se 
_ above the plateau, rise a little above the general level 
194 Faraday as a Discoverer. 
In conclusion, Faraday brought to bear uponit an argument — 
which, had its full weight and purport been understood at the — 
time, would have instantly decided the controversy, “The — 
contact theory,” he urged, “ assumes that a force which is able 
to overcome powerful resistance, as for instance that of the — 
conductors, good or bad, through which the current passes, and 
that again of the electrolytic action where bodies are decom — 
sed by it, can arise out of nothing: that without any change 
in the acting matter, or the consumption of any 
a 
voltaic trough, by the ruins which its exertion 
and is like no other force in nature. We have many process — 
by which the form of the power may be so changed, thataa — 
apparent conversion of one into the other takes place. Sow — 
can change chemical force into the electric current, or the cu — 
rent into chemical force, The beautiful experiments of Seebeck — 
and Peltier show the convertibility of heat and electricity ; and 
others by Oersted and myself show the convertibility of ele 
tricity and magnetism. But in no case, not even in 
the Gymnotus and Torpedo, is there a pure creation or a pre 
duction of power without a corresponding exhaustion of some 
thing to supply it.” wi 
These words were published more than two years before 
Mayer printed his brief but celebrated essay on the Forees@ 
already high, and our discoverers are those who, of thot 
at the time. - utterance of 
But many years prior, even to the foregoing U [ quote » 
. ae for 
ut being exhausted by its own action, it — be ; 
