PRESIDENTS ADDRESS—SECTION A. 5] 
when different acids are compared together the velocities of 
reaction which they induce in the inversion of cane sugar are 
proportional to their conductivities. Assuming that the Clausius- 
Williamson hypothesis is established on grounds other than 
electrolytic—and Ostwald gives strong reasons for this view— 
then we are, I think, compelled by the resistance law to believe 
that each atom is necessarily accompanied by that ether state 
which we call electrification. Further, Helmholtz has shown that 
it is only when these states or charges are given up at the elec- 
trodes that any considerable proportion of the energy required for 
electrolysis is required. Should we be justified, then, in giving 
each atom its corresponding equivalent of tubes of induction? I 
hold not. I conceive that it is only where the work has been 
done—the work required to transfer (and probably modify) 
the ether state from the atoms to the electrodes that we get 
electrification as we know it. I prefer to think that a free atom 
may possibly have properties much more analogous to those of 
free ether than to those of matter as we know it. In other words, 
a free atom does not carry a “ charge” at all, but something which 
becomes a charge when it is transferred to an electrode. As a 
wild speculation, is it the ‘free atoms” in a dielectric that are 
“polarised” by electro-motive force, and is the “ vector change” 
which we have called polarisation related simply to the average 
position vector of the system? In order to illustrate some 
consequences of this view, let us look a little more closely at such 
a reaction as occurs when chloride of silver is electrolysed. This 
is about the simplest case that can be found. According to my 
view, we have atoms of chlorine and atoms of silver existing in 
the fused salt. These atoms are not “free,” ze, before they can 
be so free as to combine into molecules at the electrodes work has 
to be done on them, resulting in the electrodes becoming charged. 
The electral state of the wandering atoms is not at all the same as 
the electral state of the anodes when they become charged. Neither 
is it neutral, but it is such that by the application of work electri- 
fication results. As to the manner of this I suppose nothing 
can be said till we know the exact relation of free atoms to ether. 
Whether to imagine that the energy is required to cause com- 
bination of atoms—from the reactions of whose associated ether, 
charge results—or whether the combination is merely an expres- 
sion of the transference of the state to the electrodes by the 
doing of work, I leave to the curious to discover. Suppose now 
we start with silver or chlorine molecules, and force them to part 
into atoms by methods other than electrical, the question arises 
as to what the state of these atoms will be. Will it be the same 
as when they are wandering in a fused mass of silver chloride ? 
To bring them to that state there would be required (by the 
transference of energy) to be exhibited somewhere the pheno- 
mena of charge. If they finally reach that state, as I imagine 
D2 
