BOOK XIII.

MECHANICO-CHEMICAL SCIENCES.
(CONTINUED.)

HISTORY OF GALVANISM,
OR
VOLTAIC ELECTRICITY.

Percusssæ gelido trepidant sub pectore fibræ,
Et nova desuetis subrepens vita medullis
Miscetur morti: tunc omnis palpitat artus
Tenduntur nervi; nec se tellure cadaver
Paullatim per membra levat; terrâque repulsum est
Erectumque simul.

Lucan. vi. 752.

The form which lay before inert and dead,
Sudden a piercing thrill of change o’erspread;
Returning life gleams in the stony face,
The fibres quiver and the sinews brace,
Move the stiff limbs;—nor did the body rise
With tempered strength which genial life supplies,
But upright starting, its full stature held,
As though the earth the supine corse repelled.

CHAPTER I.
Discovery of Voltaic Electricity.

WE have given the name of mechanico-chemical to the class of sciences now under our consideration; for these sciences are concerned with cases in which mechanical effects, that is, attractions and repulsions, are produced; while the conditions under which these effects occur, depend, as we shall hereafter see, on chemical relations. In that branch of these sciences which we have just treated of, Magnetism, the mechanical phenomena were obvious, but their connexion with chemical causes was by no means apparent, and, indeed, has not yet come under our notice.

The subject to which we now proceed, Galvanism, belongs to the same group, but, at first sight, exhibits only the other, the chemical, portion of the features of the class; for the connexion of galvanic phenomena with chemical action was soon made out, but the mechanical effects which accompany them were not examined till the examination was required by a new train of discovery. It is to be observed, that I do not include in the class of mechanical effects the convulsive motions in the limbs of animals which are occasioned by galvanic action; for these movements are produced, not by attraction and repulsion, but by muscular irritability; and though they indicate the existence of a peculiar agency, cannot be used to measure its intensity and law.

The various examples of the class of agents which we here consider,—magnetism, electricity, galvanism, electro-magnetism, thermo-electricity,—differ from each other principally in the circumstances by which they are called into action; and these differences are in reality of a chemical nature, and will have to be considered when we come to treat of the inductive steps by which the general principles of chemical theory are established. In the present part of our task, therefore, we must take for granted the chemical conditions on which the excitation of these various kinds of action depends, and trace the history of the discovery of their mechanical laws only. This rule will much abridge the account we have here to give of the progress of discovery in the provinces to which I have just referred. [238]

The first step in this career of discovery was that made by Galvani, Professor of Anatomy at Bologna. In 1790, electricity, as an experimental science, was nearly stationary. The impulse given to its progress by the splendid phenomena of the Leyden phial had almost died away; Coulomb was employed in systematizing the theory of the electric fluid, as shown by its statical effects; but in all the other parts of the subject, no great principle or new result had for some time been detected. The first announcement of Galvani’s discovery in 1791 excited great notice, for it was given forth as a manifestation of electricity under a new and remarkable character; namely, as residing in the muscles of animals.[1] The limbs of a dissected frog were observed to move, when touched with pieces of two different metals; the agent which produced these motions was conceived to be identified with electricity, and was termed animal electricity; and Galvani’s experiments were repeated, with various modifications, in all parts of Europe, exciting much curiosity, and giving rise to many speculations.

[1] De Viribus Electricis in Motu Musculari, Comm. Bonon. t. vii. 1792.

It is our business to determine the character of each great discovery which appears in the progress of science. Men are fond of repeating that such discoveries are most commonly the result of accident; and we have seen reason to reject this opinion, since that preparation of thought by which the accident produces discovery is the most important of the conditions on which the successful event depends. Such accidents are like a spark which discharges a gun already loaded and pointed. In the case of Galvani, indeed, the discovery may, with more propriety than usual, be said to have been casual; but in the form in which it was first noted, it exhibited no important novelty. His frog was lying on a table near the conductor of an electrical machine, and the convulsions appeared only when a spark was taken from the machine. If Galvani had been as good a physicist as he was an anatomist, he would probably have seen that the movements so occasioned proved only that the muscles or nerves, or the two together, formed a very sensitive indicator of electrical action. It was when he produced such motions by contact of metals alone, that he obtained an important and fundamental fact in science.

The analysis of this fact into its real and essential conditions was the work of Alexander Volta, another Italian professor. Volta, indeed, possessed that knowledge of the subject of electricity which made a hint like that of Galvani the basis of a new science. Galvani appears [239] never to have acquired much general knowledge of electricity: Volta, on the other hand, had labored at this branch of knowledge from the age of eighteen, through a period of nearly thirty years; and had invented an electrophorus and an electrical condenser, which showed great experimental skill. When he turned his attention to the experiments made by Galvani, he observed that the author of them had been far more surprised than he needed to be, at those results in which an electrical spark was produced; and that it was only in the cases in which no such apparatus was employed, that the observations could justly be considered as indicating a new law, or a new kind of electricity.[2] He soon satisfied himself[3] (about 1794) that the essential conditions of this kind of action depended on the metals; that it is brought into play most decidedly when two different metals touch each other, and are connected by any moist body;—and that the parts of animals which had been used discharged the office both of such moist bodies, and of very sensitive electrometers. The animal electricity of Galvani might, he observed, be with more propriety called metallic electricity.

[2] Phil. Trans. 1793, p. 21.

[3] See Fischer, viii. 625.

The recognition of this agency as a peculiar kind of electricity, arose in part perhaps, at first, from the confusion made by Galvani between the cases in which his electrical machine was, and those in which it was not employed. But the identity was confirmed by its being found that the known difference of electrical conductors and non-conductors regulated the conduction of the new influence. The more exact determination of the new facts to those of electricity was a succeeding step of the progress of the subject.

The term “animal electricity” has been superseded by others, of which galvanism is perhaps the most familiar. I think it will appear from what has been said, that Volta’s office in this discovery is of a much higher and more philosophical kind than that of Galvani; and it would, on this account, be more fitting to employ the term voltaic electricity; which, indeed, is very commonly used, especially by our most recent and comprehensive writers.

Volta more fully still established his claim as the main originator of this science by his next step. When some of those who repeated the experiments of Galvani had expressed a wish that there was some method of multiplying the effect of this electricity, such as the Leyden phial supplies for common electricity, they probably thought their wishes far from a realization. But the voltaic pile, which Volta [240] described in the Philosophical Transactions for 1800, completely satisfies this aspiration; and was, in fact, a more important step in the history of electricity than the Leyden jar had been. It has since undergone various modifications, of which the most important was that introduced by Cruickshanks, who[4] substituted a trough for a pile. But in all cases the principle of the instrument was the same;—a continued repetition of the triple combination of two metals and a fluid in contact, so as to form a circuit which returns into itself.

[4] Fischer, viii. p. 683.

Such an instrument is capable of causing effects of great intensity; as seen both in the production of light and heat, and in chemical changes. But the discovery with which we are here concerned, is not the details and consequences of the effects, (which belong to chemistry,) but the analysis of the conditions under which such effects take place; and this we may consider as completed by Volta at the epoch of which we speak.

CHAPTER II.
Reception and Confirmation of the Discovery of Voltaic Electricity.

GALVANI’S experiments excited a great interest all over Europe, in consequence partly of a circumstance which, as we have seen, was unessential, the muscular contractions and various sensations which they occasioned. Galvani himself had not only considered the animal element of the circuit as the origin of the electricity, but had framed a theory,[5] in which he compared the muscles to charged jars, and the nerves to the discharging wires; and a controversy was, for some time, carried on, in Italy, between the adherents of Galvani and those of Volta.[6]

[5] Ib. viii. 613.

[6] Ib. viii. 619.

The galvanic experiments, and especially those which appeared to have a physiological bearing, were verified and extended by a number of the most active philosophers of Europe, and especially William von Humboldt. A commission of the Institute of France, appointed in 1797, repeated many of the known experiments, but does not seem to have decided any disputed points. The researches of this [241] commission referred rather to the discoveries of Galvani than to those of Volta: the latter were, indeed, hardly known in France till the conquest of Italy by Bonaparte, in 1801. France was, at the period of these discoveries, separated from all other countries by war, and especially from England,[7] where Volta’s Memoirs were published.

[7] Biog. Univ., art. Volta, (by Biot.)

The political revolutions of Italy affected, in very different manners, the two discoverers of whom we speak. Galvani refused to take an oath of allegiance to the Cisalpine republic, which the French conqueror established; he was consequently stripped of all his offices; and deprived, by the calamities of the times, of most of his relations, he sank into poverty, melancholy, and debility. At last his scientific reputation induced the republican rulers to decree his restoration to his professorial chair; but his claims were recognised too late, and he died without profiting by this intended favor, in 1798.

Volta, on the other hand, was called to Paris by Bonaparte as a man of science, and invested with honors, emoluments, and titles. The conqueror himself, indeed, was strongly interested by this train of research.[8] He himself founded valuable prizes, expressly with a view to promote its prosecution. At this period, there was something in this subject peculiarly attractive to his Italian mind; for the first glimpses of discoveries of great promise have always excited an enthusiastic activity of speculation in the philosophers of Italy, though generally accompanied with a want of precise thought. It is narrated[9] of Bonaparte, that after seeing the decomposition of the salts by means of the voltaic pile, he turned to Corvisart, his physician, and said, “Here, doctor, is the image of life; the vertebral column is the pile, the liver is the negative, the bladder the positive, pole.” The importance of voltaic researches is not less than it was estimated by Bonaparte; but the results to which it was to lead were of a kind altogether different from those which thus suggested themselves to his mind. The connexion of mechanical and chemical action was the first great point to be dealt with; and for this purpose the laws of the mechanical action of voltaic electricity were to be studied.

[8] Becquerel, Traité d’Electr. t. i. p. 107.

[9] Ib. t. i. p. 108.

It will readily be supposed that the voltaic researches, thus begun, opened a number of interesting topics of examination and discussion. These, however, it does not belong to our place to dwell upon at present; since they formed parts of the theory of the subject, which [242] was not completed till light had been thrown upon it from other quarters. The identity of galvanism with electricity, for instance, was at first, as we have intimated, rather conjectured than proved. It was denied by Dr. Fowler, in 1793; was supposed to be confirmed by Dr. Wells two years later; but was, still later, questioned by Davy. The nature of the operation of the pile was variously conceived. Volta himself had obtained a view of it which succeeding researches confirmed, when he asserted,[10] in 1800, that it resembled an electric battery feebly charged and constantly renewing its charge. In pursuance of this view, the common electrical action was, at a later period (for instance by Ampère, in 1820), called electrical tension, while the voltaic action was called the electrical current, or electromotive action. The different effects produced, by increasing the size and the number of the plates in the voltaic trough, were also very remarkable. The power of producing heat was found to depend on the size of the plates; the power of producing chemical changes, on the other hand, was augmented by the number of plates of which the battery consisted. The former effect was referred to the increased quantity, the latter to the intensity, of the electric fluid. We mention these distinctions at present, rather for the purpose of explaining the language in which the results of the succeeding investigations are narrated, than with the intention of representing the hypotheses and measures which they imply, as clearly established, at the period of which we speak. For that purpose new discoveries were requisite, which we have soon to relate.

[10] Phil. Trans. p. 403.

CHAPTER III.
Discovery of the Laws of the Mutual Attraction and Repulsion of Voltaic Currents.—Ampère.

IN order to show the place of voltaic electricity among the mechanico-chemical sciences, we must speak of its mechanical laws as separate from the laws of electro-magnetic action; although, in fact, it was only in consequence of the forces which conducting voltaic wires exert upon magnets, that those forces were detected which they exert upon each [243] other. This latter discovery was made by M. Ampère; and the extraordinary rapidity and sagacity with which he caught the suggestion of such forces, from the electro-magnetic experiments of M. Oersted, (of which we shall speak in the next [chapter],) well entitle him to be considered as a great and independent discoverer. As he truly says,[11] “it by no means followed, that because a conducting wire exerted a force on a magnet, two conducting wires must exert a force on each other; for two pieces of soft iron, both of which affect a magnet, do not affect each other.” But immediately on the promulgation of Oersted’s experiments, in 1820, Ampère leapt forwards to a general theory of the facts, of which theory the mutual attraction and repulsion of conducting voltaic wires was a fundamental supposition. The supposition was immediately verified by direct trial; and the laws of this attraction and repulsion were soon determined, with great experimental ingenuity, and a very remarkable command of the resources of analysis. But the experimental and analytical investigation of the mutual action of voltaic or electrical currents, was so mixed up with the examination of the laws of electro-magnetism, which had given occasion to the investigation, that we must not treat the two provinces of research as separate. The mention in this place, premature as it might appear, of the labors of Ampère, arises inevitably from his being the author of a beautiful and comprehensive generalization, which not only included the phenomena exhibited by the new combinations of Oersted, but also disclosed forces which existed in arrangements already familiar, although they had never been detected till the theory pointed out how they were to be looked for.

[11] Théorie des Phénom. Electrodynamiques, p. 113.

CHAPTER IV.
Discovery of Electro-magnetic Action.—Oersted.

THE impulse which the discovery of galvanism, in 1791, and that of the voltaic pile, in 1800, had given to the study of electricity as a mechanical science, had nearly died away in 1820. It was in that year that M. Oersted, of Copenhagen, announced that the conducting [244] wire of a voltaic circuit, acts upon a magnetic needle; and thus recalled into activity that endeavor to connect magnetism with electricity, which, though apparently on many accounts so hopeful, had hitherto been attended with no success. Oersted found that the needle has a tendency to place itself at right angles to the wire;—a kind of action altogether different from any which had been suspected.

This observation was of vast importance; and the analysis of its conditions and consequences employed the best philosophers in Europe immediately on its promulgation. It is impossible, without great injustice, to refuse great merit to Oersted as the author of the discovery. We have already said that men appear generally inclined to believe remarkable discoveries to be accidental, and the discovery of Oersted has been spoken of as a casual insulated experiment.[12] Yet Oersted had been looking for such an accident probably more carefully and perseveringly than any other person in Europe. In 1807, he had published[13] a work, in which he professed that his purpose was “to ascertain whether electricity, in its most latent state, had any effect on the magnet.” And he, as I know from his own declaration, considered his discovery as the natural sequel and confirmation of his early researches; as, indeed, it fell in readily and immediately with speculations on these subjects then very prevalent in Germany. It was an accident like that by which a man guesses a riddle on which his mind has long been employed.

[12] See Schelling ueber Faraday’s Entdeckung, p. 27.

[13] Ampère, p. 69.

Besides the confirmation of Oersted’s observations by many experimenters, great additions were made to his facts: of these, one of the most important was due to Ampère. Since the earth is in fact magnetic, the voltaic wire ought to be affected by terrestrial magnetism alone, and ought to tend to assume a position depending on the position of the compass-needle. At first, the attempts to produce this effect failed, but soon, with a more delicate apparatus, the result was found to agree with the anticipation.

It is impossible here to dwell on any of the subsequent researches, except so far as they are essential to our great object, the progress towards a general theory of the subject. I proceed, therefore, immediately to the attempts made towards this object. [245]

CHAPTER V.
Discovery of the Laws of Electro-magnetic Action.

ON attempting to analyse the electro-magnetic phenomena observed by Oersted and others into their simplest forms, they appeared, at least at first sight, to be different from any mechanical actions which had yet been observed. It seemed as if the conducting wire exerted on the pole of the magnet a force which was not attractive or repulsive, but transverse;—not tending to draw the point acted on nearer, or to push it further off, in the line which reached from the acting point, but urging it to move at right angles to this line. The forces appeared to be such as Kepler had dreamt of in the infancy of mechanical conceptions; rather than such as those of which Newton had established the existence in the solar system, and such as he, and all his successors, had supposed to be the only kinds of force which exist in nature. The north pole of the needle moved as if it were impelled by a vortex revolving round the wire in one direction, while the south pole seemed to be driven by an opposite vortex. The case seemed novel, and almost paradoxical.

It was soon established by experiments, made in a great variety of forms, that the mechanical action was really of this transverse kind. And a curious result was obtained, which a little while before would have been considered as altogether incredible;—that this force would cause a constant and rapid revolution of either of the bodies about the other;—of the conducting wire about the magnet, or of the magnet about the conducting wire. This was effected by Mr. Faraday in 1821.

The laws which regulated the intensity of this force, with reference to the distance and position of the bodies, now naturally came to be examined. MM. Biot and Savart in France, and Mr. Barlow in England, instituted such measures; and satisfied themselves that the elementary force followed the law of magnitude of all known elementary forces, in being inversely as the square of the distance; although, in its direction, it was so entirely different from other forces. But the investigation of the laws of phenomena of the subject was too closely connected with the choice of a mechanical theory, to be established [246] previously and independently, as had been done in astronomy. The experiments gave complex results, and the analysis of these into their elementary actions was almost an indispensable step in order to disentangle their laws. We must, therefore, state the progress of this analysis.

CHAPTER VI.
Theory of Electrodynamical Action.

AMPÈRE’S Theory.—Nothing can show in a more striking manner the advanced condition of physical speculation in 1820, than the reduction of the strange and complex phenomena of electromagnetism to a simple and general theory as soon as they were published. Instead of a gradual establishment of laws of phenomena, and of theories more and more perfect, occupying ages, as in the case of astronomy, or generations, as in the instances of magnetism and electricity, a few months sufficed for the whole process of generalization; and the experiments made at Copenhagen were announced at Paris and London, almost at the same time with the skilful analysis and comprehensive inductions of Ampère.

Yet we should err if we should suppose, from the celerity with which the task was executed, that it was an easy one. There were required in the author of such a theory, not only those clear conceptions of the relations of space and force, which are the first conditions of all sound theory, and a full possession of the experiments; but also a masterly command of the mathematical arms by which alone the victory could be gained, and a sagacious selection of proper experiments which might decide the fate of the proposed hypothesis.

It is true, that the nature of the requisite hypothesis was not difficult to see in a certain vague and limited way. The conducting-wire and the magnetic needle had a tendency to arrange themselves at right angles to one another. This might be represented by supposing the wire to be made up of transverse magnetic needles, or by supposing the needle to be made up of transverse conducting-wires; for it was easy to conceive forces which should bring corresponding elements, either magnetic or voltaic, into parallel positions; and then the [247] general phenomena above stated would be accounted for. And the choice between the two modes of conception, appeared at first sight a matter of indifference. The majority of philosophers at first adopted, or at least employed, the former method, as Oersted in Germany, Berzelius in Sweden, Wollaston in England.

Ampère adopted the other view, according to which the magnet is made up of conducting-wires in a transverse position. But he did for his hypothesis what no one did or could do for the other: he showed that it was the only one which would account, without additional and arbitrary suppositions, for the facts of continued motion in electromagnetic cases. And he further elevated his theory to a higher rank of generality, by showing that it explained,—not only the action of a conducting-wire upon a magnet, but also two other classes of facts, already spoken of in this history,—the [action] of magnets upon each other,—and the [action] of conducting-wires upon each other.

The deduction of such particular cases from the theory, required, as may easily be imagined, some complex calculations: but the deduction being satisfactory, it will be seen that Ampère’s theory conformed to that description which we have repeatedly had to point out as the usual character of a true and stable theory; namely, that besides accounting for the class of phenomena which suggested it, it supplies an unforeseen explanation of other known facts. For the mutual action of magnets, which was supposed to be already reduced to a satisfactory theoretical form by Coulomb, was not contemplated by Ampère in the formation of his hypothesis; and the mutual action of voltaic currents, though tried only in consequence of the suggestion of the theory, was clearly a fact distinct from electromagnetic action; yet all these facts flowed alike from the theory. And thus Ampère brought into view a class of forces for which the term “electromagnetic” was too limited, and which he designated[14] by the appropriate term electrodynamic; distinguishing them by this expression, as the forces of an electric current, from the statical effects of electricity which we had formerly to treat of. This term has passed into common use among scientific writers, and remains the record and stamp of the success of the Amperian induction.

[14] Ann. de Chim., tom. xx. p. 60 (1822).

The first promulgation of Ampère’s views was by a communication to the French Academy of Sciences, September the 18th, 1820; Oersted’s discoveries having reached Paris only in the preceding July. [248] At almost every meeting of the Academy during the remainder of that year and the beginning of the following one, he had new developements or new confirmations of his theory to announce. The most hypothetical part of his theory,—the proposition that magnets might be considered in their effects as identical with spiral voltaic wires,—he asserted from the very first. The mutual attraction and repulsion of voltaic wires,—the laws of this action,—the deduction of the observed facts from it by calculation,—the determination, by new experiments, of the constant quantities which entered into his formulæ,—followed in rapid succession. The theory must be briefly stated. It had already been seen that parallel voltaic currents attracted each other; when, instead of being parallel, they were situate in any directions, they still exerted attractive and repulsive forces depending on the distance, and on the directions of each element of both currents. Add to this doctrine the hypothetical constitution of magnets, namely, that a voltaic current runs round the axis of each particle, and we have the means of calculating a vast variety of results which may be compared with experiment. But the laws of the elementary forces required further fixation. What functions are the forces of the distance and the directions of the elements?

To extract from experiment an answer to this inquiry was far from easy, for the elementary forces were mathematically connected with the observed facts, by a double mathematical integration;—a long, and, while the constant coefficients remained undefined, hardly a possible operation. Ampère made some trials in this way, but his happier genius suggested to him a better path. It occurred to him, that if his integrals, without being specially found, could be shown to vanish upon the whole, under certain conditions of the problem, this circumstance would correspond to arrangements of his apparatus in which a state of equilibrium was preserved, however the form of some of the parts might be changed. He found two such cases, which were of great importance to the theory. The first of these cases proved that the force exerted by any element of the voltaic wire might be resolved into other forces by a theorem resembling the well-known proposition of the parallelogram of forces. This was proved by showing that the action of a straight wire is the same with that of another wire which joins the same extremities, but is bent and contorted in any way whatever. But it still remained necessary to determine two fundamental quantities; one which expressed the power of the distance according to which the force varied; the other, the [249] degree in which the force is affected by the obliquity of the elements. One of the general causes of equilibrium, of which we have spoken, gave a relation between these two quantities;[15] and as the power was naturally, and, as it afterwards appeared, rightly conjectured to be the inverse square, the other quantity also was determined; and the general problem of electrodynamical action was fully solved.

[15] Communication to the Acad. Sc., June 10, 1822. See Ampère, Recueil, p. 292.

If Ampère had not been an accomplished analyst, he would not have been able to discover the condition on which the nullity of the integral in this case depended.[16] And throughout his labors, we find reason to admire, both his mathematical skill, and his steadiness of thought; although these excellences are by no means accompanied throughout with corresponding clearness and elegance of exposition in his writings.

[16] Recueil, p. 314.

Reception of Ampère’s Theory.—Clear mathematical conceptions, and some familiarity with mathematical operations, were needed by readers also, in order to appreciate the evidence of the theory; and, therefore, we need not feel any surprise if it was, on its publication and establishment, hailed with far less enthusiasm than so remarkable a triumph of generalizing power might appear to deserve. For some time, indeed, the greater portion of the public were naturally held in suspense by the opposing weight of rival names. The Amperian theory did not make its way without contention and competition. The electro-magnetic experiments, from their first appearance, gave a clear promise of some new and wide generalization; and held out a prize of honor and fame to him who should be first in giving the right interpretation of the riddle. In France, the emulation for such reputation is perhaps more vigilant and anxious than it is elsewhere; and we see, on this as on other occasions, the scientific host of Paris springing upon a new subject with an impetuosity which, in a short time, runs into controversies for priority or for victory. In this case, M. Biot, as well as Ampère, endeavored to reduce the electro-magnetic phenomena to general laws. The discussion between him and Ampère turned on some points which are curious. M. Biot was disposed to consider as an elementary action, the force which an element of a voltaic wire exerts upon a magnetic particle, and which is, as we have seen, at right angles to their mutual distance; and he conceived that [250] the equal reaction which necessarily accompanies this action acts oppositely to the action, not in the same line, but in a parallel line, at the other extremity of the distance; thus forming a primitive couple, to use a technical expression borrowed from mechanics. To this Ampère objected,[17] that the direct opposition of all elementary action and reaction was a universal and necessary mechanical law. He showed too that such a couple as had been assumed, would follow as a derivative result from his theory. And in comparing his own theory with that in which the voltaic wire is assimilated to a collection of transverse magnets, he was also able to prove that no such assemblage of forces acting to and from fixed points, as the forces of magnets do act, could produce a continued motion like that discovered by Faraday. This, indeed, was only the well-known demonstration of the impossibility of a perpetual motion. If, instead of a collection of magnets, the adverse theorists had spoken of a magnetic current, they might probably interpret their expressions so as to explain the facts; that is, if they considered every element of such a current as a magnet, and consequently, every point of it as being a north and a south point at the same instant. But to introduce such a conception of a magnetic current was to abandon all the laws of magnetic action hitherto established; and consequently to lose all that gave the hypothesis its value. The idea of an electric current, on the other hand, was so far from being a new and hazardous assumption, that it had already been forced upon philosophers from the time of Volta; and in this current, the relation of preceding and succeeding, which necessarily existed between the extremities of any element, introduced that relative polarity on which the success of the explanations of the facts depended. And thus in this controversy, the theory of Ampère has a great and undeniable superiority over the rival hypotheses.

[17] Ampère, Théorie, p. 154.

CHAPTER VII.
Consequences of the Electrodynamic Theory.

IT is not necessary to state the various applications which were soon made of the electro-magnetic discoveries. But we may notice one [251] of the most important,—the Galvanometer, an instrument which, by enabling the philosopher to detect and to measure extremely minute electrodynamic actions, gave an impulse to the subject similar to that which it received from the invention of the Leyden Phial, or the Voltaic Pile. The strength of the voltaic current was measured, in this instrument, by the deflection produced in a compass-needle; and its sensibility was multiplied by making the wire pass repeatedly above and below the needle. Schweigger, of Halle, was one of the first devisers of this apparatus.

The substitution of electro-magnets, that is, of spiral tubes composed of voltaic wires, for common magnets, gave rise to a variety of curious apparatus and speculations, some of which I shall hereafter mention.

[2nd Ed.] [When a voltaic apparatus is in action, there may be conceived to be a current of electricity running through its various elements, as stated in the text. The force of this current in various parts of the circuit has been made the subject of mathematical investigation by M. Ohm.[18] The problem is in every respect similar to that of the flow of heat through a body, and taken generally, leads to complex calculations of the same kind. But Dr. Ohm, by limiting the problem in the first place by conditions which the usual nature and form of voltaic apparatus suggest, has been able to give great simplicity to his reasonings. These conditions are, the linear form of the conductors (wires) and the steadiness of the electric state. For this part of the problem Dr. Ohm’s reasonings are as simple and as demonstrative as the elementary propositions of Mechanics. The formulæ for the electric force of a voltaic current to which he is led have been experimentally verified by others, especially Fechner,[19] Gauss,[20] Lenz, Jacobi, Poggendorf, and Pouillet.

[18] Die Galvanische Kette Mathematisch bearbeitet von Dr. G. S. Ohm, Berlin, 1827.

[19] Mass-bestimmungen über die Galvanische Kette. Leipzig, 1831.

[20] Results of the Magnetic Association.

Among ourselves, Mr. Wheatstone has confirmed and applied the views of M. Ohm, in a Memoir[21] On New Instruments and Processes for determining the Constants of a Voltaic Circuit. He there remarks that the clear ideas of electromotive forces and resistances, substituted by Ohm for the vague notions of quantity and intensity which have long been prevalent, give satisfactory explanations of the most important difficulties, and express the laws of a vast number of phenomena [252] in formulæ of remarkable simplicity and generality. In this Memoir, Professor Wheatstone describes an instrument which he terms Rheostat, because it brings to a common standard the voltaic currents which are compared by it. He generalizes the language of the subject by employing the term rheomotor for any apparatus which originates an electric current (whether voltaic or thermoelectric, &c.) and rheometer for any instrument to measure the force of such a current. It appears that the idea of constructing an instrument of the nature of the Rheostat had occurred also to Prof. Jacobi, of St Petersburg.]

[21] Phil. Trans. 1843. Pt. 11.

The galvanometer led to the discovery of another class of cases in which the electrodynamical action was called into play, namely, those in which a circuit, composed of two metals only, became electro-magnetic by heating one part of it. This discovery of thermo-electricity was made by Professor Seebeck of Berlin, in 1822, and prosecuted by various persons; especially by Prof. Cumming[22] of Cambridge, who, early in 1823, extended the examination of this property to most of the metals, and determined their thermo-electric order. But as these investigations exhibited no new mechanical effects of electromotive forces, they do not now further concern us; and we pass on, at present, to a case in which such forces act in a manner different from any of those already described.

[22] Camb. Trans. vol. ii. p. 62. On the Development of Electro-Magnetism by Heat.

Discovery of Diamagnetism.

[2nd Ed.] [By the discoveries just related, a cylindrical spiral of wire through which an electric current is passing is identified with a magnet; and the effect of such a spiral is increased by placing in it a core of soft iron. By the use of such a combination under the influence of a voltaic battery, magnets are constructed far more powerful than those which depend upon the permanent magnetism of iron. The electro-magnet employed by Dr. Faraday in some of his experiments would sustain a hundred-weight at either end.

By the use of such magnets Dr. Faraday discovered that, besides iron, nickel and cobalt, which possess magnetism in a high degree, many bodies are magnetic in a slight degree. And he made the further very important discovery, that of those substances which are not magnetic, many, perhaps all, possess an opposite property, in virtue of which he terms them diamagnetic. The opposition is of this [253] kind;—that magnetic bodies in the form of bars or needles, if free to move, arrange themselves in the axial line joining the poles; diamagnetic bodies under the same circumstances arrange themselves in an equatorial position, perpendicular to the axial line. And this tendency he conceives to be the result of one more general; that whereas magnetic bodies are attracted to the poles of a magnet, diamagnetic bodies are repelled from the poles. The list of diamagnetic bodies includes all kinds of substances; not only metals, as antimony, bismuth, gold, silver, lead, tin, zinc, but many crystals, glass, phosphorus, sulphur, sugar, gum, wood, ivory; and even flesh and fruit.

It appears that M. le Bailli had shown, in 1829, that both bismuth and antimony and bismuth repelled the magnetic needle; and as Dr. Faraday remarks, it is astonishing that such an experiment should have remained so long without further results. M. Becquerel in 1827 observed, and quoted Coulomb as having also observed, that a needle of wood under certain conditions pointed across the magnetic curves; and also stated that he had found a needle of wood place itself parallel to the wires of a galvanometer. This he referred to a magnetism transverse to the length. But he does not refer the phenomena to elementary repulsive action, nor show that they are common to an immense class of bodies, nor distinguish this diamagnetic from the magnetic class, as Faraday has taught us to do.

I do not dwell upon the peculiar phenomena of copper which, in the same series of researches, are traced by Dr. Faraday to the combined effect of its diamagnetic character, and the electric currents excited in it by the electro-magnet; nor to the optical phenomena manifested by certain transparent diamagnetic substances under electric action; as already stated in [Book ix].[23]] ~Additional material in the [3rd edition].~

[23] See the Twentieth Series of Experimental Researches in Electricity, read to the Royal Society, Dec. 18, 1845.

CHAPTER VIII.
Discovery of the Laws of Magneto-Electric Induction.—Faraday.

IT was clearly established by Ampère, as we have seen, that magnetic action is a peculiar form of electromotive actions, and that, in [254] this kind of agency, action and reaction are equal and opposite. It appeared to follow almost irresistibly from these considerations, that magnetism might be made to produce electricity, as electricity could be made to imitate all the effects of magnetism. Yet for a long time the attempts to obtain such a result were fruitless. Faraday, in 1825, endeavored to make the conducting-wire of the voltaic circuit excite electricity in a neighboring wire by induction, as the conductor charged with common electricity would have done, but he obtained no such effect. If this attempt had succeeded, the magnet, which, for all such purposes, is an assemblage of voltaic circuits, might also have been made to excite electricity. About the same time, an experiment was made in France by M. Arago, which really involved the effect thus sought; though this effect was not extricated from the complex phenomenon, till Faraday began his splendid career of discovery on this subject in 1832. Arago’s observation was, that the rapid revolution of a conducting-plate in the neighborhood of a magnet, gave rise to a force acting on the magnet. In England, Messrs. Barlow and Christie, Herschel and Babbage, repeated and tried to analyse this experiment; but referring the forces only to conditions of space and time, and overlooking the real cause, the electrical currents produced by the motion, these philosophers were altogether unsuccessful in their labors. In 1831, Faraday again sought for electro-dynamical induction, and after some futile trials, at last found it in a form different from that in which he had looked for it. It was then seen, that at the precise time of making or breaking the contact which closed the galvanic circuit, a momentary effect was induced in a neighboring wire, but disappeared instantly.[24] Once in possession of this fact, Mr. Faraday ran rapidly up the ladder of discovery, to the general point of view.—Instead of suddenly making or breaking the contact of the inducing circuit, a similar effect was produced by removing the inducible wire nearer to or further from the circuit;[25]—the effects were increased by the proximity of soft iron;[26]—when the soft iron was affected by an ordinary magnet instead of the voltaic wire, the same effect still recurred;[27]—and thus it appeared, that by making and breaking magnetic contact, a momentary electric current was produced. It was produced also by moving the magnet;[28]—or by moving the wire with reference to the magnet.[29] Finally, it was found that the earth might supply the place of a magnet [255] in this as in other experiments;[30] and the mere motion of a wire, under proper circumstances, produced in it, it appeared, a momentary electric current.[31] These facts were curiously confirmed by the results in special cases. They explained Arago’s experiments: for the momentary effect became permanent by the revolution of the plate. And without using the magnet, a revolving plate became an electrical machine;[32]—a revolving globe exhibited electro-magnetic action,[33] the circuit being complete in the globe itself without the addition of any wire;—and a mere motion of the wire of a galvanometer produced an electro-dynamic effect upon its needle.[34]

[24] Phil. Trans. 1832, p. 127, First Series, Art. 10.

[25] Art. 18.

[26] Art. 28.

[27] Art. 37.

[28] Art. 39.

[29] Art. 53.

[30] Second Series, Phil. Trans. p. 163.

[31] Art. 141.

[32] Art. 150.

[33] Art. 164.

[34] Art. 171.

But the question occurs, What is the general law which determines the direction of electric currents thus produced by the joint effects of motion and magnetism? Nothing but a peculiar steadiness and clearness in his conceptions of space, could have enabled Mr. Faraday to detect the law of this phenomenon. For the question required that he should determine the mutual relations in space which connect the magnetic poles, the position of the wire, the direction of the wire’s motion, and the electrical current produced in it. This was no easy problem; indeed, the mere relation of the magnetic to the electric forces, the one set being perpendicular to the other, is of itself sufficient to perplex the mind; as we have seen in the history of the electrodynamical discoveries. But Mr. Faraday appears to have seized at once the law of the phenomena. “The relation,” he says,[35] “which holds between the magnetic pole, the moving wire or metal, and the direction of the current evolved, is very simple (so it seemed to him) although rather difficult to express.” He represents it by referring position and motion to the “magnetic curves,” which go from a magnetic pole to the opposite pole. The current in the wire sets one way or the other, according to the direction in which the motion of the wire cuts these curves. And thus he was enabled, at the end of his Second Series of Researches (December, 1831), to give, in general terms, the law of nature to which may be referred the extraordinary number of new and curious experiments which he has stated;[36]—namely, that if a wire move so as to cut a magnetic curve, a power is called into action which tends to urge a magnetic current through the wire; and that if a mass move so that its parts do not move in the same direction across the magnetic curves, [256] and with the same angular velocity, electrical currents are called into play in the mass.

[35] First Series, Art. 114.

[36] Art. 256–264.

This rule, thus simple from its generality, though inevitably complex in every special case, may be looked upon as supplying the first demand of philosophy, the law of the phenomena; and accordingly Dr. Faraday has, in all his subsequent researches on magneto-electric induction, applied this law to his experiments; and has thereby unravelled an immense amount of apparent inconsistency and confusion, for those who have followed him in his mode of conceiving the subject.

But yet other philosophers have regarded these phenomena in other points of view, and have stated the laws of the phenomena in a manner different from Faraday’s, although for the most part equivalent to his. And these attempts to express, in the most simple and general form, the law of the phenomena of magneto-electrical induction, have naturally been combined with the expression of other laws of electrical and magnetical phenomena. Further, these endeavors to connect and generalize the Facts have naturally been clothed in the garb of various Theories:—the laws of phenomena have been expressed in terms of the supposed causes of the phenomena; as fluids, attractions and repulsions, particles with currents running through them or round them, physical lines of force, and the like. Such views, and the conflict of them, are the natural and hopeful prognostics of a theory which shall harmonize their discords and include all that each contains of Truth. The fermentation at present is perhaps too great to allow us to see clearly the truth which lies at the bottom. But a few of the leading points of recent discussions on these subjects will be noticed in the [Additions] to this volume.

CHAPTER IX.
Transition to Chemical Science.

THE preceding train of generalization may justly appear extensive, and of itself well worthy of admiration. Yet we are to consider all that has there been established as only one-half of the science to which it belongs,—one limb of the colossal form of Chemistry. We [257] have ascertained, we will suppose, the laws of Electric Polarity; but we have then to ask, What is the relation of this Polarity to Chemical Composition? This was the great problem which, constantly present to the minds of electro-chemical inquirers, drew them on, with the promise of some deep and comprehensive insight into the mechanism of nature. Long tasks of research, though only subsidiary to this, were cheerfully undertaken. Thus Faraday[37] describes himself as compelled to set about satisfying himself of the identity of common, animal, and voltaic electricity, as “the decision of a doubtful point which interfered with the extension of his views, and destroyed the strictness of reasoning.” Having established this identity, he proceeded with his grand undertaking of electro-chemical research.

[37] Dec. 1832. Researches, 266.

The connexion of electrical currents with chemical action, though kept out of sight in the account we have hitherto given, was never forgotten by the experimenters; for, in fact, the modes in which electrical currents were excited, were chemical actions;—the action of acids and metals on each other in the voltaic trough, or in some other form. The dependence of the electrical effect on these chemical actions, and still more, the chemical actions produced by the agency of the poles of the circuit, had been carefully studied; and we must now relate with what success.

But in what terms shall we present this narration? We have spoken of chemical actions,—but what kind of actions are these? Decomposition; the resolution of compounds into their ingredients; the separation of acids from bases; the reduction of bodies to simple elements. These names open to us a new drama; they are words which belong to a different set of relations of things, a different train of scientific inductions, a different system of generalizations, from any with which we have hitherto been concerned. We must learn to understand these phrases, before we can advance in our history of human knowledge.

And how are we to learn the meaning of this collection of words? In what other language shall it be explained? In what terms shall we define these new expressions? To this we are compelled to reply, that we cannot translate these terms into any ordinary language;—that we cannot define them in any terms already familiar to us. Here, as in all other branches of knowledge, the meaning of words is to be sought in the progress of thought; the history of science is our [258] dictionary; the steps of scientific induction are our definitions. It is only by going back through the successful researches of men respecting the composition and elements of bodies, that we can learn in what sense such terms must be understood, so as to convey real knowledge. In order that they may have a meaning for us, we must inquire what meaning they had in the minds of the authors of our discoveries.

And thus we cannot advance a step, till we have brought up our history of Chemistry to the level of our history of Electricity;—till we have studied the progress of the analytical, as well as the mechanical sciences. We are compelled to pause and look backwards here; just as happened in the history of astronomy, when we arrived at the brink of the great mechanical inductions of Newton, and found that we must trace the history of Mechanics, before we could proceed to mechanical Astronomy. The terms “force, attraction, inertia, momentum,” sent us back into preceding centuries then, just as the terms “composition” and “element” send us back now.

Nor is it to a small extent that we have thus to double back upon our past advance. Next to Astronomy, Chemistry is one of the most ancient of sciences;—the field of the earliest attempts of man to command and understand nature. It has held men for centuries by a kind of fascination; and innumerable and endless are the various labors, the failures and successes, the speculations and conclusions, the strange pretences and fantastical dreams, of those who have pursued it. To exhibit all these, or give any account of them, would be impossible; and for our design, it would not be pertinent. To extract from the mass that which is to our purpose, is difficult; but the attempt must be made. We must endeavor to analyse the history of Chemistry, so far as it has tended towards the establishment of general principles. We shall thus obtain a sight of generalizations of a new kind, and shall prepare ourselves for others of a higher order.