Humphry Davy's work with electrolysis led to conclusion that the production of electricity in simple electrolytic cells resulted from chemical reactions between the electrolyte and the metals, and occurred between substances of opposite charge. He reasoned that the interactions of electric currents with chemicals offered the most likely means of decomposing all substances to their basic elements. These views were explained in 1806 in his lecture "On Some Chemical Agencies of Electricity", for which he received the Napoleon Prize from the Institut de France in 1807 (despite the fact that England and France were at war at the time). This work led directly to the isolation of sodium and potassium from their common compounds and of the alkaline earth metals from theirs in 1808.