electrochemical decomposition.' It is evident to him that instead of
being attracted by the poles, the bodies separated are ejected by
the current. The effects thus obtained with poles of air he also
succeeded in obtaining with poles of water. The advance in
Faraday's own ideas made at this time is indicated by the word
'ejected.' He afterwards reiterates this view: the evolved
substances are expelled from the decomposing body, and 'not drawn
out by an attraction.

Having abolished this idea of polar attraction, he proceeds to
enunciate and develop a theory of his own. He refers to Davy's
celebrated Bakerian Lecture, given in 1806, which he says 'is almost
entirely occupied in the consideration of electrochemical
decompositions.' The facts recorded in that lecture Faraday regards
as of the utmost value. But 'the mode of action by which the
effects take place is stated very generally; so generally, indeed,
that probably a dozen precise schemes of electrochemical action
might be drawn up, differing essentially from each other, yet all
agreeing with the statement there given.'

It appears to me that these words might with justice be applied to
Faraday's own researches at this time. They furnish us with results
of permanent value; but little help can be found in the theory
advanced to account for them. It would, perhaps, be more correct to
say that the theory itself is hardly presentable in any tangible
form to the intellect. Faraday looks, and rightly looks, into the
heart of the decomposing body itself; he sees, and rightly sees,
active within it the forces which produce the decomposition, and he
rejects, and rightly rejects, the notion of external attraction;
but beyond the hypothesis of decompositions and recompositions,