In the next section, “On Some General Observations on these Phenomena, and on the Mode of Decomposition and Transition,” he summarises the foregoing results:-- “It will be a general expression of the facts that have been detailed, relating to the changes and transitions by electricity, in common philosophical language, to say that hydrogen, the alkaline substances, the metals, and certain metallic oxides, are attracted by negatively electrified metallic surfaces, and repelled by positively electrified metallic surfaces; and contrariwise, that oxygen and acid substances are attracted by positively electrified metallic surfaces, and repelled by negatively electrified metallic surfaces; and these attractive and repulsive forces are sufficiently energetic to destroy or suspend the usual operation of elective affinity. “It is very natural to suppose, that the repellent and attractive energies are communicated from one _particle to another particle_ of the same kind, so as to establish a conducting chain in the fluid; and that the locomotion takes place in consequence; and that this is really the case seems to be shown by many facts. Thus, in all the instances in which I examined alkaline solutions through which acids had been transmitted, I always found acid in them whenever any acid matter remained at the original source.... “In the cases of the separation of the constituents of water, and of solutions of neutral salts forming the whole of the chain, there may possibly be a succession of decompositions, and recompositions throughout the fluid. And this idea is strengthened by the experiments on the attempt to pass barytes through sulphuric acid, and muriatic acid through solution of sulphate of silver, in which as insoluble compounds are formed and carried out of the sphere of the electrical action, the power of transfer is destroyed.” In the next section, “On the General Principles of the Chemical Changes produced by Electricity,” he points out that it had been already shown by Bennet that many bodies brought into contact and afterwards separated exhibited _opposite_ states of electricity; and that this observation had been confirmed and extended by Volta, who had supposed that it also takes place with regard to metals and fluids. In his paper in the _Philosophical Transactions_ of 1801, the first he sent to the Royal Society, Davy had shown that when alternations of single metallic plates and acid and alkaline solutions were employed in the construction of voltaic combinations, the alkaline solutions always received the electricity from the metal, and the acid always transmitted it to the metal.