On Mr Faradai/'s Experimental Researches. 3^3 



the time he first advanced it in his Bakerian Lecture for 1806. 

 Considering it in this point of view, it would have been extra- 

 ordinary indeed, were it as represented by Mr Faraday. As I 

 have understood the fundamental theory, and as I believe it has 

 been commonly understood, the vagueness of generality is not 

 attributable to it. He (Sir H. Davy) considered all bodies as 

 possessed of electricity, or capable of exhibiting electrical effects, 

 some of positive, others of negative electricity in relation to each 

 other, — that those bodies, similarly electrical, repelled each 

 other, — that those dissimilarly electrical attracted each other,— 

 that this latter attraction might be identical with chemical at- 

 traction ; the former (the electrical), acting on masses; the latter 

 (the chemical) acting on particles ; and, that chemical combina- 

 tion might be promoted, and chemical decomposition might be 

 effected, elect ro-chemically ; — in one instance by heightening the 

 opposite electrical states of bodies brought together for chemical 

 union ; — in the other, by opposing the opposite electrical states 

 of the elements combined, and overcoming them by the influence 

 of electricity artificially produced. 



This theory, of which the above is an imperfect outline, if I 

 do not deceive myself, is not less precise than the one which Mr 

 Faraday has advanced. Indeed, his appears to be little more 

 than a modification of it, in which he has transferred the centre 

 of action from the boundary electrified surfaces, or the terminal 

 points of the electrical apparatus conveying the electricity from 

 its source, to the particles acted on ; with, however, this diffe- 

 rence, as it appears to me at present, that the former is less ob- 

 scure, and not less accordant with the greater number of facts. 



My brother, it should be remembered, offered his views on 

 the subject hypothetically. This he did in his first Bakerian 

 Lecture, and in his last ; he attached to them no undue import- 

 ance, — " believing that our philosophical systems are very im- 

 perfect, (I give his own words), and confident that they must 

 change more or less with the advancement of knowledge. 1 ' I do 

 not defend them, therefore, on the idea that they are absolutely 

 true, — merely on the ground that they have not been justly re- 

 presented, and that their author has not had justice done him : 

 and this defence has appeared to me the more necessary, as Mr 

 Faraday, in the natural course of feeling by the world, might be 



