Page:A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism - Volume 2.djvu/226

 Rh have not even written down a set of equations to indicate how the motion of any part of the system depends on the variation of the variables. We have confined our attention to the variables, their velocities and momenta, and the forces which act on the pieces representing the variables. Our only assumptions are, that the connexions of the system are such that the time is not explicitly contained in the equations of condition, and that the principle of the conservation of energy is applicable to the system.

Such a description of the methods of pure dynamics is not unnecessary, because Lagrange and most of his followers, to whom we are indebted for these methods, have in general confined themselves to a demonstration of them, and, in order to devote their attention to the symbols before them, they have endeavoured to banish all ideas except those of pure quantity, so as not only to dispense with diagrams, but even to get rid of the ideas of velocity, momentum, and energy, after they have been once for all supplanted by symbols in the original equations. In order to be able to refer to the results of this analysis in ordinary dynamical language, we have endeavoured to retranslate the principal equations of the method into language which may be intelligible without the use of symbols.

As the development of the ideas and methods of pure mathematics has rendered it possible, by forming a mathematical theory of dynamics, to bring to light many truths which could not have been discovered without mathematical training, so, if we are to form dynamical theories of other sciences, we must have our minds imbued with these dynamical truths as well as with mathematical methods.

In forming the ideas and words relating to any science, which, like electricity, deals with forces and their effects, we must keep constantly in mind the ideas appropriate to the fundamental science of dynamics, so that we may, during the first development of the science, avoid inconsistency with what is already established, and also that when our views become clearer, the language we have adopted may be a help to us and not a hindrance.