GIBBS' PAPERS I AND II 59 



than the failure to include in some modern treatise on mechanics 

 many of the geometrical proofs of the Principia is an indication 

 of the author's lack of appreciation of Newton. Science goes on 

 its way, picking and choosing and modifying. The trend of the 

 last fifty years is not toward Papers I and II. Interesting as 

 they are historically, and important because of the preparation 

 they afforded Willard Gibbs for writing his great memoir III, 

 there is no present indication that they are in themselves signifi- 

 cant for present or future science ; for better or for worse we have 

 adopted other ways of preparing for the exposition of the theory 

 and for the use of the results of that memoir which in so many 

 of its parts is indispensable today and in still others as yet 

 inadequately explored may become indispensable in the future. 



