[From Mature, Vol. vn.] 



LV. Elements of Natural Philosophy. By Professors Sir W. Thomson and 

 P. G. Tait. Clarendon Press Series. (Macmillan and Co., 1873.) 



NATURAL Philosophy, which is the good old English name for what is 

 now called Physical Science, has been long taught in two very different ways. 

 One method is to begin by giving the student a thorough training in pure 

 mathematics, so that when dynamical relations are afterwards presented to him 

 in the form of mathematical equations, he at once appreciates the language, if 

 not the ideas, of the new subject. The progress of science, according to this 

 method, consists in bringing the different branches of science in succession under 

 the power of the calculus. When this has been done for any particular science, 

 it becomes in the estimation of the mathematician like an Alpine peak which 

 lias been scaled, retaining little to reward original explorers, though perhaps 

 still of some use, as furnishing occupation to professional guides. 



The other method of diffusing physical science is to render the senses 

 familiar with physical phenomena, and the ear with the language of science, till 

 the student becomes at length able both to perform and to describe experiments 

 of his own. The investigator of this type is in no danger of having no more 

 worlds to conquer, for he can always go back to his former measurements, and 

 carry them forward to another place of decimals. 



Each of these types of men of science is of service in the great work of 

 subduing the earth to our use, but neither of them can fully accomplish the 

 still greater work of strengthening their reason and developing new powers of 

 thought. The pure mathematician endeavours to transfer the actual effort of 

 thought from the natural phenomena to the symbols of his equations, and the 

 pure experimentalist is apt to spend so much of his mental energy on matters 

 of detail and calculation, that he has hardly any left for the higher forms 

 of thought. Both of them are allowing themselves to acquire an unfruitful 



