462 MODERN CHEMISTRY. 



earths ; a discovery more imposing on first aspect, yet of 

 less real import than that great principle of electro- chemical 

 action of which it formed a particular result. 



From the period just named to the present time, the deve- 

 lopment of this principle and its extension to new objects 

 has been continued with unceasing activity. It is well 

 known how greatly the genius and labours of Faraday have 

 contributed to this success, not solely by the discovery of 

 facts, but by the determination of the laws which govern, 

 them. We take but one example in point. Earlier opinion 

 had supposed a peculiar energy of the poles in an electric 

 circuit, determining the chemical actions which manifest 

 themselves at these points. Faraday regards the poles as 

 simply opening a way or passage to the electric current ; and 

 looks to the Electrolyte that is, the fluid chemical compound 

 interposed between them as the source and medium of the 

 chemical changes going on. These changes consist (and here 

 lies the important point) not in any actual transference of 

 material particles, but in a series of successive decompositions 

 and recompositions in the line of particles between the poles, 

 evolving the component parts of the electrolyte only where 

 the current ceases to flow through it. This may seem at first 

 sight a strange complexity of action. But it will not so 

 appear to those accustomed to regard the atomic relations of 

 matter, as they must necessarily exist to fulfill the various 

 conditions of chemical change already known to us. And not 

 of chemical change alone, strictly so termed, but probably of 

 all changes taking place in the material world. We reach the 

 greatest phenomena of the universe through the very actions 

 of molecules or atoms, the minuteness of which transcends 

 all human conception. 



The true theory of the relation between these two great 

 elements of force or power in the material world electricity 

 and chemical action has been, and even yet is, a qucestio 



