CHAPTER III 
ATOMICITY IN ELECTRICITY AND 
MAGNETISM 
If we accept the hypothesis that elementary substances are com 
posed of atoms, we cannot avoid the conclusion that electricity, 
positive as well as negative, is divided into definite elementary pro 
portions which behave like atoms of electricity. 
Helmholtz on Faraday’s Laws of Electrolysis 
According to Ampere’s theory, therefore, all the phenomena of 
magnetism are due to electric currents, and if we could make obser 
vations of the magnetic force in the interior of a magnetic molecule, 
we should find that it obeyed exactly the same laws as the force in a 
region surrounded by any other electric circuit. 
Clerk Maxwell, Electricity and Magnetism, 
vol. ii, p. 419, 1873 
It is, perhaps, possible to explain the cause of the most irregular 
magnet by theoretically bending such small currents in the direction 
required. 
Faraday, Experimental Researches, vol. ii, p. 145, 1844 
1. The Electron Theory 
I N Michael Faraday’s Experimental Researches in Electricity,* the 
laws of electrolysis are clearly stated. These point to an 
atomic theory of electricity. Section 13 bears the suggestive 
title, “ On the Absolute quantity of Electricity associated with 
the particles or atoms of Matter.” The whole Section is extremely 
interesting, but special attention may be directed to paragraphs 
852 and 869. 
052. xu^uuugu we Know notmng ot what an atom is, yet we cannot 
resist forming some idea of a small particle, which represents it to the 
mind ; and though we are in equal, if not greater, ignorance of electricity, 
so as to be unable to say whether it is a particular matter or matters, 
or mere motion of ordinary matter, or some third kind of power or agent, 
yet there is an immensity of facts which justify us in believing that the 
atoms of matter are in some way endowed or associated with electrical 
powers, to which they owe their most striking qualities, and amongst 
them their mutual chemical affinity. As soon as we perceive, through 
the teaching of Dalton, that chemical powers are, however varied the cir- 
* Vol. 1, p. 195, seventh series, 1834. 
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