216 Notices respecting New Books. 



Yerdet, seems now really likely to progress ; and all men of science 

 will hail with satisfaction the well-conducted efforts which M. 

 Mascart has made to promote it. What an enviable position he 

 occupies ! To be the first, or practically the first, to instruct his 

 countrymen in the great life-work of Clerk-Maxwell ! to open to 

 them the storehouses filled to overflowing with marvels by Helm- 

 holtz and Thomson ! to show them, once for all, that great as may 

 be the services of an individual, or even of a race, science progresses 

 with almost infinitely greater rapidity by the mutual action between 

 individuals and between races — the more widely different they are 

 the better ! 



After what we have said, it would be improper to formally criti- 

 cise the work before us. Almost all of its contents have been long 

 known to those whom they concern, alike here, in Germany, and 

 even in Italy. When Babbage, Herschel, and Peacock introduced 

 the more modern mathematics into England, they contented them- 

 selves with modestly translating Lacroix's work ; and we might be 

 tempted to think that a translation of Clerk-Maxwell's 'Treatise on 

 Electricity ' would have been a greater boon to France than the pre- 

 sent work. But a large amount of the matter of that work is here ; 

 and that, after all, is the chief question. It is too much overlaid, 

 however, with details of small contributions to the science, whose 

 place might advantageously have been supplied by theorems of a 

 higher value. There is therefore, here and there, rather a super- 

 fluity of sack! But the authors seem to have mastered fully the 

 leading features of the most modern treatment of the subject; and 

 they have put these in forms (always clear and neat as it is the 

 peculiar privilege of their countrymen to be able to do, while) some- 

 times considerably improved from those in ordinary use either here 

 or in Germany. One great defect, however, we cannot pass over. 

 This is the absolute want of references to the various original 

 sources of information, though of course the authors are named. 

 This is totally indefensible. Without occasional, and often fre- 

 quent, study of original memoirs, little good progress can be made ; 

 and a few additional pages would have added infinitesimally to the 

 cost of so large a work, while enormously increasing its value. 



We do not suppose that the work is likely to have much circula- 

 tion out of France ; but that is of little moment. Let us hope that 

 M. Mascart's countrymen will avail themselves of this excellent 

 opportunity of attaining the higher level of this fascinating subject, 

 which is at present temporarily occupied by some of their neigh- 

 bours. Once raised to that level, they are very unlikely (if the past 

 furnishes any criterion) soon to fall again below it. There seems 

 to be little doubt that it is from the point of view furnished by 

 electrical phenomena, properly coordinated and comprehended, that 

 the next really great advances in physical science are to be looked 

 for. He who discovers the true mechanism of friction, of thermo- 

 electric currents, and of electric inertia, will take a step of quite as 

 important a character as that which Newton took with regard to 

 Gravitation or Huyghens with regard to Light. 



