of the products of elec- 

 trical decomposition vied with one another in improbability, and no 

 one of them was free from the most serious objections. When at 

 length one view met with general acceptance it was not so much 

 because of its unconditional excellence as because it was at least rela- 

 tively the best of all. 



Hear the account of Grotthus himself relating to the origin of his 

 theory. He says: 



Volta's pile, which made the genius of its inventor immortal, is an elec- 

 trical magnet, of which each element — that is, each pair of plates — has both 

 a positive and a negative pole. The consideration of this polarity has suggested 

 to me the idea that a similar polarity might form between the molecules of 

 water when it is acted on by this same electrical agent ; and I must confess 

 that this was for me a gleam of light. 



Freiherr von Grotthus was a most interesting character. At the 

 age of a year and a half the death of his father left him to the care 

 of his mother, and he lived with her on her landed estate in Lithuania, 

 near the borders of the Baltic province of Kurland, till his seven- 

 teenth year. The taste for science developed in him at an early age, 

 but it was stifled in the most brutal and unsympathetic manner by 

 his teacher, who had neither the taste nor the intelligence for the 

 studies to which the genius of Grotthus inclined. In the year 1803, 

 at the age of 18, he went to Leipzig to study, and after six months 

 there he betook himself to Paris, where he listened to the lectures of 

 the most distinguished philosophers of the time. The threatened 

 war between France and Russia compelled him to leave Paris, and 

 he hastened to Xaples, where he remained till the end of the year 

 1805. Through his fortunate acquaintance there with a distinguished 

 English physician named Thomson, who was the owner of a small 

 galvanic apparatus, our young natural philosopher was enabled to 

 repeat the experiments of Professor Pacchiani, which were then excit- 

 ing much attention. The result was his theory of electrolysis, first 

 jjublished in 1805, when its author was not more than 20 years of age, 

 a theory which held sway for nearly three-quarters of a century and 



