1854. ] OF THE ROYAL INSTITUTION, 453 
of the separate molecules, and not upon their individual character. 
This beautiful and highly poetical view would neither have received 
such an extensive adoption, nor have been the parent of such 
numerous and brilliant discoveries in the organic portion of the 
science, if it had not contained a profound truth: nevertheless the 
Lecturer conceived that the total abnegation of the influence of the 
electrical character of elements upon the chemical properties of 
their compounds, implied by this theory of types, was directly 
opposed to many of the phenomena of chemical combination, which 
invariably revealed such a connection. 
The effect of successive additions of oxygen to an electro-positive 
element, in gradually weakening its basic, and consequently electro- 
positive, qualities, and finally converting it into an acid, or electro- 
negative body, was well known in the case of manganese, iron, 
chromium, gold, &c., but the effects of the juxtaposition of two or 
more elements of similar electrical character had not hitherto been 
much studied. Granting the existence of an electrical charge as- 
sociated with the molecules of matter, it was evident that such a 
union of atoms, as that just mentioned, would resemble two ap- 
proximated globes similarly electrified. Now the effect of the ap- 
proximation of two such globes would be the intensification of the 
charge of each; and therefore, if there were any connection between 
electrical and chemical character, it would be exemplified by an 
increased energy of affinity under such circumstances. Examples 
of such an approximation of atoms of similar character were not 
wanting, even amongst inorganic bodies: thus the compounds of 
chlorine with oxygen were remarkable instances of the union of 
like atoms; and we saw in several of them the truth of the fore- 
going proposition fully borne out. Hypochlorous, chlorous, and 
chloric acids were all distinguished by the intense energy of their 
affinities and contrasted strongly with the compounds of oxygen or 
chlorine with electro-positive elements. 
The compounds of phosphorus with hydrogen also exemplified 
the same effect. Phosphorus, though usually regarded as an electro- 
negative body, was yet far more closely associated in its general 
character with the metals than with the metalloids; we were 
therefore entitled to regard a compound of this element with 
hydrogen, as a juxtaposition of two similarly electrified atoms. Now 
two of the compounds of phosphorus with hydrogen, viz. bin- 
hydride and ter-hydride of phosphorus, were remarkable for the 
intensity of their affinities, the one being spontaneously inflammable 
and the other merely requiring a diminution of pressure, when 
mixed with atmospheric air or oxygen, to determine its combustion. 
But the influence of the electrical character of elements upon the 
chemical properties of their compounds was perhaps most strikingly 
seen in the behaviour of the organo-metallic bodies, nearly all of 
which had only recently been discovered. Most of these bodies, 
which, in their isolated condition, consisted of two or more simi- 
