e, and convection; yet the current connected with these actions,
when it occurs, appears in all cases to be the same. This constancy in the
character of the current, notwithstanding the particular and great
variations which may be made in the mode of its occurrence, is exceedingly
striking and important; and its investigation and development promise to
supply the most open and advantageous road to a true and intimate
understanding of the nature of electrical forces.

1619. As yet the phenomena of the current have presented nothing in
opposition to the view I have taken of the nature of induction as an action
of contiguous particles. I have endeavoured to divest myself of prejudices
and to look for contradictions, but I have not perceived any in conductive,
electrolytic, convective, or disruptive discharge.

1620. Looking at the current as a _cause_, it exerts very extraordinary and
diverse powers, not only in its course and on the bodies in which it
exists, but collaterally, as in inductive or magnetic phenomena.

1621. _Electrolytic action._--One of its direct actions is the exertion of
pure chemical force, this being a result which has now been examined to a
considerable extent. The effect is found to be _constant_ and _definite_
for the quantity of electric force discharged (783. &c.); and beyond that,
the _intensity_ required is in relation to the intensity of the affinity or
forces to be overcome (904. 906. 911.). The current and its consequences
are here proportionate; the one may be employed to represent the other; no
part of the effect of either is lost or gained; so that the case is a
strict one, and yet it is the very case which most strikingly illustrates
the doctrine that induction is an action of contiguous particles (1164.
1343.).

1622. The process of electrolytic discharge appears to me to be in close
analogy, and perhaps in its nature identical with another process of
discharge, which at first seems very different from it, I mean _convection_
(1347. 1572.). In the latter case the particles may travel for yards across
a chamber; they may produce strong winds in the air, so as to move
machinery; and in fluids, as oil of turpentine, may even shake the hand,
and carry heavy metallic bodies about[A]; and yet I do not see that the
force, either in kind or action, is at all different to that by which a
particle of hydrogen leaves one particle of oxygen to go to another, or by
which a particle of oxygen trave