In the treatises on physics published a little later, we find traces
of the astonishment produced by this sudden revelation of a new world.
"Electricity," wrote the Abbe Hauey, "enriched by the labour of so many
distinguished physicists, seemed to have reached the term when a
science has no further important steps before it, and only leaves to
those who cultivate it the hope of confirming the discoveries of their
predecessors, and of casting a brighter light on the truths revealed.
One would have thought that all researches for diversifying the
results of experiment were exhausted, and that theory itself could
only be augmented by the addition of a greater degree of precision to
the applications of principles already known. While science thus
appeared to be making for repose, the phenomena of the convulsive
movements observed by Galvani in the muscles of a frog when connected
by metal were brought to the attention and astonishment of
physicists.... Volta, in that Italy which had been the cradle of the
new knowledge, discovered the principle of its true theory in a fact
which reduces the explanation of all the phenomena in question to the
simple contact of two substances of different nature.
Pages:
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31