AND MODERN PHYSICS. 93 



CHAPTER VII. 



SCIENTIFIC WORK COLOUR VISION. 



FIFTEEN years only havo passed since tho death of 

 Clerk Maxwell, and it is almost too soon to hopo 

 to form a correct estimate of the value of his work 

 and its relation to that of others who have laboured 

 in the sixmo field. 



Thus Niven, at tho closo of his obituary notice 

 in tho Proceedings of tho Royal Society, says : " It 

 is seldom that tho faculties of invention and exposi- 

 tion, the attachment to physical science and capa- 

 bility of developing it mathematically, have been 

 found existing in one mind to the same degree. It 

 would, however, require powers somewhat akin to 

 Maxwell's own to describe tho more delicate features of 

 tho works resulting from this combination, every one 

 of which is stamped with the subtle but unmistak- 

 able impress of genius." And again in tho preface to 

 Maxwell's works, issued in 1890, ho wrote : " Nor 

 docs it appear to tho present editor that the time 

 has yet arrived when the quickening influence of 

 Maxwell's mind on modern scientific thought can bo 

 duly estimated." 



It is, however, tho object of tho present scries 

 to attempt to give some account of the work of men 

 of science of tho last hundred years, and to show how 

 each has contributed his share to our present stock of 

 knowledge. This task, then, remains to bo done. 



