Prof. Faraday on Electric Conduction. 105 



which has been conducted is in them ; consequently all the elec- 

 trolytic results must be there ; and that would be the case, even 

 though for the shell we were to substitute a sphere of water. 

 For, if those particles which have had more current through 

 them than others be supposed to have more of the electrolytic 

 results about them than the others, then that electricity which is 

 found associated chiefly, if not altogether, with these others, 

 could have reached them only by conduction proper, which for 

 the moment is assumed to be non-existent. So, to favour the 

 electrolytic argument, we will consider the conduction as ending 

 at, and the electrolytic results as summed up in, these superficial 

 particles, passing for the present the former objection that 

 though the electricity has reached, it has not gone through, 

 these particles. Taking, therefore, a particle at r, and consider- 

 ing its electrolytic condition as proportionate to the electricity 

 which has arrived at that particle, and given it charge, we may 

 then assume — for we have the power of diminishing the inductive 

 action in any degree, — that the electricity, the conduction of 

 which has ceased upon the particle that was there, has been just 

 enough to decompose it, and has left what was the under but is 

 now the surface particle, charged. In that case, some other 

 particle, in a higher state of charge, and nearer to n, as at s, will 

 have had enough electricity conducted towards its place to de- 

 compose two particles of water ; — but it is uianifest that this can- 

 not be the next particle to that at r, but that a great number of 

 other particles in intermediate states of charge must exist be- 

 tween r and s. Now the question is, how can these particles 

 become intermediately charged by virtue of electrolytic con- 

 duction only ? Electrolytic action is definite, and the very theory 

 of electrolytic conduction assumes that the particles of oxygen 

 and hydrogen as they travel convey not a variable but a per- 

 fectly definite amount of power onward in its course, which 

 amount they cannot divide, but must take at once from a like 

 particle, and give at once to another like particle. How then 

 can any number of particles, or any action of such particles, carry 

 a fraction of the force associated with each particle ? It is no 

 doubt true, that if two charged particles can throw their power 

 either on to one, or to three or more other particles, then all the 

 difficulty disappears. Conduction proper can do this : but, as 

 we cannot conceive of a particle half decomposed, so I cannot see 

 how this can be performed by electrolytic conduction, i. e. how 

 the ])article between r and s can be excited to the intermediate 

 and indefinite degree, conduction without electrolysis being de- 

 nied both to it and the particles around it. 



If the particles between e and n be supposed to conduct elec- 

 trolytically by the current which passes tJirough them (dismissing 



Phil. Mag. S. 4. Vol. 10. No. 64. Auy. 1855. I 



