KINETIC OR MECHANICAL VIEW OF NATURE. 93 



developed the line of reasoning and research suggested 

 by statical phenomena and applied this to dynamical 

 phenomena. Faraday, following Davy, approached the 

 subject from the point of view of the chemist. It was 

 soon suspected, and latterly proved by actual measure- 

 ments,' that the quantities which come into play in 

 statical charges, and even in a violent thunderstorm, are 

 small compared with those of a steady electrical current. 

 The phenomena of electricity in motion became of in- 

 finitely more practical importance than those of elec- 

 trical equilibrium or of static tension. The views of 

 Faraday, Thomson, and Maxwell, which Helmholtz, 

 educated though he was in the Continental methods, 

 adopted and introduced into German scientific literature, 

 lent themselves, as he recognised, more successfully and 

 directly to the solution of the problems which applied 

 science forced upon theorists. 



Something, indeed, has been lost by this fundamental 

 change which has come over modern reasoning in 

 electrical matters. This has been most clearly and 56. 



Indefinite- 



pointedly expressed by M. Poincare, the eminent French ness of the 

 mathematician, who has done so much to illumine Sf e ^ tic 

 physical and mechanical problems from the side of pure 

 mathematics. " Maxwell," he says, " does not give a 

 mechanical explanation of electricity and magnetism ; he 

 confines himself to the proof that such an explanation is 

 possible." Accordingly, those who were brought up in the 

 traditions of the school of Laplace and Cauchy feel dis- 

 mayed at the indefiniteness which adheres to the exposi- 

 tions of Maxwell's latest and greatest work. " A great 

 French philosopher," M. Poincard proceeds, " one of those 



