This work, says his biographer in the “English Cyclopædia” (Vol. IV. p. 557), takes the widest possible view of natural science: it is interesting as a document in the history of a great mental movement and contains the germs of those principles which are now regarded as the secure generalization of well-observed facts.
From the epitome of the work given in the “Encyclopædia Britannica,” the following is extracted: “Polarity is the first force which appears in the world.... Galvanism is the principle of life ... the vital force ... the galvanic process is one with the vital process.... There is no other vital force than the galvanic polarity.”
According to Dr. Richard Owen, Lorenz Oken contends that organism is galvanism residing in a thoroughly homogeneous mass. A galvanic pile, pounded into atoms, must become alive. In this manner, nature brings forth organic bodies. The basis of electricity is the air; of magnetism, metal; of chemism (the name he gives to the influence that produces chemical combination), salts. The basis of galvanism, in like manner, is the organic mass. Accordingly, whatever is organic is galvanic; whatever is alive is galvanic. Life, organism, galvanism, are one. Life is the vital process; the vital process is an organic or galvanic process. Galvanism is the basis of all the processes of the organic world.... God did not make man out of nothing, but took an elemental body then existing, an earth-clod or carbon, moulded it into form, thus making use of water, and breathed into it life, viz. air, whereby galvanism or the vital process arose.... Organization is produced by the co-operating process of light and heat. The ether imparts the substance, the heat the form, the light the life.... The life of an inorganic body is a threefold action of the three terrestrial elements, in which three processes galvanism consists. The nutrient process is magnetic, present and entire in every part of the body, and wheresoever it is withdrawn there is death.... These three processes constitute the galvanic process. Thus the galvanic circle is complete, and motion is the manipulation of galvanism. The process of motion is synonymous with the galvanic process—this is the vital process.
References.—The extended biography of Lorenz Oken, embracing a list of his chief works and original essays at pp. 498–503, Vol. XVI of the Eighth “Encycl. Britan.”; Dr. William Whewell’s “History of the Inductive Sciences,” 1859, Vol. II. p. 477; “Hist. des Sciences,” par F. L. M. Maupied, Paris, 1847, Vol. II. pp. 466–514.
A.D. 1809.—Luc (Jean André de), celebrated natural philosopher of Swiss extraction (though from 1773 until his death in 1817, a resident of England, where he became reader to Queen Charlotte, the consort of George III), transmits to the Royal Society a long paper treating of the separation of the chemical from the electrical effects of the pile, with a description of the electric column and aerial electroscope.
In this communication, says Dr. Young, he advanced opinions so little in unison with the latest discoveries of the day, especially with those of the President of the Royal Society, that the Council probably thought it would be either encouraging error or leading to controversy to admit them into the Philosophical Transactions. He had, indeed, on other occasions shown somewhat too much scepticism in the rejection of new facts; and he had never been convinced even of Mr. Cavendish’s all-important discovery of the composition of water.
The paper was afterwards published in Nicholson’s Journal (Vol. XXVI), and the dry column described in it was constructed by various experimental philosophers. It exhibited a continual vibrating motion, made sensible by the sound of a little bell, which was struck by the pendulum at each alternation; and during many months the vibration was more or less rapid, according to circumstances affecting the column.
This dry column consists of discs of Dutch gilt paper, alternated with similar discs of laminated zinc, so arranged that the order of succession will be maintained throughout. When sufficiently dry these are piled upon each other, the gilt side of the paper being in contact with the zinc, and all are pressed together in a glass tube by a brass cap and screw connected at each end with a metallic wire. The column presented by De Luc to the Royal Society consisted of 300 discs of zinc and of 300 discs of gilt paper. It is said that, with a larger column, the vibration of a brass ball suspended between two bells was so continued as to maintain a perpetual ringing for over two years; that with an apparatus comprising 20,000 groups of silver, zinc and double discs of writing paper, sparks have been obtained, while a Leyden jar was charged in ten minutes with sufficient electricity to produce shocks and to fuse an inch of platinum wire of an inch in diameter; and that a similar pile, in the Clarendon Laboratory at Oxford, rang ten small bells continuously for over forty years.
In Vols. XXXV, XXXVI and XXXVII of the “Phil. Mag.,” and in Vols. XXVII and XXVIII of “Nicholson’s Journal,” André de Luc shows how the dry column can be used for determining the insulating qualities and conducting power of bodies, it having been also employed as are aerial electroscopes to indicate the electrical changes taking place in the atmosphere. The other volumes of the same publications named below contain additional papers upon electricity, galvanism, etc., while at p. 392, Vol. L of the Phil. Mag. will be found an account of De Luc’s life and principal works, the latter being likewise mentioned in Vol. XXV of the “Biographie Universelle.”
References.—B. M. Forster, “Description ... elec. col. ... De Luc ...” London, 1810; Phil. Mag., Vol. XXXVII. p. 197; J. D. Maycock, Phil. Mag., Vol. XLVIII. pp. 165, 255; L. Configliachi, “Osservazioni sulle pile a secco”; M. Delezenne, “Expériences sur les piles sèches”; Bibl. Brit. Sci. et Arts, Vol. XLVII, 1811, pp. 3, 113, 213, 313; Vol. XLIX, 1812, pp. 88–92 (Necrology of J. A. De Luc), Vol. L, 1812, p. 351 (“Nicholson’s Journal,” No. 126), also the “Bibl. Britan.” for 1812, Vol. L. pp. 279–290 (Nicholson’s Journal, April 1812), for J. D. Maycock’s reply to De Luc’s objections concerning voltaic plates (“Phil. Mag.,” Vol. XLVIII. pp. 165, 255); Gmelin’s “Chemistry,” Vol. I. pp. 424–427; G. J. Singer’s “Elements of Electricity” and William Sturgeon’s Annals of Electricity, passim, as well as his “Researches,” Bury, 1850, pp. 147, 199, 261; De la Rive’s “Treatise on Electricity,” Vol. II. p. 852; Annales de Chimie et de Physique, Vol. II. pp. 79–82 for May 1816; Gilbert’s Annalen, Vol. XLIX; also Vols. VII, 1801, to Vol. LXXIV, 1821, for various articles upon the dry pile, etc.; G. Schübler, “Uber De Luc’s Elektr. saüle ...” 1813; Geo. Wilson’s “Life of Cavendish,” London, 1851, p. 66, etc.; “Nicholson’s Journal,” Vols. XXI, XXII, XXXII, XXXIII, XXXV; Phil. Mag., Vols. XLII, XLV, the last named containing, at pp. 359–363, Mr. G. J. Singer’s paper on “The Electric Column considered as ... first mover for Mechanical Purposes,” while at pp. 466, 467 is the communication of Mr. Francis Ronalds on De Luc’s electric column. The latter is also specially referred to in Vols. XLIII. pp. 241, 363; XLVI. p. 11; XLVII. pp. 47, 48; XLVIII. pp. 165, 255; LVII. pp. 446, 447; while at p. 55 of Vol. XLIX is a paper relative to a “combination of the electric column, the thermometer, barometer and hygrometer in one instrument, for electro-atmospherical researches.”