X PREFACE 



The thermodynamical writings of Gibbs have proved a golden 

 source of knowledge and inspiration to later workers. This 

 mine is by no means exhausted. It is the confident belief of the 

 Editors that those who are led by the present book to a study of 

 the relevant parts of Gibbs' work will find therein much that is 

 as yet imperfectly understood and experimentally undeveloped. 

 Gibbs was no mere generaliser of the work of others, but a pro- 

 found and original investigator who opened new domains of 

 knowledge to the mind of man. 



As is well known, Gibbs himself endeavored to obtain a 

 rational foundation for thermodynamics in his splendid develop- 

 ment of the science of Statistical Mechanics, founded by Clerk 

 Maxwell and Boltzmann (see Volume II of the Commentary). 

 Nowadays, by means of the quantum concept and the newer 

 methods of theoretical physics, the older Statistical Mechanics 

 has been transformed into a new science of Quantum Statistics 

 and Quantum Mechanics. Although without doubt this won- 

 derful new development penetrates much more deeply into the 

 analysis of the phenomenal world than the older science of 

 thermodynamics, there is no reason to deny the term rational 

 to the earher method. It deals with the phenomenal world in 

 a different manner, but it remains, within its rightful domain, 

 an enduring and powerful weapon of the human mind. More- 

 over, the modern development of physical theory tends more 

 and more to revert to the essential method of thermodynamics, 

 which abstains from "mechanical" pictures of individuahsed 

 entities interacting in space and time, and describes phenomena 

 by means of a generafised functional analysis. Thermo- 

 dynamics was indeed the essential precursor of the modern 

 method. It will ever be the imperishable achievement of Gibbs 

 to have developed this earlier scientific method to the fullest 

 extent of its power. 



Modern physical chemistry utihses in constantly increasing 

 measure the newer developments of theoretical physics. Never- 

 theless, thermodynamics is one of the principal foundations on 

 which the structure of "classical" physical chemistry rests. 

 Every well-trained student of pure or applied chemistry must 

 therefore possess a thorough working knowledge of its principles 



