1908] on the Scientific Work of Lord Kelvin. 205- 



of numerically exact plivsico-cheiuical data on which to develop it, as 

 it had again become twenty years later in Helmholtz's own hands in 

 1882, or in those of Willard Gibbs in 1876-8. 



Probably the severest ordeal to which a mass of occasional writings,, 

 evolving an entirely new range of thought, could be subjected, is that 

 of republication after the lapse of years. The fragmentary character 

 of the production of Thomson's papers, in scattered Journals and 

 Transactions, naturally suggested ideas of obscurity to the workers 

 who had time only to skim the contents of separate papers without 

 absorbing them as a connected whole ; but it will probably be granted 

 to be a most remarkable circumstance, and irrefragable proof of sure- 

 ness of construction in a subject so difficult and entangled, that the 

 papers on Thermodynamics, Avhich also founded the modern general 

 Theory of Energy, were capable of being reprinted in full with but 

 slight occasional erasures, and those mainly of unessential character. 

 Here one is, of course, leaving out of account the preliminary struggle 

 to reconcile the apparently conflicting principles of Carnot and Joule, 

 which forms one of the most instnictive and fascinating episodes in 

 scientific history. 



We may be permitted to surmise that it was in the keen insight 

 of these early years that his mental habitudes became fixed. His 

 most striking characteristic all through life was insatiable thirst for 

 knowledge, unwearied inquiry and investigation at all times, in season 

 and out of season, combined with sympathetic interest and charming 

 deference and encouragement to any person, however junior, who was 

 honestly bent on the same pursuits. It is not surprising that, with 

 new and profound views breaking in upon him from all sides, it 

 should have grown into settled permanent habit that no mode of 

 occupation of his time Avas to be allowed to interfere with the claims 

 of scientific investigation. 



Already when he took his degree at Cambridge in the Mathe- 

 matical Tripos in January 1845, it appears that many subjects closely 

 connected with fundamental advances of the ensuing time were 

 fermenting in his mind. It was only a few months afterwards that 

 he at length, after years of search, discovered for the scientific world 

 Green's ' Essay on Electricity 'of 1828, ever since one of the classics 

 of mathematical physics ; he obtained, in fact by accident, a copy 

 from his previous mathematical tutor, W. Hopkins, when he recognised 

 how much of it he had anticipated by his own more intuitive results 

 when still a boy. Soon afterwards he went to Paris to learn physical 

 manipulation in the laboratory of Regnault — a fact which seems to 

 have been forgotten when he recalled, in graceful terms, his obliga- 

 tions to the French science of his youth, in an address in connection 

 with the celebration of the centenary of the Institute of France, of 

 which the echoes vibrated through Paris. He has put on record that 

 already even at that time, he went about among the Paris booksellers 

 inquiring for a copy of another work of genius, which he was himself 



