July 7, 1898] 



JVA TURE 



219 



the transmission of acquired characters, and the bearing 

 •of the teachings of Prichard, Galton and Weismann on 

 the original theory of Darwin and Wallace would have 

 been of greater value to the present generation of 

 workers. On one point which has from time to time 

 been raised in connection with the theory of evolution, 

 viz. the rate of modification of organisms in past time, 

 the author has recorded his view in the following 

 terms : — 



" There is no proof whatever that the laws of variation 

 and natural selection, if such be the laws which lead to 

 the introduction of new forms and the extinction of old 

 ■ones, were ever more potent than they are at present " 

 (p. 109). 



The section on anthropology comprises five essays of 

 which the last, " Fashion in Deformity," is familiar to 

 uir readers as one of Nature Series. There are two 

 presidential addresses to the anthropological section of 

 the British Association, viz. York, i88r, and Oxford, 

 1894. The presidential address to the Anthropological 

 Institute on "The Classification of the Varieties of the 

 Human Species " was delivered in 1885, and the lecture 

 on "The Pygmy Races of Men " at the Royal Institution 

 in 1888. It is now familiar history that Sir William 

 Flower was among the pioneers who in this country 

 helped to raise anthropology to its present position 

 among the natural sciences. It is strange that the 

 science of man should have made less progress than that 

 of the other subjects dealt with in these essays. The 

 author says in the preface : — 



"Upon the third subject, the main point of which is 

 the advocacy of a more systematic study of Anthropology 

 in this country, there has been, as it seems to m.e, less 

 advance than in either of the other two ; and in putting 

 forth its claims for greater recognition I felt for a long 

 time as one crying in the wilderness." 



Among recent signs of progress the author notes with 

 satisfaction the establishment of a professorship of 

 anthropology in the University of Oxford, a fitting 

 place for such a chair being that University which gave 

 a home to t'.ie first systematically arranged anthropo- 

 logical collection brought together and presented by 

 another great pioneer in this field of research, General 

 Pitt-Rivers. 



In concluding this notice we can only say that while 

 giving expression to the widely felt regret that the author 

 should have been compelled to withdraw temporarily 

 from active administrative duties, it is a matter of con- 

 gratulation that he has been enabled to turn his enforced 

 leisure to such useful account as the publication of the 

 present volume. R. Meldola. 



CLERK MAXWELLS INFLUENCE ON 

 MODERN PHYSICS. 

 James Clerk Maxwell and Modern Physics. By R. T. 

 Glazebrook, F.R.S. Pp. viii -f- 224. The Century 

 Science Series. (Paris and Melbourne : Cassell and 

 Company, Ltd., 1896.) 

 •T^HE sketch of Clerk Maxwell's life and work which 

 -«- Mr. Glazebrook has written well illustrates the 

 immense influence which Maxwell has exerted on 

 modern physics. Of his work it can be said, in a truer 

 sense than of much that has been accomplished, that it 

 NO. 1497, VOL. 58] 



lives after him. Its vitality is apparent in all kinds of 

 ways, and in nearly every region of physical inquiry. 

 In a certain measure the developments of his great 

 scientific generalisation, though they do not yet lie in 

 perspective before us in the same way, recall those of 

 Newton's theory of gravitation. There is the same kind 

 of power of intuition displayed in arriving at the general 

 theory, the same kind of partial development, by the 

 methods most ready to hand, of its consequences, and, to 

 a certain extent at least, the same kind of presentation of 

 the whole subject by methods which were not quite 

 those of discovery. Now we have other workmen with 

 tools of keener edge and finer temper, perhaps, adding 

 here and taking away there to improve its symmetry and 

 remedy its occasional want of logical consistency, and, 

 what is of far more importance, extending the scope of 

 its results, until electric wave-theory and experiment 

 threatens to become a subject almost too great for 

 any single investigator to intelligently follow in all its 

 ramifications. 



It is remarkable how quickly, sometimes, the natural 

 philosophy of a science is built up, when observation 

 and classification have been carried sufficiently far. 

 At the right moment, when in a sense everything 

 has been prepared, the genius arrives, and the chaotic 

 elements spring into relation with each other and to 

 life at his touch. Not that there is nothing really to be 

 done ; on the contrary, the task is one which only 

 genius could accomplish. Much has been achieved 

 by other workers, who have spent laborious lives in re- 

 search ; indeed, the actual toil by which the data have 

 been collected and classified, and their relations traced, 

 has been spread over centuries, and the actual work of 

 those who unite all in a general theory is small in com- 

 parison. But how great the result is, is immediately 

 made known by its fruits. 



The present state of the science of electricity and 

 magnetism is due to advances of this kind made by a 

 close succession of men of genius, of whom one of the 

 greatest is happily still with us. The natural philosophy 

 of electricity, which may be said to have begun with 

 Oersted and Ampere, is due in no small measure to the 

 experimental researches and truly philosophical ideas of 

 Faraday, The first consistent statement of it was given 

 by Thomson, who expressed in mathematical language 

 Faraday's ideas of lines of force, and deduced by a 

 dynamical process the consequences of Faraday's ex- 

 perimental discoveries. Thomson's theory was at bottom 

 one of action in a medium, and from it he obtained by 

 deduction and experimental verification important dis- 

 coveries of his own. Upon this quantitative philosophical 

 discussion Maxwell to a great extent based his form of 

 the theory, the essence of which is its dynamical character, 

 and its explicit transference of the phenomena from the 

 conductors and magnets and circuits to the electro- 

 magnetic field. The theory of light, though far from 

 being the end, is the crown of the whole work. 



The manner of scientific progress was traced very 

 clearly by Comte, but the distinction between the observ- 

 ational and classificatory stage of a science and its 

 natural philosophy stage, and the importance of the 

 latter, have not been so well appreciated by other writers. 

 It was said, as many people know, by a celebrated 



