988. In concluding this division _on the intensity necessary for electrolyzation_, I cannot resist pointing out the following remarkable conclusion in relation to intensity generally. It would appear that when a voltaic current is produced, having a certain intensity, dependent upon the strength of the chemical affinities by which that current is excited (916.), it can decompose a particular electrolyte without relation to the quantity of electricity passed, the _intensity_ deciding whether the electrolyte shall give way or not. If that conclusion be confirmed, then we may arrange circumstances so that the _same quantity_ of electricity may pass in the _same time_, in at the _same surface_, into the _same decomposing body in the same state_, and yet, differing in intensity, will _decompose in one case and in the other not_:--for taking a source of too low an intensity to decompose, and ascertaining the quantity passed in a given time, it is easy to take another source having a sufficient intensity, and reducing the quantity of electricity from it by the intervention of bad conductors to the same proportion as the former current, and then all the conditions will be fulfilled which are required to produce the result described. P iii. _On associated Voltaic Circles, or the Voltaic Battery._ 989. Passing from the consideration of single circles (875. &c.) to their association in the voltaic battery, it is a very evident consequence, that if matters are so arranged that two sets of affinities, in place of being opposed to each other as in figg. 73. 76. (880. 891.), are made to act in conformity, then, instead of either interfering with the other, it will rather assist it. This is simply the case of two voltaic pairs of metals arranged so as to form one circuit. In such arrangements the activity of the whole is known to be increased, and when ten, or a hundred, or any larger number of such alternations are placed in conformable association with each other, the power of the whole becomes proportionally exalted, and we obtain that magnificent instrument of philosophic research, the _voltaic battery_.