356 JAMES CLERK MAXWELL. [CHAP. XII. 



cation of the phenomenon. We must, then, make these 

 measurements, and deduce from them the result which we 

 require to find. 



This characteristic of modern experiments that they 

 consist principally of measurements is so prominent that 

 the opinion seems to have got abroad that, in a few years, 

 all the great physical constants will have been approximately 

 estimated, and that the only occupation which will then be 

 left to men of science will be to carry these measurements 

 to another place of decimals. 



If this is really the state of things to which we are 

 approaching, our Laboratory may perhaps become celebrated 

 as a place of conscientious labour and consummate skill ; 

 but it will be out of place in the University, and ought 

 rather to be classed with the other great workshops of our 

 country, where equal ability is directed to more useful ends. 



But we have no right to think thus of the unsearchable 

 riches of creation, or of the untried fertility of those fresh 

 minds into which these riches will continually be poured. 

 . . . The history of science shows that even during that 

 phase of her progress in which she devotes herself to improv- 

 ing the accuracy of the numerical measurement of quantities 

 with which she has long been familiar, she is preparing the 

 materials for the subjugation of new regions, which would 

 have remained unknown if she had been contented with the 

 rough methods of her early pioneers. 



The movement which was now to receive so great 

 an impulse may be roughly dated from Sir William 

 Thomson's first appearance as a Public Examiner in 

 Cambridge ; and Maxwell's own influence, as Ex- 

 aminer and Moderator, had been mainly instrumental 

 in promoting it. The nature of the change has been 

 described as follows by one whose University experi- 

 ence reaches back into the previous time : 



The style of mathematics which was popular in Cam- 



