NATURE 



M5 



THURSDAY, DECEMBER 13, iS 



PROFESSOR STOKES' WORKS 

 Mathc-7natical and Physical Papers. By G. G. Stokes. 

 (Cambridge University Press. Vol. I., 18S0; Vol. II., 

 18S3.) 

 T^'HIS is the age of Reprints of the works of great 



-»• living men, even in an hourly growing subject like 

 Science. The pseudo-scientists have long been accus- 

 tomed to galvanize into life again, for a few brief moments, 

 their defunct prelections by collecting them in a volume 

 with some catching title. But the real men of science 

 are now building, during their life-time, each his monu- 

 meittum are pcrennius, regaliquc situ Pyramidum a/tins. 

 Von Helmholtz and Kirchhoff have collected and reissued 

 their scattered masterpieces. Clausius has joined one 

 large series of his works into a connected treatise. At 

 home Sir W. Thomson has given us a grand collection, 

 Electrostatics and Magnetism, and the rest of his papers 

 are to appear in a series of volumes, of which one is 

 already before the public. But, heartily as we welcome 

 all these splendid volumes, here is something at least as 

 good as the best of them, and tuiich more imperatively 

 required. 



There can be but one opinion as to the value of the 

 collection before us, and (sad to say) also as to the abso- 

 lute necessity for it. The Author, by common consent of 

 all entitled to judge, takes front rank among living scien- 

 tific men as experimenter as well as mathematician. But 

 the greater part of his best work has hitherto been buried 

 in the almost inaccessible volumes of the Cambridge 

 Philosophical Transactions, in company with many other 

 papers which deserve a much wider circulation than they 

 have yet obtained. Stokes' well-deserved fame was thus 

 practically secured by means of a mere fraction of his 

 best work. And another inconvenience, which will now 

 have some chance of being repaired, has arisen from the 

 same cause. Science demands, at every instant, the 

 solution of certain definite problems each suggested by 

 the last-preceding advances : — and hosts of eager votaries 

 are at work upon them. What is done as it were in a 

 corner is thus sure to be done again :— done, even if not 

 so well done ; and this at the expense of unnecessary 

 labour on the part of the second worker, who thus 

 obtains the (temporary) award of the whole credit ; while 

 the entire process tends to the retardation of scientific 

 progress . 



The present publication will effect a very remarkable 

 .amount of transference of credit to the real author, from 

 those who (without the possibility of suspicion of mala 

 fides) are at present all but universally regarded as having 

 won it. Two or three years ago, only, the subject for a 

 Prize Essay in a Continental scientific society was The 

 nature of unpolarized, as distinguished from polarized, 

 h:;ht. But, all that science is even jet in a position to 

 say, on this extremely curious subject, had been said by 

 Stokes thirty years ago in the Cambridge Philosophical 

 Transections. 



The malady, though grave, is simple, the cure easy. 

 Every Society, whose Memoirs are worthy of appearing in 

 Vol. XXIX.— No. 737 



print, ought to consider itself bound to disseminate them 

 as -widely as possible. Every University, every public 

 library of any importance, alike in Europe and in America; 

 should be regarded as a centre for such a purpose. The 

 cost of the necessary additional copies should be regarded 

 by a Society as a trifle compared with the priceless ad- 

 vantage of placing its own publications where they will 

 be freely accessible to all who care to consult them. 



And this altogether independent of the question of 

 exchange, which can hardly be expected from a University, 

 but which, in our own experience, is gladly (even eagerly) 

 granted by almost every scientific Society worthy of the 

 name. 



Physical and Mathematical researches are the best 

 record of the living intellectual progress of the day, and 

 ought not to be made artificially scarce or dear. It is 

 mere pandering to wealth and vanity which is displayed 

 in advertisements such as "Impression strictly limited to 

 6s (numbered) copies. After these are printed, the type 

 will be broken up (in presence of witnesses) and the 

 plates destroyed." 



Such advertisements are possible only in a world in 

 which Sir Gorgius Midas, and others who have " struck 

 ile," are the willing victims of those who prey on their 

 selfishness, luxury, and ignorance. Education will, it is 

 to be hoped, in time do away with such things. 



To give anything like an adequate account of even one 

 of the longer papers in these two volumes would require 

 an entire article. And, when written, the account would 

 in most cases be practically unintelligible to the general 

 reader ; while quite unnecessary for the student, who will 

 of course prefer to repair to the fountain-head itself, now 

 at last rendered easy of access. 



Prof. Stokes has wisely chosen the chronological order, 

 in arranging the contents of the volumes. Such a course 

 involves, now and then, a little inconvenience to the 

 reader ; but this is much more than compensated for by 

 the insight gained into the working of an original mind, 

 which seems all along to have preferred a bold attack 

 upon each more pressing scientific difficulty of the 

 present, to attempts at smoothing the beginner's road 

 into regions already well explored. When, however, 

 Prof. Stokes does write an elementary article, he does it 

 admirably. Witness his Notes on Hydrodynamics, espe- 

 cially that entitled On Waves. 



Before that article appeared, an article as comprehen- 

 sive as it is lucid, the subject was almost a forbidden one 

 even to the best student, unless he were qualified to 

 attack the formidable works of Laplace and Airy, or the 

 still more formidable memoirs of Cauchy and Poisson. 

 Here he finds at least the main points of this beautiful 

 theory, disencumbered of all unnecessary complication?, 

 and put in a form intelligible to all who have acquired 

 any right to meddle with it. It is quite impossible to tell 

 how much real good may be done by even one article like 

 this. Would there were more such ! There are few, 

 even of the most gifted men, who do not occasionally 

 require extraneous assistance after the earlier stages of 

 their progress :— all are the better for it, even in their 

 maturer years. 



The contents of these two volumes consist mainly, 

 almost exclusively, of papers connected with the Undu- 

 latory Theory of Light or with Hydrodynamics. On the 



