Mr. Davy's Electrochemical Researches on 
368 
Other hypotheses might be formed upon the new electro- 
chemical facts, in which still fewer elements than those allowed 
in the antiphlogistic or phlogistic theory might be maintained. 
Certain electrical states always coincide with certain chemical 
states of bodies. Thus acids are uniformly negative, alkalies 
positive, and inflammable substances highly positive ; and as I 
have found, acid matters when positively electrified, and alka- 
line matters when negatively electrified, seem to loose all their 
peculiar properties and powers of combination. In these in- 
stances the chemical qualities are shewn to depend upon the 
electrical powers ; and it is not impossible that matter of the 
same kind, possessed of different electrical powers, may 
exhibit different chemical forms.* 
* Phil. Trans. 1807, Part I. p. 23. The amalgam obtained from ammonia offers 
difficulties to both the phlogistic and antiphlogistic hypotheses. If we assume the 
phlogistic hypothesis, then we must assume that nitrogene, by combining with one 
fourth of its weight of hydrogene can form an alkali, and by combining with one- 
twelfth more, can become metallic. If we reason on the antiphlogistic hypothesis, we 
must assert, that though nitrogene has a weaker affinity for oxygene than hydrogene, 
yet a compound of hydrogene and nitrogene is capable of decomposing water. 
The first assumption is however by far the most contradictory to the order of com- 
mon chemical facts ; the last, though it cannot be wholly removed, is yet lessened by 
analogies. Thus alloys in general, and inflammable compounds, are more oxidable 
than the simple substances that compose them. Sulphuret of iron at common tem- 
peratures decomposes water with facility, whereas sulphur under the same circum- 
stances, has no action on water, and iron a very small one. The compound of phos- 
phorus and hydrogene, is more inflammable than either of its constituents. 
Should a new theory of the dependence of the chemical forms of matter upon elec- 
trical powers be established, the facts belonging to ammonium would admit of a more 
easy solution. Ammonium might be supposed to be a simple body, which by com- 
bining with different quantities of water, and in different states of electricity, formed 
nitrogene, ammonia, atmospherical air, nitrous oxide, nitrous gas, and nitric acid. 
Water, on this idea, must be supposed a constituent part of all the different gasses; 
but its electricities in oxygene and hydrogene would probably be the very reverse of what 
they have been supposed by M. Ritter, and some ingenious English enquirers. 
