144 THEORY OF GALVANISM. 



different from those of Sir H. Davy, although, as 

 being- more fully developed, and carried to a 

 greater length, they are perhaps, on this very ac- 

 count, more open to animadversion. He conceives 

 that the atoms of which bodies are composed al- 

 ways possess, what he styles, electric polarity a 

 term which is intended to express that two of 

 their opposite sides possess different states of elec- 

 tricity. Upon the intensity of these opposite elec- 

 tricities the force of chemical affinity depends, 

 which consequently becomes resolved into, or iden- 

 tified with, electric polarity. Each of the poles of 

 bodies possesses an appropriate and specific elec- 

 trical condition ; it may be so precisely balanced as 

 to leave the atom in a neutral state ; but in most 

 cases, the electricity of one pole is greater than 

 that of the other, and thus gives the body, what 

 he terms, a unipolar state, which may be either 

 electro-positive, or electro-negative, according to 

 the predominancy of the positive or negative ex- 

 tremities. It is supposed, however, that bodies 

 may combine together in consequence of their ge- 

 neral electrical intensity, as w r ell as from the at- 

 traction of the different kinds of electricity, for we 

 find that a very powerful affinity may be exercised 

 between bodies that possess the same kind of uni- 

 polarity ; and in this case the electro-chemical pro- 

 perties of the compound become the most intense, 

 because all the energy is conceived to be exercised 

 in one direction, whereas in other cases a kind of 

 neutralization takes place, in which the opposite 



