A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism

A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism is a two-volume treatise on electromagnetism written by James Clerk Maxwell in 1873. Maxwell was revising the Treatise for a second edition when he died in 1879. The revision was completed by William Davidson Niven for publication in 1881. A third edition was prepared by J. J. Thomson for publication in 1892.

According to one historian,

Maxwell introduced the use of vector fields, and his labels have been perpetuated:

Maxwell's work is considered an exemplar of rhetoric of science:

Preliminary. On the Measurement of Quantities.

PART I. Electrostatics.

PART II. Electrokinematics.

PART III Magnetism

Part IV. Electromagnetism.

On April 24, 1873, Nature announced the publication with an extensive description and much praise. When the second edition was published in 1881, George Chrystal wrote the review for Nature.

Pierre Duhem published a critical essay outlining mistakes he found in Maxwell's Treatise. Duhem's book was reviewed in Nature.

Hermann von Helmholtz (1881): "Now that the mathematical interpretations of Faraday's conceptions regarding the nature of electric and magnetic force has been given by Clerk Maxwell, we see how great a degree of exactness and precision was really hidden behind Faraday's words…it is astonishing in the highest to see what a large number of general theories, the mechanical deduction of which requires the highest powers of mathematical analysis, he has found by a kind of intuition, with the security of instinct, without the help of a single mathematical formula."

Oliver Heaviside (1893):”What is Maxwell's theory? The first approximation is to say: There is Maxwell's book as he wrote it; there is his text, and there are his equations: together they make his theory. But when we come to examine it closely, we find that this answer is unsatisfactory. To begin with, it is sufficient to refer to papers by physicists, written say during the first twelve years following the first publication of Maxwell's treatise to see that there may be much difference of opinion as to what his theory is. It may be, and has been, differently interpreted by different men, which is a sign that is not set forth in a perfectly clear and unmistakable form. There are many obscurities and some inconsistencies. Speaking for myself, it was only by changing its form of presentation that I was able to see it clearly, and so as to avoid the inconsistencies. Now there is no finality in a growing science. It is, therefore, impossible to adhere strictly to Maxwell's theory as he gave it to the world, if only on account of its inconvenient form.

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