Page:A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism - Volume 1.djvu/20

xiv it is in the nascent state, and in the case of Faraday's Researches this is comparatively easy, as they are published in a separate form, and may be read consecutively. If by anything I have here written I may assist any student in understanding Faraday's modes of thought and expression, I shall regard it as the accomplishment of one of my principal aims—to communicate to others the same delight which I have found myself in reading Faraday's Researches.

The description of the phenomena, and the elementary parts of the theory of each subject, will be found in the earlier chapters of each of the four Parts into which this treatise is divided. The student will find in these chapters enough to give him an elementary acquaintance with the whole science.

The remaining chapters of each Part are occupied with the higher parts of the theory, the processes of numerical calculation, and the instruments and methods of experimental research.

The relations between electromagnetic phenomena and those of radiation, the theory of molecular electric currents, and the results of speculation on the nature of action at a distance, are treated of in the last four chapters of the second volume.