Matter and Motion

Clerk Maxwell's Matter And Motion. -- Though most of those who have devoted themselves to the subject will agree with the author that Physical Science has now arrived at a stage "in which the energy of a material system is conceived as determined by the configuration and motion of that system, and in which the ideas of configuration, motion, and force are generalized to the utmost extent warranted by their physical definitions," yet few of our writers on elementary physics seem to bear this as much in mind as they should do. So indifferent indeed are many of them to the claims of their readers to be instructed as regards the real state of our knowledge at the present time, that those points which should be considered as the very foundation stones on which the whole fabric is built are either almost entirely ignored or else set before the mind in such a form as to convey more or less erroneous impressions concerning them. Instead of giving the reader a clear conception of what force, motion, and energy really mean, and endeavouring to make him thoroughly comprehend that those phenomena of nature which we call heat, light, &c., are merely different forms of energy probably originated in the potential energy of gravitation, they teach him too often to regard them as having little connection with each other. We think that at any rate part of the blame of this may be laid at the door of our examinations, or rather perhaps of the examiners. Most writers of elementary text-books write principally for examinations, and many do not hesitate to say so; and so long as examiners set such questions aa many of them do, so long will such writers continue in the old groove, and real science-teaching be retarded. We are heartily glad, therefore, to see a man of weight, like Professor Clerk Maxwell, boldly stepping out in the right direction. His "statement of the fundamental doctrines of matter and motion" may not perhaps sell, because it is a book from which it is impossible to cram; but the 149 articles which it contains each constitutes in itself a valuable sermon, and we recommend the book even more to the teacher than to the pupil. Let the former consider every line in every article as carefully and with as much pains as Professor Clerk Maxwell has evidently written it, and he will be amply rewarded for his trouble by acquiring for himself and his pupils a more thorough and sound knowledge of the groundwork of Physical Science as we find it at the present time than he would obtain from the concentrated essence of nine-tenths of our more pretentious modern text-books. --The Contemporary Review, Volume 32