An 'axis' here can only mean a direction; and what we want to be able to conceive of is, not the axis along which the power acts, but the nature and mode of action of the power itself.

He objects to the vagueness of De la Rive; but the fact is, that both he and De la Rive labour under the same difficulty.

Neither wishes to commit himself to the notion of a current compounded of two electricities flowing in two opposite directions: but the time had not come, nor is it yet come, for the displacement of this provisional fiction by the true mechanical conception.

Still, however indistinct the theoretic notions of Faraday at this time may be, the facts which are rising before him and around him are leading him gradually, but surely, to results of incalculable importance in relation to the philosophy of the voltaic pile.
He had always some great object of research in view, but in the pursuit of it he frequently alighted on facts of collateral interest, to examine which he sometimes turned aside from his direct course.

Thus we find the series of his researches on electrochemical decomposition interrupted by an inquiry into 'the power of metals and other solids, to induce the combination of gaseous bodies.' This inquiry, which was received by the Royal Society on Nov.