1852.] OF THE ROYAL INSTITUTION, | 123 
the surface of the water and immediately withdrawn to a distance 
of about quarter of an inch ; the discharge took place, the extremity 
of the platinum wire was fused and the molten platinum attached 
to the wire but kept up by the peculiar repulsive effect of the 
discharge was exhibited, as it were, suspended in mid-air, giving an 
intense light, throwing off scintillations in directions away from the 
water and only detaching itself from the wire when agitated. 
Here water in the vaporous state must be transferred, for the 
immersed electrode gave off gas, without. doubt oxygen, and the 
molecular action on the negative fused platinum resembled, if it 
were not identical in character with the currents observed on the 
surface of mercury when made negative in an electrolyte. 
It may be objected to the theory proposed, that electrical effects 
are obtained in what is called a vacuum, where there is no inter- 
medium to be polarized; but this objection, though not applicable 
to the projection of the terminals, could hardly be discussed until 
experimentalists had gone much further than at present in the 
production of a vacuum; the experiments of Davy and others had 
shewn that we are far off from obtaining any thing like a vacuum 
where delicate investigations are concerned. 
The view of the antient philosophers that Nature abhors a 
vacuum which had been much cavilled at, and was supposed to be 
exploded by the discovery of Torricelli, Mr. Grove thought had 
been unjustly censured: giving the expression some degree of meta- 
phorical license, it afforded a fine evidence of the extent and accuracy 
of observation of those who were unacquainted with inductive 
philosophy as a system, but who necessarily pursued it in practice. 
Whether a vacuum was possible might be an open question, experi- 
mentally it was unknown. 
Lastly, in answer to those who might ask, to what practical 
results do researches such as these lead? what accession of physical 
comfort or luxury do they bring? Mr. Grove took occasion to offer 
his humble protest against opinions now perhaps too generally 
prevalent, that science was to be viewed only or mainly in its utili- 
tarilan or practical bearings. Even regarding it in this aspect, were 
it not for the devotion which the love of knowledge, which the 
yearning anxiety to penetrate into the mysteries of our being and 
of surrounding existences induced; the practical results of science 
would not have been attained; the band of Martyrs to Science 
from Socrates to Galileo would not have thought and suffered 
without a higher incentive than the acquisition of utilitarian 
results : without disparaging these results, indeed regarding them 
as necessary consequences of any advance in scientific knowledge, 
he considered that the love of truth and knowledge for themselves 
was the great animating principle of those who rightly pursued 
science ; that, based upon an enduring quality of our common nature, 
this feeling was rooted in far firmer foundations, that it led to 
greater and more self sacrificing exertions, than any capable of being 
induced by the hopes of augmenting social acquisitions, and was 
an attribute and an evidence of the non-transient part of our being. 
(W. R. G.] 
