204 REFUTATION OF THE SALT RADICAL THEORF, 
words, hydrous sulphuric acid, the same rationale will be 
applicable. 
54. The next argument advanced by Dr. Kane is, that 
some of the acids of which the existence is assumed upon 
the old doctrine, are hypothetical, as they have never been 
isolated. This mode of reasoning may be made to react 
against the new doctrine with pre-eminent force, since all 
of the compound radicals imagined by it are hypothetical — 
none of them having been isolated. 
55. The third argument of the respectable author above 
named is, that acids display their acid character in a high 
degree only when in the combination with water. 
56. This argument should be considered in reference to 
two different cases, in one of which all the water held by 
the acid is in the state of a base, while in the other an ad- 
ditional quantity is present acting as a solvent. So far as 
water, acting as a solvent, facilitates the reaction between 
acids and bases, it performs a part in common with alcohol, 
ether, volatile oils, resins, verifiable fluxes, and caloric. Its 
efficacy must be referred to the general law, that fluidity is 
necessary to chemical reaction. 61 Corpora non agunt nisi 
soluta." 
57. In a majority of cases, basic water, unaided by an 
additional portion acting as a solvent, is quite incompetent 
to produce reaction between acids and other bodies, Neither 
between sulphuric acid and zinc, between nitric acid and 
silver, nor between glacial or crystallized acids and metallic 
oxides, does any reaction take place without the aid of 
water acting as a solvent, and performing a part analogous 
to that which heat performs in promoting the union of 
those oxybases with boric, or silicic acid. 
58. It is only with soluble acids that water has any effi- 
cacy. The difference between the energy of sulphuric and 
silicic acid, under the different circumstances in which they 
can reciprocally displace each other, is founded on the 
nature of the solvents which they require, the one being 
