NOMOS. 19 



only shows the amazing difference in quantity be- 

 tween ordinary and voltaic electricity, but it becomes, 

 as it were, a kind of neutral ground upon which the 

 two electricities are able to meet and display their 

 common properties. 



With this amazing difference in quantity, then, 

 we need be at no loss to account for any apparent 

 differences in the phenomena of ordinary and voltaic 

 electricity which have not yet been accounted for. 

 We can understand, for instance, how so little water 

 should be decomposed by ordinary electricity, as 

 compared with voltaic electricity, if it requires 

 800,000 times the quantity which is produced by 

 thirty turns of a large machine to decompose a single 

 grain ; and if the deflection of the magnetic needle 

 bears any proportion to the quantity of electricity 

 acting upon it, it follows that it must be infi- 

 nitely more difficult to cause any deflection by 

 ordinary than by voltaic electricity. These diffi- 

 culties, in fact, cease to be difficulties, and this will 

 appear more distinctly in the sequel ; but we may 

 leave them now, for sufficient has been said to allow 

 us to infer the identity of voltaic and ordinary elec- 

 tricity. 



The other kinds of electricity are found to possess 

 no characteristic features, and they agree with voltaic 

 and ordinary electricity in every essential identity of 

 particular. All this is proved by a simi- 

 lar train of arguments to that which has 

 just been used ; and as the proof is not at 



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