258 PETER GUTHRIE TAIT 



in fact, till one can hardly recognise the features of the extraordinary Athenaeum 

 correspondence of 1847. There the ungovernable rage of the philosopher contrasts 

 most strongly with the calm sarcasm of the mathematician, who was at every point 

 his master, and who "played" him with the dexterity and the tenderness of old 

 Isaak himself! But it is characteristic of De Morgan that, though he was grievously 

 insulted throughout the greater part of this discussion, no trace of annoyance seems 

 to have remained with him after the death of his antagonist ; for none would 

 gather from the Budget more than the faintest inkling of the amount of provocation 

 he received. 



Take again the following introductory paragraphs of a very full and 

 instructive review of Clerk Maxwell's great work on Electricity and Mag- 

 netism. The review appeared in Nature, April 24, 1873. 



In his deservedly celebrated treatise on " Sound," the late Sir John Herschel 

 felt himself justified in saying, " It is vain to conceal the melancholy truth. We are 

 fast dropping behind. In Mathematics we have long since drawn the rein and given 

 over a hopeless race." Thanks to Herschel himself, and others, the reproach, if 

 perhaps then just, did not long remain so. Even in pure mathematics, a subject 

 which till lately has not been much attended to in Britain, except by a few scattered 

 specialists, we stand at this moment at the very least on a par with the elite of 

 the enormously disproportionate remainder of the world. The discoveries of Boole 

 and Hamilton, of Cayley and Sylvester, extend into limitless regions of abstract 

 thought, of which they are as yet the sole explorers. In applied mathematics no 

 living men stand higher than Adams, Stokes, and W. Thomson. Any one of these 

 names alone would assure our position in the face of the world as regards triumphs 

 already won in the grandest struggles of the human intellect. But the men of the 

 next generation the successors of these long-proved Knights are beginning to win 

 their spurs, and among them there is none of greater promise than Clerk Maxwell. 

 He has already, as the first holder of the new chair of Experimental Science in 

 Cambridge, given the post a name which requires only the stamp of antiquity to 

 raise it almost to the level of that of Newton. And among the numerous services 

 he has done to science, even taking account of his exceedingly remarkable treatise 

 on " Heat," the present volumes must be regarded as preeminent. 



We meet with three sharply-defined classes of writers on scientific subjects 

 (and the classification extends to all such subjects, whether mathematical or not). 

 There are, of course, various less-defined classes, occupying intermediate positions. 



First, and most easily disposed of, are the men of calm, serene, Olympian self- 

 consciousness of power, those upon whom argument produces no effect, and whose 

 grandeur cannot stoop to the degradation of experiment ! These are the d priori 

 reasoners, the metaphysicians, and the Paradoxers of De Morgan. 



Then there is the large class, of comparatively modern growth, with a certain 

 amount of knowledge and ability, diluted copiously with self-esteem haunted, how- 

 ever, by a dim consciousness that they are only popularly famous and consequently 

 straining every nerve to keep themselves in the focus of the public gaze. These, 



