CHEMICAL ACTION AT A DISTANCE. 373 



do not for an instant doubt the conservation, but are moved 

 to look for the manner in which the forces are, for the time, 

 disposed, or if they have taken up another form of force, to 

 search what that form may be. 



Even chemical action at a distance, which is in such an- 

 tithetical contrast with the ordinary exertion of chemical affin- 

 ity, since it can produce effects miles away from the particles 

 on which they depend, and which are effectual only by forces 

 acting at insensible distances, still proves the same thing, the 

 conservation of force. Preparations can be made for a chem- 

 ical action in the simple voltaic circuit, but until the circuit 

 be complete that action does not occur ; yet in completing we 

 can so arrange the circuit, that a distant chemical action, the 

 perfect equivalent of the dominant chemical action, shall be 

 produced ; and this result, whilst it establishes the electro- 

 chemical equivalent of power, establishes the principle of the 

 conservation of force also, and at the same time suggests 

 many collateral inquiries which have yet to be made and 

 answered, before all that concerns the conservation in this 

 case can be understood. 



This and other instances of chemical action at a distance 

 carry our inquiring thoughts on from the facts to the physical 

 mode of the exertion of force ; for the qualities which seem 

 located and fixed to certain particles of matter appear at a 

 distance in connection with particles altogether different. 

 They also lead our thoughts to the conversion of one form of 

 power into another ; as, for instance, in the heat which the 

 elements of a voltaic pile may either show at the place where 

 they act by their combustion or combination together, or in 

 the distance, where the electric spark may be rendered mani- 

 fest ; or in the wire of fluids of the different parts of the 

 circuit. 



When we occupy ourselves with the dual forms of power, 

 electricity, and magnetism, we find great latitude of assump- 

 tion, and necessarily so, for the powers become more and 



