It was long the scientific creed of the great chemists and natural philosophers of that country, and to the present hour there may be some of them unable to liberate themselves from the fascination of their first-love.
After the researches which I have endeavoured to place before you, it was impossible for Faraday to avoid taking a side in this controversy.
He did so in a paper 'On the Electricity of the Voltaic Pile,' received by the Royal Society on the 7th of April, 1834.

His position in the controversy might have been predicted.

He saw chemical effects going hand in hand with electrical effects, the one being proportional to the other; and, in the paper now before us, he proved that when the former was excluded, the latter were sought for in vain.

He produced a current without metallic contact; he discovered liquids which, though competent to transmit the feeblest currents--competent therefore to allow the electricity of contact to flow through them if it were able to form a current--were absolutely powerless when chemically inactive.
One of the very few experimental mistakes of Faraday occurred in this investigation.

He thought that with a single voltaic cell he had obtained the spark before the metals touched, but he subsequently discovered his error.