386 Sir Humphry Davy on the relations of 
who, by the laborious application of new instruments, have 
idscovered novel facts and analogies, to refer them to any 
such suppositions as, “ that all attractions, chemical,* elec- 
trical, magnetic, and gravitative, may depend upon the same 
cause or to still looser expressions, in which different 
words are used and applied to the same ideas, and in which 
all the phenomena of nature are supposed to depend on the 
Dynamic system, or the equilibrium and opposition of anta- 
gonist powers. 
The true origin of all that has been done in electro-che- 
mical science was the accidental discovery of MM. Nicholson 
and Carlisle, of the decomposition of water by the pile of 
Volta, April 30, lSoo.-f These Gentlemen immediately 
added to this capital fact, the knowledge of the decomposition 
of certain metallic solutions, and the circumstance of the 
separation of alkali on the negative plates of the apparatus. 
Mr. Cruickshank, in pursuing their experiments, added to 
them many important new results, such as the decomposi- 
tions of muriates of magnesia, soda and ammonia, by the 
• In the Systeme Universelle of M. Azais, not only are all the phenomena of 
nature referred to the same cause, but specific reasonings upon the mode of its 
operation given. In this work, published in 1810, not only is the identity of Mag- 
netism and Electricity insisted on, but an attempt is made to explain the manner 
5 n which the two electrical fluids produce the magnetic phenomena, pag. 239 Vol. I, 
“ Ainsi ces deux ordres de phenomenes sont tres ressemblans. Repetons que toutes 
leurs differences resultent uniquement de ce que les deux fluides sont moins intenses 
lorsq’ils produisent les phenomenes du Magnetisme que lorsq’ ils produisent les 
phenomenes du Galvanisme, Sec.” It requires only the same principle as that cen- 
sured in the text to refer to this author the discovery of Oersted and the speculations 
of Ampere. M. Azais, in his “ fluides mineure et majeure,” finds all the causes 
of the acid and alkaline properties of bodies : — slow combinations, the heat pro- 
duced, and all the phenomena of chemical change ; and his reasonings are often 
very ingenious. f Nicholson’s Journal, Vol. 42, page 183. 
