Electrons Or the Nature And Properties of Negative Electricity

Clerk Maxwell, 1st Edition (1873), we find on page 312, in the chapter on electrolysis, the following sentence : " Suppose, however, that we leap over this difficulty by simply asserting the fact of the constant value of the molecular charge, and that we call this constant molecular charge, for convenience in description, one molecule of electricity." . . . Thus some idea of the conception of the atomic nature of electricity was long ago forced upon men of genius by the facts of electrolysis and a knowledge of Faraday's laws. But Maxwell went on, after a few more paragraphs : " It is extremely improbable that when we come to understand the true nature of electrolysis we shall retain in any form the theory of molecularcharges, for then we shall have obtained a secure basis on which to form a true theory of electric currents, and so become independent of these provisional theories." It is rash to predict what may ultimately happen, but the present state of electrical science seems hostile to this latter prediction of Maxwell. The theory of molecular charges looms bigger to-day, and has taken on a definiteness, largely as the outcome of his own work, that would have pleased and surprised him. The unit electric charge, the charge of a monad atom in electrolysis, whatever else it is, is a natural unit of electricity, of which we can have multiples, but of which, so far as we know at present, it is impossible to have fractions. I will extract the f...