KINETIC OR MECHANICAL VIEW OF NATURE. 77 



SO the rays of electric and magnetic force seen by Faraday 

 ill tlie abstraction of bis intuitive mind became a reality 

 for every experimentalist when Hertz in 1888 actually 

 showed the wonderful action of electric waves at a dis- 

 tance. Atoms and lines of force have become a practical 

 — shall I say a popular ? — reality, whereas they were once 

 only the convenient method of a single original mind for 

 gathering together aiul unifying in thought a bewildering 

 mass of observed phenomena, or at most capable of being 

 utilised for a mathematical description and calculation of 

 actual effects. 



For a (juarter of a century after Faraday had conceived 

 the notion of looking upon electric and magnetic 

 phenomena as depending on a property belonging to 

 all matter, and pervading all space, like radiation and 

 gravity, the only natural ])hilosopher wlio to any extent 

 entered into his ideas was Thomson. Even Tyndall, who 

 came more than any other prominent physicist under 

 Faraday's immediate and personal inlluence, and contrib- 

 uted largely to our knowledge of the new phenomena 

 discovered by his great master, does not seem to have 

 assimilated his scientific language and reasoning. It 

 required a mathematical mind really to grasp and put 

 into form Faraday's notions. Encouraged by Thomson, 

 and soon after the publication of 'i1ioins(ni's mathe- 

 luatical theory of magnetism, (Terk jMaxwell devoted 

 himself to a theoretical study of electricity and allicil 

 subjects, a field wliich Thomson bail tlicii ahnost mon- 

 opohsed in this country.^ The first of Maxwell's revolu- 



' See Professor Glazebrook's little "Century Science Scries." 1901. 

 book on ' James Clerk Maxwell and On page 42 a letter of Maxwell i6 

 Modern Pliysics,' published in tlie (juoted, in which he speaks of 



