492 OHM ON THE GALVANIC CIRCUIT. 



which belongs to the existence of the particles, which therefore 

 they cannot part with without at the same time ceasing to 

 exist, the electricity bound to the bodies, or latent electricity, 

 andyree electricity, that which is not requisite for the existence 

 of the bodies in their individuality, and which therefore can pass 

 from one element to the other, without the individual parts 

 being on that account compelled to exchange their specific 

 mode of existence for another. 



32. From these suppositions advanced in electro-chemistry, 

 in connexion with what was stated in § 30, respecting the mode 

 in which galvanic circuits exert a different mechanical force on 

 discs of different electrical nature, it immediately follows that 

 when a disc belonging to the circuit is composed of constitu- 

 ents of dissimilar electric value, the neighbouring discs will 

 exert on these two constituents a dissimilar attractive or repul- 

 sive action, which will excite in them a tendency to separate, 

 which, when it is able to overcome their coherence, must pro- 

 duce an actual separation of constituents. This power of the 

 galvanic circuit, with which it tends to decompose the particles 

 into their constituents, we will call its decomposing force, and 

 now proceed to determine more minutely the magnitude of this 

 force. 



Employing for this purpose all the signs introduced in § 30, 

 we W'ill, moreover, imagine each disc to be composed of two 

 constituents, A and B, and designate by m and n the latent 

 electroscopic forces of the constituents A and B, supposing the 

 disc M to be occupied solely by one of the two, entirely ex- 

 cluding the other, in the same manner as u represents the free 

 electroscopic force present in the same disc, and equally dif- 

 fused over both constituents. If we now admit, in order to 

 simplify the calculation, that the two constituents A and B, 

 before and after their union, constantly occupy the same space, 

 and designate the latent electroscopic force, corresponding to 

 each chemical equivalent, contained in the disc M, and pro- 

 ceeding from the constituent A, bym^-, then n (1— ^^) expresses 

 the latent electroscopic force present in the same disc M, but 

 originating from the constituent B : for the intensity of the 

 force diffused over a body decreases in the same proportion as 

 the space which the body occupies becomes greater, because by 

 the increased distance of the particles from each other the sum 

 of their actions, restricted to a definite extent, is diminished in 



