George' Francis FitzGerald. 155 



applied by Lord Kelvin to the later English translation, viz., 

 <l Electric Waves." This is no disparagement to Hertz : rather it 

 strengthens our admiration of him to perceive how quickly and 

 perfectly he could emancipate himself from national traditions, 

 and constitute himself an apostle, and one of the most powerful 

 'exponents, of the Maxwellian Theory of Light. 



But to FitzGerald all this was fundamental and familiar he had 

 got beyond the analysis, and revelled in full-bodied conception and 

 pictorial imagery and mechanical models of what was going on : 

 and these clear perceptions of his, with a realisation of much of the 

 outcome that might be expected, were really of more value and con- 

 tributed more to the progress of science than did his own laborious 

 analytical investigation of the Electro-magnetic Theory of the Ee- 

 flection of Light from Insulators, from crystalline bodies, and from 

 magnetised media, which constitutes his chief systematic memoir : 

 powerful and impressive as the complete mathematical analysis of 

 so difficult a subject necessarily was. 



Another aspect of the man was his extraordinary and sympathetic 

 -critical power. He did not seem to mind reading other people's 

 papers and proofs : entering into their point of view seemed to him 

 to present no difficulty, nor did the immediate correction of blunders 

 into which they might have fallen seem to present any difficulty, 

 or suggest any claim to superiority. 



As an ordinary man could correct a schoolboy's sum, or an exercise 

 in simple mechanics or geometry, so he could tackle a difficult Royal 

 Society paper, or a Treatise, say on Thermodynamics or on Physical 

 Chemistry, and point out both the merits and flaws in it at once. 

 Never was anyone so clear on the subject of the pitfalls which once 

 awaited the unwary chemist or applier of the second law of Thermo- 

 dynamics to physical and chemical problems. The result being 

 correct, or at least acceptable, it is so easy to bolster it up by a false 

 application of quasi-mathematic or thermodynamic reasoning; but 

 all such fallacies were instantly detected by FitzGerald, and the 

 essential requirements of both reversible and cyclical processes, as 

 the basis of systematic theory, insisted on. 



Suggestions for experiment frequently occurred to him, but were 

 seldom carried out with his own apparatus ; rather he preferred to 

 hand on both the labour and the honour of an experimental research 

 to some assistant or student, to whose reputation a successful result 

 would make all the difference ; and many results obtained by others 

 probably owe their initiation to him. 



By reason of these peculiarities of disposition his published 

 memoirs may noc impress foreigners, or those who did not know 

 him, with a proper idea of his real magnitude ; but it is probable 



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