Page:A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism - Volume 1.djvu/13

Rh The internal relations of the different branches of the science which we have to study are more numerous and complex than those of any other science hitherto developed. Its external relations, on the one hand to dynamics, and on the other to heat, light, chemical action, and the constitution of bodies, seem to indicate the special importance of electrical science as an aid to the interpretation of nature.

It appears to me, therefore, that the study of electromagnetism in all its extent has now become of the first importance as a means of promoting the progress of science.

The mathematical laws of the different classes of phenomena have been to a great extent satisfactorily made out.

The connexions between the different classes of phenomena have also been investigated, and the probability of the rigorous exactness of the experimental laws has been greatly strengthened by a more extended knowledge of their relations to each other.

Finally, some progress has been made in the reduction of electromagnetism to a dynamical science, by shewing that no electromagnetic phenomenon is contradictory to the supposition that it depends on purely dynamical action.

What has been hitherto done, however, has by no means exhausted the field of electrical research. It has rather opened up that field, by pointing out subjects of enquiry, and furnishing us with means of investigation.

It is hardly necessary to enlarge upon the beneficial