till further reason for
believing in such a state of things. Thus when water, chloride of tin,
iodide of lead, &c. in the solid state are between the electrodes of the
voltaic battery, their particles polarize as those of any other insulating
dielectric do (1164.); but when the liquid state is conferred on these
substances, the polarized particles divide, the two halves, each in a
highly charged state, travelling onwards until they meet other particles in
an opposite and equally charged state, with which they combine, to the
neutralization of their chemical, i.e. their electrical forces, and the
reproduction of compound particles, which can again polarize as wholes, and
again divide to repeat the same series of actions (1347.).

1703. But though electrolytic particles polarize as wholes, it would appear
very evident that in them it is not a matter of entire indifference _how_
the particle polarizes (1689.), since, when free to move (380, &c.) the
polarities are ultimately distributed in reference to the elements; and
sums of force equivalent to the polarities, and very definite in kind and
amount, separate, as it were, from each other, and travel onwards with the
elementary particles. And though I do not pretend to know what an atom is,
or how it is associated or endowed with electrical force, or how this force
is arranged in the cases of combination and decomposition, yet the strong
belief I have in the electrical polarity of particles when under inductive
action, and the hearing of such an opinion on the general effects of
induction, whether ordinary or electrolytic, will be my excuse, I trust,
for a few hypothetical considerations.

1704 In electrolyzation it appears that the polarized particles would
(because of the gradual change which has been induced upon the chemical,
i.e. the electrical forces of their elements (918.)) rather divide than
discharge to each other without division (1348.); for if their division,
i.e. their decomposition and recombination, be prevented by giving them the
solid state, then they will insulate electricity perhaps a hundredfold more
intense than that necessary for their electrolyzation (419, &c.). Hence the
tension necessary for direct conduction in such bodies appears to be much
higher than that for decomposition (419. 1164. 1344.).

1705. The remarkable stoppage of electrolytic conduction by solidification
(380. 1358.), is quite consistent with these views of the dependence of
that