Electrolytic dissociation at first certainly appeared at least as strange; yet it has ended by forcing itself upon us, and we could, at the present day, hardly dispense with the image it presents to us.
The idea that the conductivity of metals is not essentially different from that of electrolytic liquids or gases, in the sense that the passage of the current is connected with the transport of small electrified particles, is already of old date.

It was enunciated by W.
Weber, and afterwards developed by Giese, but has only obtained its true scope through the effect of recent discoveries.

It was the researches of Riecke, later, of Drude, and, above all, those of J.J.
Thomson, which have allowed it to assume an acceptable form.

All these attempts are connected however with the general theory of Lorentz, which we will examine later.
It will be admitted that metallic atoms can, like the saline molecule in a solution, partially dissociate themselves.

Electrons, very much smaller than atoms, can move through the structure, considerable to them, which is constituted by the atom from which they have just been detached.