514 JAMES CLERK MAXWELL. 



and with the laws of electrical action as illustrated by Sir 

 William Thomson in his paper "on the Uniform motion of heat 

 in homogeneous solid bodies, and its connection with the 

 Mathematical Theory of Electricity/' a paper published in 

 the Cambridge Mathematical Journal, February 1842, and 

 " on a Mechanical representation of Electric, Magnetic, and 

 Galvanic Forces," published in the Cambridge and Dublin 

 Mathematical Journal, January 1847, Maxwell saw the 

 connection between Faraday's point of view and the method 

 of research adopted by the Mathematicians. He used to say 

 that he had not a good nose to smell heresy, but whatever 

 was good and true Maxwell would detect beneath the mass of 

 misconception, or even falsehood, which had gathered round 

 it, and which caused its rejection by nearly every one else 

 without inquiry. Faraday's conception of a medium he 

 adopted as a guide throughout his electrical researches. 



Until the sixteenth century all that was known respect- 

 ing electricity was the one fact that amber when rubbed 

 possesses the power of attracting light bodies. This property 

 was shown (Physiologia Nova, 1600) to be possessed by a 

 variety of substances jDy Dr. Gilbert of Colchester, who was 

 Physician to Queen Elizabeth, and who may be regarded as 

 the founder of the Science of Electricity. From this time 

 rapid strides were made in the experimental portion of the 

 science, and the law according to which the attraction or repul- 

 sion between two small bodies charged with electricity varies 

 with the charges, and the distance between them, was deter- 

 mined by Coulomb with his torsion balance, an instrument 

 whose value to the experimental investigator can hardly be 

 over-estimated. But it is to Cavendish (1771-1*781) that we 

 are mainly indebted for the foundation of the Mathematical 

 Theory of Electricity, and for the highest experimental 

 evidence of the law of electrical action. As the preparation 

 for the press of The Electrical Researches of the Honourable 

 Henry Cavendish was the last of Maxwell's contributions to 

 science, the work being published only a few weeks before 

 his death, we shall again have to refer to Cavendish's in- 

 vestigations, and need only state that his experiments proved 



