But in science, as elsewhere, irony is not argument, and it soon had to be acknowledged that the hypothesis of M.Arrhenius showed itself singularly fertile and had to be regarded, at all events, as a very expressive image, if not, indeed, entirely in conformity with reality.
It would certainly be contrary to all experience, and even to common sense itself, to suppose that in dissolved chloride of sodium there is really free sodium, if we suppose these atoms of sodium to be absolutely identical with ordinary atoms.

But there is a great difference.

In the one case the atoms are electrified, and carry a relatively considerable positive charge, inseparable from their state as ions, while in the other they are in the neutral state.

We may suppose that the presence of this charge brings about modifications as extensive as one pleases in the chemical properties of the atom.

Thus the hypothesis will be removed from all discussion of a chemical order, since it will have been made plastic enough beforehand to adapt itself to all the known facts; and if we object that sodium cannot subsist in water because it instantaneously decomposes the latter, the answer is simply that the sodium ion does not decompose water as does ordinary sodium.
Still, other objections might be raised which could not be so easily refuted.