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EDITED BY
MATHIAS ALBERT &
ANTHONY F. LANG JR.
THE POLITICS OF
INTERNATIONAL
POLITICAL THEORY
REFLECTIONS
ON THE
WORKS OF
CHRIS BROWN
The Politics of International Political Theory
Mathias Albert • Anthony F. Lang Jr.
Editors
The Politics of
International Political
Theory
Reflections on the Works of Chris Brown
Editors
Mathias Albert Anthony F. Lang Jr.
Bielefeld University University of St Andrews
Bielefeld, Germany St Andrews, UK
This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Christof Royer for his invaluable assistance in the
editing process for this volume.
v
Contents
vii
viii Contents
Part III Coda 241
13 In Response 243
Chris Brown
Index 265
Notes on Contributors
ix
x Notes on Contributors
1 Introduction
Chris Brown has been one of the most important figures in constituting
International Political Theory (IPT). Others have played crucial roles as
well, including some of those included in this volume. Yet it is Brown,
arguably, who has been central to putting political theory in conversation
with international relations theory. His ability to synthesize, critically
assess, and push the boundaries of these adjacent theoretical perspectives
has helped to frame world politics in ways that go beyond traditional and
often staid debates. Perhaps even more importantly, Brown has connected
sophisticated theoretical debates, both in contemporary and historical
theory, with pressing dilemmas of global politics in the current age. He
has consistently refused to keep theory distinct from the ‘world’ and has
also refused to let the ‘world’ of politics resist normative theorizing. In so
doing, he has brought forth the centrality of ‘judgment’, the ability to
in 1965 to attend the LSE and read for the BSc (Econ). Initially he
intended to study history as his special subject, but in the first year of the
degree he fell under the influence of Philip Windsor and so transferred to
International Relations. After receiving a First (a much more difficult
achievement at that time than it is in the modern British university),
Brown received a scholarship from the Ford Foundation-funded Centre
for International Studies at LSE, left the Civil Service, and so began work-
ing towards his PhD.
Brown took up a post at Kent University before completing his PhD. In
fact, he abandoned his thesis, which was on uses of history in international
theory and the rise of post-behaviourist scholarship, a topic which informs
some of his scholarship to this day. He realized in the 1990s that having a
PhD might be a benefit, so took one on the basis of his then recently pub-
lished book, International Theory: New Normative Perspectives (1992)
through a staff scheme at Kent. Outside of a short stint as a visiting lec-
turer at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Brown remained at
Kent until 1994. For four years, he was Professor of Politics at Southampton
University, and was then appointed to a chair in International Relations at
the LSE in 1998, where he remained until his retirement in 2014.
Brown published only a few works during his early career, a period
which allowed him to read widely and deeply across political theory and
international relations, something, he notes, which is less available to
many scholars in academia today as the pressure to publish has become
intense (Brown 2010a: 3). Brown’s ability to speak to so many different
theoretical traditions and connect those with contemporary political
events both domestic and international reflects the benefits of reading
before seeking to publish. He also notes that he benefited greatly from
colleagues outside of his department as well as inside at Kent University,
for they provided him insights into trends in the humanities that enabled
him to better appreciate postmodern theoretical developments. The
increasingly specialized nature of academic scholarship today militates
against such humanistic learning, a fact that contemporary scholars of IPT
should recognize and perhaps work towards altering. Indeed, one might
argue that IPT can only work within a humanistic approach, for it requires
training and knowledge of a broad range of different theoretical ideas.
This background knowledge was further enhanced during his time in
the USA, where he shared a department with Jean Bethke Elshtain and
William Connolly during the academic year 1981–1982, the former a
leading feminist (and later realist) thinker of international relations and
INTRODUCTION: THE POLITICS OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL THEORY 5
In defining his task in this way, Brown helpfully locates not just norma-
tive theorists but assumptions that orient much of the wider scholarship in
IR. For instance, the importance of the national interest to many realist
scholars relies on a valuation of the sovereign state over other institutional
forms. While classical realists such as Hans Morgenthau and George
Kennan were explicit about the moral value of the state (see Lang Jr.
2007), the same moral assumptions, usually unacknowledged, underlie
much of the research agendas of neorealist scholars, such as Kenneth
Waltz. This is not to disparage such works, but rather to highlight that
their normative agendas should be acknowledged and perhaps better
defended by those working in these areas.
A second point arising from Brown’s framing is that he undertakes it
through an engagement with the history of political thought. In his influ-
ential co-edited volume of texts drawn from this history, Brown (along
with Terry Nardin and Nicholas Rengger) contextualizes and makes rele-
vant this history (Brown et al. 2002). In his scholarship, this task is done
rather lightly by Brown, in such a way that these historical figures inform
his work without falling into a purely historicist approach. Brown uses
these figures to both reveal how IR theory might be inheritors of tradi-
tions which it may not know of and also, more importantly, engage in a
dialogue with them. For instance, in the chapter on communitarianism in
IRT, Brown engages in an extended discussion of G.W.F. Hegel. One way
to read Hegel in the context of IR theory would be to locate the ways in
which realists such as Morgenthau inherited a Hegelian state worship
which has informed the study of IR ever since. This link Brown acknowl-
edges, but he also explores the subtleties of Hegel’s ideas in relation to
other theorists, both those against whom Hegel was reacting and those
who developed his ideas throughout the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries.4 Even more importantly, Brown does not simply accept Hegel’s
theories, but notes the difficulty of accepting a ‘secular’ Hegel (Brown
1992: 64). This critical encounter with Hegel suggests how Brown’s work
moves from ‘normative IR theory’ to IPT; that is, instead of simply under-
taking a history of political thought or IR theory, Brown is engaging in a
critical dialogue with that history in order to better understand different
positions within IR theory.
Brown concludes IRT with a discussion of what was at the time of his
writing a new set of approaches in IR theory—critical and postmodern
theories. He provides a nuanced and careful overview of such theories.
8 A. F. LANG JR. AND M. ALBERT
This overview is reduced to one paragraph in SRJ (Brown 2002: 17) and
completely disappears from ISGP. He suggests that,
rights and justice, this book has a stronger political theory orientation
than the previous one. It is here that the idea of IPT begins to take shape
as a conscious endeavour.
SRJ explores a number of important themes, some of which extend
those previously addressed in IRT. Completed only weeks before the
attacks of September 11, 2001, the book includes a short prologue
addressing the significance of that event. At the same time, it notes that
the work as it stands speaks directly to the underlying themes brought
forth by the attacks and the ensuing debates about the clash of civilizations
and the rise of violent non-state actors. The last three chapters explore
cultural diversity and the state system, which became (and continue to be)
directly relevant to the conflicts in Central Asia and the Middle East. One
point he makes in responding to September 11 is directly relevant to how
he understands IPT. He notes that Samuel Huntington’s idea of a ‘clash
of civilizations’ while raising an important point, simplifies and essential-
izes a number of complex themes which the field of IPT seeks to interpret.
In response, Brown argues:
His most recent book is the one most explicitly presented as an IPT
textbook. ISGP (2016) moves his framing further away from the cosmo-
politan/communitarian structure found in IRT. Instead, ISGP presents
the issues of war, justice, and human rights through the framework of a
society of states versus a global polity of agents which includes states but
also puts individuals and other actors forward as important parts of the
international system. International society draws on both international law
and ‘English School’ theories of IR, bringing them together in a creative
way to understand the use of force, human rights, and humanitarian inter-
vention. The global polity idea is not a purely cosmopolitan alternative,
however, for Brown notes that to see the world as a global polity does not
remove states but understands them as one among many agents in the
international order. It does, however, like cosmopolitanism, put the indi-
vidual person first and understands that person’s rights and responsibilities
differently than a purely society of states approach. In so doing, Brown is
able to reframe issues such as distributive justice, international criminal
law, and humanitarian intervention in new and interesting ways.
This alternative framing reminds IPT theorists of the importance of
certain strands in IR theory. At one level, this should not be surprising, for
Brown has always seen IPT as related to IR theory. But, for some who
come to IPT from disciplines such as philosophy and who adopt more
strictly liberal cosmopolitan orientations, the idea of a society of states
makes little or no sense. As such, Brown’s framing here provides an alter-
native to some of the staid debates about just war, distributive justice, and
human rights that often animate such theorists. In some sense, Brown’s
approach in this book is to look at the same issues and events through the
two different framing prisms, resulting in, for instance, two parallel
discussions of intervention and humanitarianism. Importantly, his argu-
ment is not a progressive one in which the society of states is replaced by
the global polity; rather, his argument is that the two sit side by side in the
world order and result in conflicting understandings and moral valuations
of what is going on around us.
One interesting question in this context, and one certainly also sug-
gested by the title of the book, International Society, Global Polity, is
whether Brown—or, more correctly, Brown-style IPT—actually is part of
the so-called English School. While opinions on this issue vary, and the
question about membership might not be that useful if the person in ques-
tion repeatedly insists that he is not a member, the English School certainly
features prominently in Brown’s thought. While not counting him in the
INTRODUCTION: THE POLITICS OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL THEORY 11
inner circle, Buzan’s bookkeeping on the subject lists him as ‘regular con-
tributor’, the definition of which being someone who has ‘written three or
more substantial items directly on English school topics’ (Buzan 2014: 1).
We argue that Chris Brown’s relation to the English School can best be
described by three characteristics: Firstly, he seems to broadly agree that
the analytical triptych of an international system (of states), and interna-
tional society (of states), and a world society and/or community (of,
according to some versions, non-states only or non-states and states
together) is a useful figure for describing the social orders of international
relations. However, secondly, he remains critical of the English School’s
emphasis on international society in this context. This criticism pertains
not primarily to empirical diagnoses about the existence of a social forma-
tion that can be described as an international society of states. Rather, in a
criticism that actually resonates with much of Brown’s criticism of IR the-
ory that is not IPT, he argues ‘that an approach that places primary empha-
sis on the nature of international society is likely to isolate itself from the
wider discourses of political and social philosophy in ways that cannot be
defended in terms of any alleged sui generis features of international rela-
tions’ (Brown 2000: 91; emphases in original). Thirdly, however, for all
his professed non-membership in the English School, when it comes to
confronting its thought with theoretically quite different takes on interna-
tional politics and world order, there is an impression that he would rather
err on the English School side (see, for example, Brown 2004 in relation
to systems theory).5
In ISGP, Brown once more seeks to distinguish his approach from
those more prescriptive theorists of IPT. In so doing, he differentiates IPT
from ethics and international affairs, though he certainly acknowledges
the importance of those undertaking this work, for instance, at the
Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, and their house jour-
nal Ethics & International Affairs.6 For Brown, though, his approach is
that of a political theorist, one whose job is not to advocate for policy
prescriptions but to interpret and clarify. This matches his call in the pro-
logue to SRJ, in which he asks us to ‘set out our values’, a task sometimes
assumed rather than undertaken.
In sum, Brown has framed and reframed IPT through these three texts,
along with many others. In so doing, he has developed the field of IPT in
important and interesting ways. Admittedly, some issues and concerns slip
through these frames, leaving us without his powerful insights into impor-
tant matters such as world religion and the environment. But, despite
12 A. F. LANG JR. AND M. ALBERT
Had I realised then that the natural defenders of the Enlightenment were
going to make such a poor fist of the task over the next two decades, I would
have been a lot less willing to endorse their critics. I suppose I am really
acknowledging a degree of hypocrisy here; along with a great many late-
modern writers, I surmise, I was willing to kick against liberal rationalism
largely because I thought it would always be there. Part of the story that
unfolds in subsequent essays reflects a gradual realization that this might not
be the case. (Brown 2010a: 11)
INTRODUCTION: THE POLITICS OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL THEORY 13
This admission suggests that Brown sees part of his task as one of criti-
cism, the kind of criticism described in the previous section, one of engag-
ing in dialogue with others but only if they can engage in similar forms of
critique. Liberalism provided a standard against which all such critique
took place, but as Brown notes here, if the underlying rational discourse
assumed by liberalism fails, then perhaps liberalism itself may need
rescuing?
As expressed in this quote, though, Brown himself has been a rather
pungent critic of many liberal assumptions. He acknowledges the impor-
tance of figures such as John Rawls (Brown 2002) and Charles Beitz
(Brown 2005) in establishing liberal political theory and making it rele-
vant for understanding the international realm. Indeed, he defends Rawls’
turn to the international more than some students of Rawls, such as Beitz
and Thomas Pogge. In an essay on liberalism and the globalization of eth-
ics, Brown acknowledges liberalism’s complexity, though he notes that it
relies, ultimately, on the importance of the individual (Brown 2010a:
165). This essay explores one of the core dilemmas of liberalism, either
domestic or international; the tension between the universalism of defend-
ing that individual and his/her rights and the necessity of accepting and
tolerating differences among individuals and communities to pursue their
own goals and life plans. This core liberal dilemma, one addressed by fig-
ures such as John Locke, informs much of Brown’s scholarship. That is,
seeking to negotiate this space between the particular and the universal
constitutes a central dimension of Brown’s work, and, one might argue,
IPT more generally.
A different approach to this same issue comes out in Brown’s reflections
on human rights. His essay ‘Universal Human Rights: A Critique’ (Brown
2010b [1998]) provides a powerful and important assessment of the prob-
lems surrounding human rights. Criticisms of the universality of human
rights abound, but Brown’s critique refuses to be a simple one of relativ-
ism. Rather, in a nuanced and powerful argument, he posits that human
rights can only work in particular kinds of liberal societies, one from within
which human rights defenders either write or act. Without this cultural
context, human rights cannot be advanced globally. In making this point,
he does not privilege the Western cultures which first generated rights, for
he notes that they themselves have perhaps lost that culture; for instance,
‘Americans have more and more rights, but less and less of a society within
to exercise them’ (Brown 2010b: 62). The conclusion of this chapter
argues that, once more, liberal theorists need to better establish the theo-
14 A. F. LANG JR. AND M. ALBERT
virtues. For Aristotle, the human condition is defined by two basic factors:
our intellect and our communal living. These two things combined sepa-
rate us from the rest of the physical world. For Aristotle, they also generate
the two virtues that define what it means to be the best kind of person, the
intellectual and practical virtues. In describing the virtues, Aristotle first
explains the moral virtues, which are those shaped by habit and political
life. They are designed to cultivate an ability to choose how to act, not
how to think. Their importance derives from the fact that humans live in
community and so must be able to act together. The second type of virtue
is the intellectual one, which he treats in Book VI of the Nicomachean
Ethics and which is derived from the discussion of scientific reasoning
found in the Posterior Analytics. Scientific reasoning entails thinking from
first principles and the reasoning that follows from them results in knowl-
edge that cannot be otherwise.
But reasoning must also take into account the particulars and the induc-
tive process that provides a foundation for thinking. Scientific thinking is
not the intellectual virtue on which Aristotle places his emphasis. Rather,
it is deliberative thinking, or the dialectical process described in the Topics.
Aristotle argues that practical deliberation should not lead us to downplay
scientific reasoning, only that to be a fully happy human person we need
the deliberative form of reasoning in order to move us towards action.
Combined with habits and character, the practical wisdom of deliberative
excellence results in the good person.
Aristotle’s account of the virtues relies on a particular place and time,
that of the fourth century BC Greek gentlemen scholar. Such a person no
longer exists, and so perhaps we should not idealize this way of thinking.
Indeed, his biology relies on assumptions about gender and generation
that are fundamentally flawed, leading him to disparage the ability of
women to achieve equality with men. Brown does not share those assump-
tions with Aristotle.
Rather, Brown shares with Aristotle (and with many of the classical real-
ists) the idea that any form of political reasoning must be dialectical rather
than solely deductive and it must take into account the particulars of the
situations within which such reasoning takes place. So, rather than being
guided by a universal liberal or legal logic to which all participants must
agree in advance, Brown suggests a different form of reasoning, one which
demands taking seriously the contexts, often very conflictual and even
dangerous contexts, that shape world politics. Simple solutions based on
16 A. F. LANG JR. AND M. ALBERT
Western ideals of human rights or the rule of law cannot be the sole way
of thinking through the problems that bedevil the world today.
This brings us back to pluralism. As noted in the previous section,
Brown’s scholarship speaks to a plural world. He demands that critical
reflection take place among all participants. The standards against which
such reflection takes place are related to and perhaps unconsciously parasitic
on broad liberal ideas, but Brown does not allow those to serve as trump
cards. Rather, he argues for a form of deep pluralism, one that respects the
capacity of all persons to engage in critical dialogue and reflection on theirs
and others practices. We may not agree on all his political judgements, but
his demand that we think carefully about how to go about making such
judgements, is perhaps his most important contribution to the field of IPT.
Notes
1. The books include much more than these simple dichotomies, and Brown
has sought to resist the ‘cosmopolitan vs communitarian’ framework as the
defining feature of his work and IPT.
2. At the time of this writing, Brown is working on a revised fifth edition of this
textbook.
3. See Brown’s description of his intellectual trajectory in Brown (2010: 1–16).
4. Mervyn Frost is perhaps the most prominent Hegelian among IR theorists,
who also contributes to this volume; see Frost (1986, 1996).
5. It’s like not being a FC Southampton fan, but still favouring it over all the
others (if it’s not Chelsea, that is).
6. One of Brown’s early publications is in Ethics & International Affairs, an
effort to redefine Hegel for a generation of theorists who saw him as a foun-
dation for German militarism; Brown (1991), reprinted in Brown (2010).
7. To call Walzer communitarian rather than liberal, though, distorts his views
to some extent. While his work clearly has a strong communitarian orienta-
tion, he defends liberal ideas and practices in much of his writing and in his
role as long-time editor of Dissent magazine.
References
Brown, C. (1981). International Theory: New Directions? Review of International
Studies, 7(03), 173.
Brown, C. (1992). International Relations Theory: New Normative Approaches.
New York: Columbia University Press.
Brown, C. (2000). The ‘English School’: International Theory and International
Society. In M. Albert, L. Brock, & K. D. Wolf (Eds.), Civilizing World Politics.
Society and Community Beyond the State (pp. 91–102). Lanham: Rowman &
Littlefield.
INTRODUCTION: THE POLITICS OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL THEORY 17
Colin Wight
1 Introduction
Surveying the intellectual landscape post-Brexit, and after the election of
Donald Trump as the President of the USA, one word sticks out: post-
truth. Declared the word of the year for 2016 by the Oxford English
Dictionary, the term has a longer history. Stephen Colbert had coined the
term ‘truthiness’ to refer to a situation where emotions take precedence
over facts in public debate (Zimmer 2010). This fits well with the Oxford
English Dictionary definition of post-truth: ‘Relating to or denoting
C. Wight (*)
University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
PLATE I.
If we had two large water tanks, one of which could be emptied only
by allowing the bottom to fall completely out, and the other by means
of a narrow pipe, it is easy to see which would be the more useful to
us as a source of water supply. If both tanks were filled, then from
the first we could get only a sudden uncontrollable rush of water, but
from the other we could get a steady stream extending over a long
period, and easily controlled. The Leyden jar stores electricity, but in
yielding up its store it acts like the first tank, giving a sudden
discharge in the form of a bright spark. We cannot control the
discharge, and therefore we cannot make it do useful work for us.
For practical purposes we require a storing arrangement that will act
like the second tank, giving us a steady current of electricity for a
long period, and this we have in the accumulator or storage cell.
A current of electricity has the power of decomposing certain
liquids. If we pass a current through water, the water is split up into
its two constituent gases, hydrogen and oxygen, and this may be
shown by the apparatus seen in Fig. 12. It consists of a glass vessel
with two strips of platinum to which the current is led. The vessel
contains water to which has been added a little sulphuric acid to
increase its conducting power, and over the strips are inverted two
test-tubes filled with the acidulated water. The platinum strips, which
are called electrodes, are connected to a battery of Daniell cells.
When the current passes, the water is decomposed, and oxygen
collects at the electrode connected to the positive terminal of the
battery, and hydrogen at the other electrode. The two gases rise up
into the test-tubes and displace the water in them, and the whole
process is called the electrolysis of water. If now we disconnect the
battery and join the two electrodes by a wire, we find that a current
flows from the apparatus as from a voltaic cell, but in the opposite
direction from the original battery current.
It will be remembered that one
of the troubles with a simple voltaic
cell was polarization, caused by
the accumulation of hydrogen; and
that this weakened the current by
setting up an opposing electro-
motive force tending to produce
another current in the opposite
direction. In the present case a
similar opposing or back electro-
motive force is produced, and as
soon as the battery current is
stopped and the electrodes are
connected, we get a current in the
reverse direction, and this current Fig. 12.—Diagram showing
continues to flow until the two Electrolysis of Water.
gases have recombined, and the
electrodes have regained their
original condition. Consequently we can see that in order to
electrolyze water, our battery must have an electro-motive force
greater than that set up in opposition to it, and at least two Daniell
cells are required.
This apparatus thus may be made to serve to some extent as an
accumulator or storage cell, and it also serves to show that an
accumulator does not store up or accumulate electricity. In a voltaic
cell we have chemical energy converted into electrical energy, and
here we have first electrical energy converted into chemical energy,
and then the chemical energy converted back again into electrical
energy. This is a rough-and-ready way of putting the matter, but it is
good enough for practical purposes, and at any rate it makes it quite
clear that what an accumulator really stores up is not electricity, but
energy, which is given out in the form of electricity.
The apparatus just described is of little use as a source of
current, and the first really practical accumulator was made in 1878
by Gaston Planté. The electrodes were two strips of sheet lead
placed one upon the other, but separated by some insulating
material, and made into a roll. This roll was placed in dilute sulphuric
acid, and one strip or plate connected to the positive, and the other
to the negative terminal of the source of current. The current was
passed for a certain length of time, and then the accumulator partly
discharged; after which current was passed again, but in the reverse
direction, followed by another period of discharge. This process,
which is called forming, was continued for several days, and its
effect was to change one plate into a spongy condition, and to form a
coating of peroxide of lead on the other. When the plates were
properly formed the accumulator was ready to be fully charged and
put into use. The effect of charging was to rob one plate of its
oxygen, and to transfer this oxygen to the other plate, which thus
received an overcharge of the gas. During the discharge of the
accumulator the excess of oxygen went back to the place from which
it had been taken, and the current continued until the surfaces of
both plates were reduced to a chemically inactive state. The
accumulator could be charged and discharged over and over again
as long as the plates remained in good order.
In 1881, Faure hit upon the idea of coating the plates with a
paste of red-lead, and this greatly shortened the time of forming. At
first it was found difficult to make the paste stick to the plates, but
this trouble was got rid of by making the plates in the form of grids,
and pressing the paste into the perforations. Many further
improvements have been made from time to time, but instead of
tracing these we will go on at once to the description of a present-
day accumulator. There are now many excellent accumulators made,
but we have not space to consider more than one, and we will select
that known as the “Chloride” accumulator.
The positive plate of this accumulator is of the Planté type, but it
is not simply a casting of pure lead, but is made by a building-up
process which allows of the use of a lead-antimony mixture for the
grids. This gives greater strength, and the grids themselves are
unaffected by the chemical changes which take place during the
charging and discharging of the cell. The active material, that is the
material which undergoes chemical change, is pure lead tape coiled
up into rosettes, which are so designed that the acid can circulate
through the plates. These rosettes are driven into the perforations of
the grid by a hydraulic press, and during the process of forming they
expand and thus become very firmly fixed. The negative plate has a
frame made in two parts, which are riveted together after the
insertion of the active material, which is thus contained in a number
of small cages. The plate is covered outside with a finely perforated
sheet of lead, which prevents the active material from falling out. It is
of the utmost importance that the positive and negative plates should
be kept apart when in the cell, and in the Chloride accumulator this is
ensured by the use of a patent separator made of a thin sheet of
wood the size of the plates. Before being used the wood undergoes
a special treatment to remove all substances which might be
harmful, and it then remains unchanged either in appearance or
composition. Other insulating substances, such as glass rods or
ebonite forks, can be used as separators, but it is claimed that the
wood separator is not only more satisfactory, but that in some
unexplained way it actually helps to keep up the capacity of the cell.
The plates are placed in glass, or lead-lined wood or metal boxes,
and are suspended from above the dilute sulphuric acid with which
the cells are filled. A space is left below the plates for the sediment
which accumulates during the working of the cell.
In all but the smallest cells several pairs of plates are used, all
the positive plates being connected together and all the negative
plates. This gives the same effect as two very large plates, on the
principle of connecting in parallel, spoken of in Chapter IV. A single
cell, of whatever size, gives current at about two volts, and to get
higher voltages many cells are connected in series, as with primary
cells. The capacity is generally measured in ampere-hours. For
instance, an accumulator that will give a current of eight amperes for
one hour, or of four amperes for two hours, or one ampere for eight
hours, is said to have a capacity of eight ampere-hours.
Accumulators are usually charged from a dynamo or from the
public mains, and the electro-motive force of the charging current
must be not less than 2½ volts for each cell, in order to overcome
the back electro-motive force of the cells themselves. It is possible to
charge accumulators from primary cells, but except on a very small
scale the process is comparatively expensive. Non-polarizing cells,
such as the Daniell, must be used for this purpose.
The practical applications of accumulators are almost
innumerable, and year by year they increase. As the most important
of these are connected with the use of electricity for power and light,
it will be more convenient to speak of them in the chapters dealing
with this subject. Minor uses of accumulators will be referred to
briefly from time to time in other chapters.