66 



SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT. 



44. 



Modern 

 view of 

 electrical 



has been remarked, " the glory of surmounting them would 

 be unique." ] 



The vortex-atom theory is the most advanced chapter 

 in the kinetic theory of matter, the most exalted glimpse 

 into the mechanical view of nature. Though suggested 

 by Helmholtz, it has, as already stated, been limited 

 almost exclusively to this country. If science still 

 shows international differences and patriotic predilections, 

 this affords one of the few remaining examples. Another 

 step first taken in this country, the last and most im- 

 portant contribution to the science of physical motion, 

 the greatest support of the kinetic or mechanical view 

 of nature, has, in union with the undulatory theory of 

 light, been now all but universally accepted in the 

 scientific world: I refer to the modern view of electric 

 phenomena, which for a long time was supported by the 



Farada" ena: so ^^ary labours and genius of Faraday. 



His great discoveries of magneto-electricity, of induc- 

 tion, of the electrification of light, to which I have had 

 repeated occasion to refer, made his name familiar to 

 the whole scientific world ; but the processes of reasoning 

 by which he arrived at them, or to which in his mind 

 they gave rise, were ignored or not understood. 2 Whilst 



1 Tait, in ' Recent Advances of 

 Physical Science,' p. 302, and Clerk 

 Maxwell, in article " Atom " (' En- 

 cy. Brit.,' 9th ed., or 'Col- 

 lected Scientific Papers,' vol. ii. p. 

 472). 



2 See Helmholtz's ' Faraday Lec- 

 ture,' delivered before the Chemical 

 Society on April 5, 1881, reprinted 

 in his ' Vortriige und Reden,' vol. ii. 

 p. 275, &c. "Since the mathe- 

 matical interpretation of Faraday's 

 theorems by Clerk Maxwell has 



been given, we see indeed how 

 sharply defined the conceptions are 

 and how consistent the reasoning 

 which lay concealed in Faraday's 

 words, which to his contemporaries 

 appeared so indefinite and obscure ; 

 and it is in the highest degree re- 

 markable to see how a large number 

 of comprehensive theorems, the 

 proof of which taxes the highest 

 powers of mathematical analysis, 

 were found by him without the use 

 of a single mathematical formula, 



