100 Prof. Clausius on the Condiictiun of 



accompanied by alternate decompositions and recombinations, 

 and the intensity of tliis cuvrent increases in proportion to the 

 force, according to Ohm's law. 



The above hypothesis, therefore, according to which the par- 

 tial molecules of an electrolyte are combined in a definite man- 

 ner to form complete molecules, which latter also possess a 

 certain regular arrangement, must be incorrect. This result 

 may be still more generally expressed thus : — Every hypothesis 

 is contradictory to Ohm's law which involves the assumptions 

 that the natural state of an electrolytic liquid is one of equili- 

 brium, wherein each positive partial molecule is combined in a 

 fixed manner with a negative one ; and, further, that a force of 

 determinate intensity acting on these molecules is necessary in 

 order to transform this state of equilibrium into another essen- 

 tially similar to the former, — differing, in fact, from the same only 

 in so far that a number of positive partial molecules, instead of 

 being combined with the same negative ones as before, are com- 

 bined with others. 



I am consequently of opinion that the following hypothesis, 

 which does not involve this contradiction, and which, it appears 

 to me, is also in harmony with other known facts, deserves some 

 consideration. 



7. In my memoir " On the Nature of the Motion which we 

 call Heat " *, I have expressed the opinion that in liquids the mo- 

 lecules have not determinate positions of equilibrium around 

 which they merely oscillate, but that their movements are so 

 active that they are thereby translated into quite ditferent, and 

 even new positions towards each other, and that they move irre- 

 gularly amongst each other. 



Conceive now,in the first place, a single, e.ff. an electro- positive, 

 partial molecule of an electrolytic liquid, and let us assume that 

 its electric state is as yet exactly the same as at the moment of 

 its separation from a complete molecule. I can imagine that in 

 moving about between the complete molecules, amongst the 

 many positions which this partial molecule may assume, there 

 exist some wherein it will attract the negative partial molecule 

 of some complete molecule with a force greater than that which 

 the partial molecules — whose relative position, too, is not quite 

 unchangeable — of this complete molecule exert upon one another. 

 As soon as it attains such a position it will combine with this 

 negative partial molecule, and the positive one before combined 

 with the same will be set free. The latter will now also wander 



ously combined witli it, recombiues immediately with another partial mole- 

 cule of the same kind as the latter, so tbat essentially the mass remains 

 unchanged, and the resistance to conduction has alone to be overcome. 

 * PoggendorfF's Annalen, vol. c. p. 353; Phil. Mag. vol. xiv. p. 113. 



