REPORTS 
ON 
THE STATE OF SCIENCE. 
Report on the Recent Progress and Present Condition of the 
Mathematical Theories of Electricity , Magnetism, and 
Heat . By the Rev . W. Whewell, Fellow and Tutor of 
Trinity College, Cambridge. 
XHE trophies of Miltiades would not let Themistocles rest. 
The trophies of Newton,, won at the end of the seventeenth cen¬ 
tury, made it impossible for the physical philosophers of the 
eighteenth not to attempt new victories in the application of 
mechanical principles to the phenomena of the material world. 
Newton himself had pointed out this as the business of his suc¬ 
cessors. I have deduced,” says he, at the end of his preface 
to the Principia, u the motions of the planets by mathematical 
reasoning from forces; and I would that we could derive the other 
phenomena of nature from mechanical principles by the same 
mode of reasoning. For many things move me, so that I some¬ 
what suspect, that all such may depend on certain forces by which 
the particles of bodies, through causes not yet known, are either 
urged towards each other and cohere according to regular figures, 
or are repelled and recede from each other: and these forces 
being unknown, philosophers have hitherto made their attempts 
on nature in vain. But I hope that the principles here laid down 
may supply some light either to this mode of philosophizing or 
to some one which is more true.” 
It is usually assumed that Newton’s anticipations and wishes 
have been fulfilled. Several mathematical and mechanical Sciences 
have since his time made their appearance in the world, claim¬ 
ing to be the younger sisters of Physical Astronomy; like her, fed 
by exact facts, formed by rigorous principles. Yet their birth 
and reception have never excited so much general notice as such 
events might be expected to produce ; the}^ have gradually be¬ 
come known to a limited circle of mathematicians, and have not, 
1835. b 
