ing into the particular relation
of heat and electricity, but we may hope hereafter to discover by
experiment the law which probably holds together all the above effects with
those of the _evolution_ and the _disappearance_ of heat by the current,
and the striking and beautiful results of thermo-electricity, in one common
bond.

P viii. _Electrolytic discharge._

1343. I have already expressed in a former paper (1164.), the view by which
I hope to associate ordinary induction and electrolyzation. Under that
view, the discharge of electric forces by electrolyzation is rather an
effect superadded, in a certain class of bodies, to those already described
as constituting induction and insulation, than one independent of and
distinct from these phenomena.

1344. Electrolytes, as respects their insulating and conducting forces,
belong to the general category of bodies (1320. 1334.); and if they are in
the solid state (as nearly all can assume that state), they retain their
place, presenting then no new phenomenon (426. &c.); or if one occur, being
in so small a proportion as to be almost unimportant. When liquefied, they
also belong to the same list whilst the electric intensity is below a
certain degree; but at a given intensity (910. 912. 1007.), fixed for each,
and very low in all known cases, they play a new part, causing discharge in
proportion (783.) to the development of certain chemical effects of
combination and decomposition; and at this point, move out from the general
class of insulators and conductors, to form a distinct one by themselves.
The former phenomena have been considered (1320. 1338.); it is the latter
which have now to be revised, and used as a test of the proposed theory of
induction.

1345. The theory assumes, that the particles of the dielectric (now an
electrolyte) are in the first instance brought, by ordinary inductive
action, into a polarized state, and raised to a certain degree of tension
or intensity before discharge commences; the inductive state being, in
fact, a _necessary preliminary_ to discharge. By taking advantage of those
circumstances which bear upon the point, it is not difficult to increase
the tension indicative of this state of induction, and so make the state
itself more evident. Thus, if distilled water be employed, and a long
narrow portion of it placed between the electrodes of a powerful voltaic
battery, we have at once indications of the intensity which can be
sustai