389 
electrical and chemical changes. 
conducted his experiments with some care, stated, that if two 
separate portions of water were electrised out of the contact 
of substances containing alkaline or acid matter, acid and 
alkali were generated ; so that up to this time the question, 
whether these substances were liberated from their combi- 
nations, or formed from their elements by electricity, could 
not be considered as decided : a circumstance not so much to 
be wondered at, when the novel and extraordinary nature of 
the whole class of galvanic phenomena is considered. 
It was in the beginning of 1806* that I attempted the solu- 
tion of this question ; and after some months’ labour I pre- 
sented to the Society the Dissertation, to which I have referred 
in the beginning of this Lecture. Finding that acid and 
alkaline substances, even when existing in the most solid 
combinations, or in the smallest proportion in the hardest 
bodies, were elicited by Voltaic electricity, I established that 
they were the results of decomposition, and not of composi- 
tion or generation ; and referring to my experiments of 1800, 
and 1801 and 1802, and to a number of new facts, which 
showed that inflammable substances and oxygen, alkalies 
and acids, and oxidable and noble metals, were in electrical 
relations of positive and negative, I drew the conclusion, 
that the combinations and decompositions by electricity were re- 
fer r able to the law of electrical attractions and repulsions , and 
advanced the hypothesis, “ that chemical and electrical attrac- 
tion were produced by the same cause , acting in one case on parti- 
cles, in the other on masses and that the same property, under 
Whoever will take the trouble to read the Bakerian Lecture for 1 806, will be con- 
vinced of the gradual developement of the whole subject from the investigation 
respecting the pretended formation of muriatic acid and fixed alkali. 
* Phil. Trans. 1807. 
MDCCCXXVI. 3 E 
