104 Experimental Researches in Electricity, 



substance, and except at them, every particle finds other 

 particles having a contrary tendency with which it can com- 

 bine. 



In those theories which refer decomposition to the attrac- 

 tive powers of the poles, it appears at once anomalous, that 

 in so many instances these poles, although capable of with- 

 drawing one particle of a decomposed substance from ano- 

 ther, should yet be incapable of retaining that particle. *' If, 

 in accordance with the usual theory, a piece of platina be 

 supposed to have sufficient power to attract a particle of 

 hydrogen from the particle of oxygen with which it was the 

 instant before combined, there seems no sufficient reason, 

 nor any facts, except those to be explained, which shew 

 why it should not, according to analogy with all ordinary 

 attractive forces, as those of gravitation, magnetism, cohe- 

 sion, chemical affinity, &c. retain that particle, which it had 

 just before taken from a distance, and from previous com- 

 bination. Yet it does not do so, but allows it to escape 

 freely." Faraday's theory, on the other hand, explains this 

 apparently anomalous circumstance simply and distinctly. 

 The effect is the direct consequence of the nature of the 

 action, for the evolved substances are expelled from the 

 decomposing body as a consequence of an internal force, 

 not drawn out by an external attractive power : and whether 

 the poles be metal, air, or water, still the substances are 

 evolved, and are sometimes set free ; while at others, they 

 unite to the poles according to the chemical nature of the 

 latter, i. e. their chemical relation to those particles which 

 are leaving the substance under operation. 



When the power of the voltaic battery to produce de- 

 composition was first discovered, nothing caused greater 

 astonishment than the apparent suspension of all natural 

 affinity between the particles of bodies, whose affinities for 

 each other were known to be, under common circumstances, 

 of the strongest possible character, while the process of 



