The art of scientific discovery—for it is an art—can be attained in but one way, the way of attainment in all arts, namely, by practising it. In the practice of art, the aspirant may at least learn something that all the textbooks cannot drill out of him, and which will help him in his practice, by the careful examination of the actual ways in which the discoveries of science, now facts of history, were actually made. But, to do this, he must throw overboard for a time the systematic textbooks, he must abandon the logical expositions which embody, at second hand, or at third hand, the antecedent discoveries, and he must go to the original sources, the writings and records of the discoverers themselves, and learn from them how they set to work. The modern compendious handbooks in which the results of hundreds of workers have been boiled down, as it were, to a uniform consistency, is exactly the intellectual pabulum which he must eschew. Let him read Faraday, not through the eyes of Maxwell or of Tyndall, but in his own words in the immortal pages of the “Experimental Researches,” with their wealth of petty detail and their apparent vagueness of speculation. Let him read Ohm’s own account of the law of the circuit, not some modern watered-down version. Let him turn over the pages of Franklin’s letters to Collinson, as his observations dropped red-hot out of the crucible of his endeavours. Let him read Stephen Gray’s charming experiments in the old-world diction that befitted a pensioner of the Charterhouse. Let him go back to old Gilbert, who had talked with Drake and Sir Walter Raleigh in the flesh, who had discussed magnetism with Fra Paolo Sarpi and had experimented on the dip of the needle with Robert Norman. Gilbert’s account of his own experiments is for the would-be scientific discoverer worth a hundredfold the Novum Organon of the overpraised Francis Bacon. Nay, let him go back to Peter Peregrinus, the soldier-pioneer, and see how he experimented with floating lodestones before he penned his account of the pivoted magnet—the earliest known instrument that can rightly be called a mariner’s compass. Not until he has thus become a bit of an antiquary will he have fully understood how the discoveries of old were made. And, in precisely the same spirit of quest, though with the wealth of modern appliances at his command, must he go to work, if new discoveries are to be made by him.
But, for all this, he needs a guide to tell him what are the records of the original pioneers, by what names their works are called, and where they can be found. Such a guide doubtless exists to some extent in the mere catalogues of electrical literature, such as the catalogue of the Ronalds’ Library at the Institution of Electrical Engineers, in London; or, more fully, even, in the new Catalogue of the Latimer Clark Library, now known as the Wheeler Collection, at the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, in New York. The Chronological History of Electricity which Mr. P. F. Mottelay contributed, week by week, to the columns of the “Electrical World” and of “Engineering” in the years 1891–1892, was the beginning of an attempt to provide an even more complete analysis of the earlier literature of the subject. But these are only the beginnings.
In the “Bibliographical History of Electricity and Magnetism,” which Mr. Mottelay is now giving to the world, a far more exhaustive and detailed account is rendered of the earlier workers and writers in our dual science. He has particularly worked up all important electrical channels, and in the more extended articles, some of which it has been the writer’s privilege to peruse in advance, there are presented valuable monographs dealing with particular workers who each in his own day made notable contributions to the advance of the science.
To all who would tread in their paths, and add something to the ever-widening domain of electrical discovery, this Bibliographical History may be commended, not only for what it contains, but for the appreciative spirit in which it brings before the reader the work of those men who made the science what it is.
Pioneers; O Pioneers!
Silvanus P. Thompson.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
| PAGE | |
|---|---|
| FOREWORD BY SIR R. T. GLAZEBROOK, K.C.B., D.SC., F.R.S. | |
| PREFACE | [vii] |
| INTRODUCTION, BY PROF. SILVANUS P. THOMPSON, D.SC., F.R.S. | [xiii] |
| LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS | [xix] |
| CHRONOLOGICAL SECTION, B.C. 2637 TO A.D. 1821 | [1] |
| APPENDIX I | |
| ACCOUNTS OF EARLY WRITERS, NAVIGATORS AND OTHERS, ALLUDED TOIN GILBERT’S DE MAGNETE | [501] |
| “THE SCHOOL OF ATHENS” | [542] |
| APPENDIX II | |
| DISCOVERIES MADE BY WILLIAM GILBERT (DESIGNATED IN DE MAGNETEBY LARGE ASTERISKS) | [545] |
| APPENDIX III | |
| HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF THE UNABRIDGED AND ABRIDGED EDITIONSOF THE ROYAL SOCIETY “PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS”; ALSO,OF THE “PHILOSOPHICAL MAGAZINE” AND OF THE “JOURNALDES SÇAVANS—SAVANTS” | [547] |
| APPENDIX IV | |
| NAMES OF ADDITIONAL ELECTRICAL AND MAGNETICAL WORKS, PUBLISHEDUP TO 1800 | [553] |
| APPENDIX V | |
| MERCATOR’S PROJECTION | [559] |
| GENERAL INDEX OF SELECTED AUTHORS AND SUBJECTS | [565] |
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
| ST. AUGUSTINE | [Frontispiece] |
|---|---|
| “La Cité de Dieu, translatée et exposée par Raoul de Presles.” Taken from the manuscript in the Musée de Chantilly, by permission of the executors of Monsieur le Duc d’Aumale. | |
| Facing page | |
| CAIUS PLINIUS SECUNDUS | [11] |
| Page taken from the earliest known edition of the “Naturalis Historiae” Venetiis, 1469, of which there are only three known original vellum copies. These now are at Vienna, Ravenna and in the Bibliothèque Sainte Geneviève, Paris. | |
| ARISTOTLE | [11] |
| “De Naturali Auscultatione.” Title-page of the Paris 1542 edition. This belonged to Dr. William Gilberd, when at Cambridge, and is inscribed with his name and with that of Archdeacon Thomas Drant. (From the library of the late Silvanus P. Thompson). | |
| GUIOT DE PROVINS | [30] |
| “La Bible.” Page 93 verso of MS. Fr., No. 25405, Variorum Poëmata, in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. | |
| VINCENT DE BEAUVAIS | [33] |
| “Speculum Naturale.” Page taken from the (Argentorati) 1473 issue, la première édition et la plus rare de toutes. In the Bibliothèque Sainte Geneviève, Paris. | |
| BRUNETTO LATINI | [43] |
| “Li Livres dou Trésor.” Page taken from the XVth Century MS. (originally copied by Jean du Quesne), No. 191, Trésor de Sapience, in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. | |
| DANTE ALIGHIERI | [44] |
| “La Divina Commedia,” Mantuae 1472, the first page of what is by many regarded as the oldest edition of the earliest known poem written in the Italian language. Now in the Bibliothèque Sainte Geneviève, Paris. | |
| PETRUS PEREGRINUS | [46] |
| “Epistola ... de Magnete.” The earliest known treatise of experimental science. Original photographic reproduction of first page of the almost illegible MS. No. 7378 A; page 67 recto (embraced in a geometrical treatise), now in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. | |
| PETRUS PEREGRINUS | [52] |
| Facsimile of Bodleian MS., No. 7027 (MS. Ashmole No. 1522), folio 186 verso, being Chap. II, Part II, of the “Epistola ... de Magnete,” wherein is described the earliest known pivoted compass. | |
| CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS | [Between 64 and 65] |
| Photographic reproduction of his letter, March 21, 1502, to Nicolo Oderigo, Ambassador to France and to Spain, which was acquired by the King of Sardinia and presented by him to the city of Genoa. It is now preserved in the Palace of the Genoese Municipality. | |
| CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS | [Between 64 and 65] |
| Translation of the letter written by him to Nicolo Oderigo, shown here on opposite plate; made into English by Mr. Geo. A. Barwick, B.A., of the British Museum. Permission to copy both the original letter and its translation was given by Messrs. B. F. Stevens and Brown, London. | |
| CECCO D’ASCOLI | [524] |
| Last page of the earliest known edition of his “Acerba,” Venetia, 1476. Printed nineteen times up to and including the edition of 1546. Now in the Bibliothèque Sainte Geneviève, Paris. | |
| LACTANTIUS | [524] |
| “De Divinis Institutionibus.” Page taken from the Sublacensi 1465 edition, called by Joannis Vogt inter rariora typographiae incunabula rarissimum. In the Bibliothèque Sainte Geneviève, Paris. | |
| PEDRO NUÑEZ | [530] |
| “Traitte que le docteur P. Nunes fit sur certaines doubtes de la Navigation.” Page 9 verso of MS. Fr. No. 1338, now in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. |