concerned in the Phenomena of ordinary Electricity, tyc. 125 



60°. Can the constitution of the electricity arising from all 

 these sources be the same ? 



Whatever may be the nature of the power which, when asso- 

 ciated with matter, constitutes chemical affinity, it seems to be 

 found in the electric fluid combined with the other constituent 

 elements, and to be transmissible through conductors ; for it is 

 known that in this state it energetically effects combinations and 

 decompositions of bodies. In assuming that the principle which 

 causes chemical effects may, by being a constituent element of 

 the electric fluid, be thus transferred through solid matter, or 

 air, or even a vacuum, I do not conceive that I take an unwar- 

 rantable liberty with the facts, for they seem actually to invite 

 the assumption. I advanced the opinion that affinity might be 

 transferred from one body to another many years since, in an 

 essay which, in a different form, was honoured with the prize by 

 the Royal Irish Academy ; but even then the idea was not a 

 novelty; for Sir H. Davy virtually maintained the same notion 

 more extensively when he promulgated his doctrine of the iden- 

 tity of electricity and affinity ; Professor Faraday entertains it 

 now ; and Professor Schonbein employs the very same idea in 

 the following sentence, which seems to convey his assent to the 

 notion of transferred affinity, although it is apparently expressed 

 conditionally : he says, " if there be any instance of chemical 

 affinity being transmitted in the form of a current by means of 

 conducting bodies, I think the fact just stated may be considered 

 as such*." Faraday speaks explicitly and decidedly : he says, 

 " all the facts show us that the power commonly called chemical 

 affinity can be communicated to a distance f;" and "the force 

 of chemical affinity is then transferred through the two metals J." 



That Davy, Berzelius, Ampere, Faraday, and some others, all 

 admitted the principle of the transference of chemical affinity to 

 a distance and through space need scarcely be adverted to, when 

 it is well known, that, in the school of these philosophers, electri- 

 city and affinity are the same forces ; hence if the former can be 

 transferred, so can the latter ; and my views, formerly designated 

 by a few persons " a startling novelty/-' are protected, in their 

 present more decided form, from the imputation of unwarrantable 

 innovation. 



That a distinct constituent element, possessing chemical powers 

 should exist in the compound called the electric fluid, associated 

 with heat, prismatic rays, and magnetism, is neither less intelli- 

 gible nor more improbable than that the very same elements 

 should he found associated in the sun's beam. I am aware that 

 the existence in the solar ray of a power which produces the pha> 



* Phil. Mag. S. 3. July 1836. f Researches, &c. p. 272. 



X Ibid. p. 284. 



