Exploring the mathematical and

interpretative strategies of
Maxwell’s Treatise on Electricity
and Magnetism
Ronald Anderson

James Clerk Maxwell’s Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism forms one of the major scientific texts of the
19th century, describing the phenomena of electricity and magnetism and the interaction between them.
The sources Maxwell acknowledged as the inspiration for his own approach were the Englishman Michael
Faraday and his fellow Scotsman William Thomson (later Lord Kelvin). In the Treatise Maxwell presents
an approach he maintains was equivalent mathematically to the well established Continental electro-
magnetism but focused on an action via a medium approach to electromagnetism and located within a
British experimental tradition. Exploring these features reveals the Treatise to be in accord with other deep
themes in Maxwell’s writings, which ground him intellectually and personally in the world of 19th century
British Natural Philosophy.

First published in 1873, Maxwell’s Treatise1 presented in

a comprehensive way laws describing the phenomena of
electricity and magnetism and the interaction between
them. Maxwell was then 42 and the first professor of the
newly established Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge
University. At that time electromagnetic theory was
dominated by the extensive and well established action at
a distance approach developed by physicists such as
Coulomb, Ampère and Poisson in France and by Weber,
Riemann and C. Neumann in Germany. In this approach,
the electromagnetic interaction was taken to act directly
across a distance between charged bodies and current-
carrying wires. Newton’s law of gravity, the foundational
law of nature of 18th and 19th century science, had
provided the model for these interactions and had seemed
to imply such an action at a distance interaction, despite
Newton’s own reservations about this idea.
Maxwell’s Treatise contained a good deal of these
theories and Maxwell praised their mathematical sophis-
tication referring to those who developed them as ‘eminent
mathematicians’ and to the German School in particular
as the ‘greatest authorities in mathematical electricity’
[Preface]. At the same time, however, the Treatise con-
Figure 1 James Clerk Maxwell. Courtesy of The Cavendish
tained his own unique approach, one based on a quite Laboratory.
different physical theory that was centered around the
idea that electromagnetic effects were to be understood as work, everywhere evident in the work, was to ‘upset
being mediated by electric and magnetic fields which pro- completely the notion of action at a distance’2. Moreover,
duced stresses in a medium. Peter Tait, Maxwell’s friend, Maxwell ended the Treatise with the remark that his
in a review of the Treatise noted the main objective of the ‘constant aim in the Treatise’ had been to construct a
mental representation of the details of the action of
electromagnetism in a medium [866].
Ronald Anderson
Closely associated with the focus on the fields and
medium between bodies, the Treatise contained two other
Is at the Department of Philosophy, Boston College, Chestnut Hill,
MA 02467, USA.
unique features of Maxwell’s approach to electro-
e-mail: ronald.anderson@bc.edu magnetism. One was his famous ‘displacement current’,

0160-9327/01/$ – see front matter © 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII: S0160-9327(00)01383-1 Endeavour Vol. 25(4) 2001 157
 a form of current associated with the changing state of the
electric medium whose introduction in 1862 had led to a
series of equations from which flowed the prediction that
light was an electromagnetic wave phenomena. The other
was a somewhat complex notion of electric charge in
which charge, instead of being a property associated with
particles as it was understood in the Continental per-
spective (and in our modern sense), was understood as a
polarization phenomena manifest at the boundaries of
fields and metals or in general as a discontinuity in fields.
The sources Maxwell acknowledged as the inspiration for
his own approach were the Englishman Michael Faraday
and his fellow Scotsman William
Thomson (later Lord Kelvin). significantly Maxwell was
Their influence is evident through- dependent … on features
out the Treatise. Indeed, Maxwell,
of Continental approach
in an autobiographic remark in
the Treatise, noted that one of the for the path he chose in
reasons his work differs consider- the Treatise
ably from others, in particular,
those ‘published in German’, was due to the influence
of Faraday on his thinking. He had read, he recounted,
through Faraday’s Experimental Researches in Electricity
before reading any mathematical treatments of electro-
magnetism. And in a review of W. Thomson’s Reprint of
Papers on Electrostatics and Magnetism, published in the
year prior to the Treatise, Maxwell noted that one of
Thomson’s papers in the collection was the ‘gem of that
course of speculation’ that led him to develop ‘the math-
ematical significance of Faraday’s idea of the physical
action of the lines of force’3.
One of the intriguing threads that goes through the
Treatise consists of an intricate relationship between
Maxwell’s approach and that of the Continental action at
a distance mode of viewing interactions. Locating himself
with respect to this approach was not a new task for
Maxwell. In his first paper on electromagnetism, ‘On
Faraday’s Lines of Force’, published nearly 20 years prior
to the publication of the Treatise he both praised the
Continental theories yet held them in reserve such to
provide a space for his own work. As to the praise, he
noted Weber’s work was a ‘profoundly physical theory of
electro-dynamics, which is so elegant, so mathematical,
and so entirely different from anything in this paper, that
I must state its axioms, at the risk of repeating what out to merical results to all the phenomena of electricity. To
be well known’4. It formed a ‘real physical theory,’ one
put forward ‘by a philosopher whose experimental re-
searches form an ample foundation for his mathematical
investigations’5. The reservations Maxwell mentioned in
this first paper were those that stem from considering
forces to depend on the velocity of bodies as Weber’s
approach does, and several years later Maxwell added
another value to presenting his own approach: the general
lack of understanding of the action of electricity at the
time meant there was a place for two approaches6.
It was partly for pedagogical reasons and comprehen-
siveness that Maxwell had included details of the action
at a distance approach in the Treatise. One of the purposes
the Treatise picked up during its writing was to provide a
textbook suitable for Maxwell’s Cambridge context and
158 Endeavour Vol. 25(4) 2001
he noted after the publication of the Treatise that ‘I
sometimes made use of methods which I do not think
the best in themselves, but without which the student
cannot follow the investigations of the founders of the
Mathematical Theory of Electricity’7. At the same time,
many of the laws of electromagnetism were the same as
his own and rather significantly Maxwell was dependent,
as we will see later, on features of Continental approach
for the path he chose in the Treatise to develop his own.
At the center of this relationship of approaches as
presented in the Treatise is a claim by Maxwell that ‘the
theory of direct action at a distance is mathematically
identical with that of action by
means of a medium’ [62]. The
two approaches are ‘mathemati-
cally equivalent’ [59]. The claim
of mathematical equivalence
(together with his identity as
being a follower of Faraday) also
appears in an encyclopedia article
on electromagnetism published the same year as the first
edition of the Treatise:
In the present article, we shall follow the path pointed out by
Faraday, which leads to results mathematically identical
with those of Ampère, but never loses sight of the phenom-
ena which take place in the space between the bodies which
are observed to act on each other.8
There are also earlier references to the theme of equiva-
lence between the two approaches in Maxwell’s writings.
In his first paper on electromagnetism, Maxwell had noted
the identical mathematical form between some of the laws
for the action at a distance force laws and those for the uni-
form distribution of heat throughout a body9. In the latter
case heat was supposed to be transferred by action through
a medium suggesting to Maxwell the possibility of carrying
over the mathematical laws from the well established action
at a distance formulation of electromagnetism to those in-
volving local action in a medium. Then in a talk to the British
Association in 1870, Maxwell referred to the way in which
the Continental approach at that time and the action via a
medium approach had a ‘large field of truth common to
both’ in terms of the laws of both leading to the same nu-
Maxwell the reason two theories ‘apparently so fundamen-
tally opposed’ could be in such a relationship was a matter
of importance but not yet fully understood scientifically10.
Reading the Treatise, alert to ways Maxwell positioned
himself in the field of electromagnetic studies, reveals a set
of strategies that used the conceptual space in this remark-
able type of intersection of approaches to attach and secure
his approach to the more established Continental one, yet
present an approach with a radically different physical
model. The essential moves by Maxwell entailed develop-
ing Faraday’s experimental work mathematically and using
a set of practices to do with interpreting the mathematics of
electromagnetism. The latter topic brings one to the heart of
Maxwell’s mathematical physics – the practices of ascrib-
ing physical significance to mathematical structures. The
overall result meant Maxwell could situate himself as one
having the mathematical sophistication of the Continental
approach but grounded in a British experimental tradition.
Maxwell’s mathematical mantel and interpreting
mathematics as the language of Nature
While praising the Continental approach as highly math-
ematical Maxwell also presented himself in the Treatise as
the bearer of a mathematical mantel; ‘I have confined my-
self almost entirely to the mathematical treatment of the
subject’ [Preface]. There are places where one can see him
subtlety drawing attention to his own mathematical com-
petency, a competency such to rival those who developed
the Continental approaches. Examples include his extensive
presentation of integral theorems in an introductory chap-
ter in the Treatise and his hints of having good control of de-
tailed mathematical studies such as in the following passage:
There is also a considerable mass of mathematical memoirs
which are of great importance in electrical science, but they
lie concealed in the bulky Transactions of learned societies;
they do not form a connected system; they are of very unequal
merit, and they are for the most part beyond the comprehen-
sion of any but professed mathematicians. [Preface]
His use of mathematics though (unlike that of some of the
existing treatments of electricity and magnetism) was to
be constrained to that relevant to physical inquires; ‘I
shall avoid, as much as I can, those questions which,
though they have elicited the skill of mathematicians,
have not enlarged our knowledge of science.’ [Preface.]
In several places in the Treatise Maxwell invoked the
metaphor of mathematics as being a language with the sym-
bols of mathematics therefore when used in physical reason-
ing needing to be interpreted to acquire physical meaning.
For example, he noted the task of expressing the theory
of Faraday in a ‘mathematical language’ [83a], and that of
‘translating’ Faraday’s ideas into a mathematical form
[Preface]. The mathematical formalism of Quaternions
Maxwell used to express his theory was spoken of as a
‘language’ [590]11. When describing certain physicists he
observed that the mathematics used in physical reasoning
only comes alive for them when clothed in bodily language
expressing bodily feelings. Indeed, one central feature of
physical reasoning for Maxwell, and one evident through-
out his writings, is the task of embodying mathematical ex-
pressions in models of visualizable physical mechanisms or
processes. And in his review of Tait and Thomson’s Elements
of Natural Philosophy, Maxwell praised the authors for
their ‘clothing’ the symbolic language of mathematicians
with words of ‘our mother tongue’ by their use of precise
definitions. Even mathematicians could gain enlighten-
ment, and get equations ‘out of their minds’ by expressing
the symbols of their discipline into ordinary words12.
The image of language also occurs in a more broader
sense where Maxwell in places refers to ‘translating’ be-
tween different ways of looking at the phenomena. In the
Preface, for example, he refered to the ‘mathematicians’
ways of looking at things, meaning those with the Con-
tinental action at a distance approach, and Faraday’s ways
as two different languages. Also when a mathematical
formula is the same in different subjects, such as the
example of the Italian physicist Mossotti’s use of the
mathematics of Poisson’s account of magnetic induction
to develop a theory of electric induction, this is a matter
of translating between the language of one subject to
another [62]. The phrasing used when describing this
same example outside the context of the Treatise was
‘translating it from the magnetic language into the
electric’ (and at the same time ‘from French to Italian’)13.
References to mathematics as a language and the task of
interpreting the symbols of language abound in mid-
century Victorian texts on science and mathematics. One
finds, for example, W. Thomson referring to expressing
results in the ‘language of mathematics’14. Faraday, too,
with the negative comments on his Royal Institution talk
on the correlation of forms that mentioned his absence of
mathematics possibly in mind15, hinted at a similar
association in a letter to Maxwell:
There is one thing I would be glad to ask you. When a math-
ematician engaged in investigating physical actions and
result has arrived at his own conclusions, may they not be
expressed in common language as fully, clearly, and as defi-
nitely as in mathematical formulae? If so, would it not be a
great boon to such as we to express them so – translating
them out of their hieroglyphics that we also might work on
them by experiment16.
In addition there was a sustained discussion of the mean-
ing of abstract algebra that had been developed in the
1830s, one that had continued the discussion in the 18th
century of the meaning of negative and imaginary num-
bers17. One can find, for example, encyclopedia articles by
the mathematician De Morgan on ‘symbol’, ‘interpret-
ation’, and ‘imaginary numbers’18. Recent scholarship on
the emergence of the study of language in 19th century
England has pointed out the power of the language meta-
phor in scientific reasoning such as in Darwin’s theory of
evolution19. Maxwell’s own references to the meaning and
interpretation of the mathematics of electromagnetism
most probably have resonances to these discussions of the
status of mathematical symbols and the nature of language.
Representing Faraday’s approach as mathematical
One feature of the work of Michael Faraday was its ex-
perimental nature and almost complete absence of math-
ematics. Maxwell was quite explicit in acknowledging
Faraday’s absence of mathematics compared to that of the
Continental electromagnetic figures: ‘Open a Poisson and
Ampère, who went before him, or a Weber or Neumann,
who came after him, and you find their pages full of sym-
bols, not one of which Faraday would have understood’20.
Maxwell even made a virtue out of Faraday’s absence of
explicit mathematics. It meant Faraday was not tempted
to be sidetracked into research in pure mathematics that
his discovers would have suggested to him if he had
placed them into mathematical form and he was left to
coordinate his ‘ideas with facts’ and to express them in an
natural untechnical language [529].
Endeavour Vol. 25(4) 2001 159
 However, one of Maxwell’s central themes was that
Faraday’s ideas were both implicitly mathematical and
could be translated into mathematical form. In the Treatise
Maxwell noted that Faraday’s ‘method of conceiving the
phenomena was also a mathematical one’ even if not in
the ‘conventional form of mathematical symbols’. And that
his task was one to make the ideas in Faraday’s ‘natural un-
technical language’ the basis of a ‘mathematical method’
[528]. Maxwell’s presentation of the mathematical dimen-
sion of Faraday’s work takes up a theme in Thomson’s
writings21.
By stressing both the experimental origins and nature
of Faraday’s ideas as well as their implicit mathematical
nature we see Maxwell positioning himself as one to have
created or unearthed a mathematical tradition of electro-
magnetism on a basis that was independent of the Conti-
nental tradition.
When Maxwell first raised the issue of presented
Faraday’s way of conceiving the phenomena in a math-
ematical way in the Treatise it was in the context of a
distinction between what could be labeled as global and
local ways of mathematical representation. In Volume 1
of the Treatise in a chapter on integral theorems and
potentials Maxwell elaborated the distinction, calling the
method associated with action exerted by contiguous
parts of the medium and to do with differential equations
the ‘inverse method’ [95a,95b]. It is a local method asso-
ciated with Poisson’s partial differential equation where
the derivatives of V at a point are related to the value of 
at that point:
d 2V d 2V d 2V
+ + + 4πρ = 0
dx 2 dy 2 dz 2
The appropriate mathematical expression for the action
at a distance theory is an integral where the potential is
calculated by a process of integration. It is the ‘direct
method’.
+∞ +∞ +∞
ρ
V= ∫ ∫ ∫ r
dx ’dy’dz’
−∞ −∞ −∞
To Maxwell that the results of integration satisfy the dif-
ferential equation in a unique way when certain con-
ditions are satisfied meant not only that the mathematical
equivalence of the two expressions was established but
that our minds were prepared ‘to pass from the theory of
direct action at a distance to that of action between
contiguous parts’ [95a]. Here we have an example of the
first of the ways in which Maxwell used the mathematical
structure of electromagnetism to argue for a form of
mathematical equivalence between the action at a distance
approach and his own. Moreover for Maxwell this meant
the Continental mathematical methods to the approach of
Faraday was possible:
The whole theory, for instance of the potential, considered
as a quantity which satisfies a certain partial differential
equation, belongs essentially to the method which I have
called that of Faraday. According to the other method, the
potential, if it is to be considered at all, must be regarded as
160 Endeavour Vol. 25(4) 2001
the result of a summation of the electrified particles divided
each by its distance from a given point. Hence many of the
mathematical discoveries of Laplace, Poisson, Green and
Gauss find their proper place in this Treatise, and their
appropriate expressions in terms of the conceptions mainly
derived from Faraday. [Preface]
Or as he expressed it in the Preface, he had found that the
most ‘fertile methods of research discovered by math-
ematicians could be expressed much better in terms of
ideas derived from Faraday than in their original form.’
Maxwell also noted in the Preface that Faraday’s
approach, focused on the actions in the medium and on
lines of force, was such to resemble methods where ‘we
begin with the whole and arrive at the parts by analysis.’
On the other hand ‘ordinary mathematical methods’ be-
gan at the parts and built up the whole by synthesis. These
were associated with mathematicians seeing centers of
force acting at a distance. Later in the Treatise Maxwell
strengthened this association of Faraday’s methods with
a mathematical method by the following rather complex
argument. In a section where he was considering Fara-
day’s methods he remarked that there two ways or view-
ing the relationships between wholes and parts. In the
‘most natural’ way mathematicians consider the universe
as made up of parts and begin with a single particle and
consider its relationship to the rest. For Maxwell though
this involves a process of abstraction, suggesting another
way of looking at matters:
To conceive of a particle, however, requires a process of
(1) abstraction, since all our perceptions are related to extended
bodies, so that the idea of the all that is in our consciousness
at a given instant is perhaps as primitive an idea as that of
any individual thing. Hence there may be a mathematical
method in which we proceed from the whole to the parts
instead of from the parts to the whole. [529; emphasis in
original.]
(2)
The first way was like conceiving of the potential of a
material system as a function found by integration along
lines and over surfaces throughout finite spaces, while the
second was the method of differential equations and one
where masses ‘have no other meaning than the volume-
integrals of (1/4π)2ψ, where ψ is the potential’. The
integration for Maxwell are over all space. Maxwell
cautiously notes that Faraday’s approach ‘seems’ to be
intimately related to the second of these ways as he con-
ceives of all of space a field of force and never considers
bodies as existing with nothing between them. Maxwell
then has proposed an idea of a ‘mathematical approach’
other than that associated with the action at a distance
theories and associated it with Faraday thus there is a
subtle extension of his previous association of Faraday’s
approach (and his own) with local differential equations
to now include a global way of viewing the phenomena,
and an integral over all space. Later it will be evident that
Maxwell has tailored this manner of taking Faraday to be
mathematical to the mathematical ways he used the action
at a distance approach to develop his own.
 In his obituary on Faraday, Maxwell mentioned another
way in which he saw Faraday’s approach to be mathemati-
cal. It could be liken to aspects of the ‘geometry of position’
that he had referred to in the Treatise, a mathematical sci-
ence established without the ‘aid of a single calculation’22.
Faraday’s lines of force were like the pencils of lines in
this type of mathematics, and their ‘new symbolism’ pro-
vided a mental image of the thing reasoned about.
A further feature Maxwell promotes about Faraday is
the manner in which he provides the reader with a step by
step path through his experiments [529]. This enables the
student to identify with Faraday the discoverer and match
his own thinking with that of Faraday’s. Such a process
was not possible in reading Ampère who simply presents
the final formulae giving the results of the discovery.
Reading Faraday was a way to cultivate a scientific spirit.
Maxwell promoted the same value about Cavendish’s
writings – they show us the path by which he arrived at
his experiment23. The theme of following the value of fol-
lowing steps in a process of reasoning or discovery occurs
elsewhere in the Treatise in particular in interpreting the
physical significance of mathematical formulae. After
referring to results that are derived in steps that are purely
mathematical even though they involved terms with physi-
cal meanings Maxwell adds that the ‘physicist, when he
has to follow a mathematical calculation, will understand
it all the better if each of the steps of the calculation ad-
mits of a physical interpretation’ [132]. Years earlier in
his Inaugural lecture at King’s College London, in 1860,
Maxwell also referred to the value of following the steps
of a calculation.
But as we are engaged in the study of Natural Philosophy we
shall endeavour to put our calculations into such a form that
every step may be capable of some physical interpretation,
and thus we shall exercise powers far more useful than those
of mere calculation – the application of principles and the
interpretation of results.24
The virtue is similar to the one Whewell had promoted in
a tract on education at Cambridge University in arguing
for the value of a geometrical approach to problems as
opposed to an abstract algebraic approach25.
The ‘mathematical equivalence’ of energy
expressions
In Maxwell’s electromagnetism there are two main
energy expressions, that associated with static charges,
the potential energy, and that associated with currents and
electromagnetism, a form which Maxwell referred to as
the ‘electrokinetic’ energy. To Maxwell the expressions of
both forms in the action of at a distance approach are
equivalent to those in his own approach. As an illustration
of Maxwell’s approach I will present the outline of his deri-
vation of the energy due to electric currents. It is slightly
more complicated than that for electrostatic energy but
draws on one of Faraday’s notions that has an important
experimental role in his discovery of electromagnetic
induction in 1831. For Maxwell the kinetic energy of a
system of currents takes the form of the following sum:
1
T=
2
∑ ( pi) (3)
where p is electromagnetic momentum of a circuit and i
the strength of the current around that circuit. Expressing
p as:
p = ∫ A • dl (4)
where A represents Maxwell’s ‘electromagnetic momen-
tum’ a term he was to label later in the Treatise as the vec-
tor potential. It is the ancestor of the term with the same
name in contemporary electromagnetic theory, and the
origins in Maxwell’s work is Faraday’s notion of an
electrotonic state. I have chosen to represent Maxwell’s
symbols by their modern descendants and to use modern
notation for his formulae. In terms of a current density, J,
Maxwell then expressed the total energy as:
1
T=
8π ∫∫∫ ( A • J )dxdydz (5)
where Maxwell noted that the integration is to be ex-
tended to every part of space where there is currents. Now
a key move in translating this formula into one in terms
of the magnetic field, B, and magnetic intensity, H, occurs
by first of all using the field equation expressing J in
terms of H, viz., J =  × H to give:
1
T=
8π ∫∫∫ [ A • (∇ × H )]dxdydz (6)
and by integrating by parts and taking H to decrease in
the order of r −3 at great distances Maxwell obtained, using
B =  × A,
1
T=
8π ∫∫∫ ( B • H )dxdydz (7)
Maxwell noted that the integration was to be extended
to all space where B and H are non zero. The first integral
in equation (5) Maxwell noted is the natural expression
for a theory where currents act on each other at a distance.
The integrand is only non-zero in places where there are
currents. The second integral in equation (7), however, is
that of a theory that explains the action in terms of action
in a medium between the currents. Given that this latter
method of investigation was the one adopted in the Treatise
for Maxwell it was the most significant expression for the
kinetic energy. Implicit in Maxwell’s reasoning is an inter-
pretation of the mathematical equality of the two integrals
in physical terms, a move he proposed in his ‘Plan of this
Treatise’ [59].
A derivation also exists for the electrostatic energy where,
by a mathematical manipulation Maxwell moves from a
volume integral over places where free electricity (an in-
tegral in terms of charges and the ‘scalar’ potential) to one
over all space and in terms of the electric force and electric
displacement.
Maxwell interprets equation (7) as giving an actual
energy per volume element of (1/8π)(B • H) which is every-
where the magnetic field exists. A distinctive feature of
Maxwell’s approach was the localization of energy in places
in space. The equivalence only entails the entire integral so
Endeavour Vol. 25(4) 2001 161
 Maxwell is proceeding in a way that interprets the expres-
sion within the integral sign as giving a localizable physical
entity to be associated with each volume element. Maxwell
does this at several places in the Treatise and it is in accord
with his way of talking about integrals. For example, in
the General Theorems section of Volume 1 of the Treatise
he speaks of classifying the mathematical status of the
‘quantity under the integral sign’ [95b]. Also, when reason-
ing out the mathematical transformation between a line
integral to a surface integral that forms Stoke’s theorem
[see 587] Maxwell implicitly treats elements within a line in-
tegral as a reality in that he takes two of them adjacent to
each other but with circuits pointing in different directions
to cancel each other out. This is evident as well in the way
he speaks physically of lines of integration when consider-
ing Ampère’s theory of magnets such as in the following:
If we support our mathematical machinery to be so coarse
that our line of integration cannot thread a molecular circuit,
and that an immense number of magnetic molecules are con-
tained in our element of volume… but if we suppose our
machinery to be of a finer order and capable of investiga-
tion… [638]26
As well, to give a physical significance for the integrand
is the reverse of the reasoning where an integral is taken
as an actual sum of elements of physical significance,
such as that which occurs in the construction of integral
in equation (5).
One can see here the procedure Maxwell follows is
matching his comparison of the approaches of the ‘math-
ematicians’ to that of Faraday. The analytic part he ascribed
to the mathematicians was one of building up the whole by
summing parts – this matches that of equation (3) above,
while that of Faraday, of starting with the whole and mov-
ing to the parts, matches that of starting with the integral
expression for the energy in equation (7) and obtaining an
expression for the energy at a point.
Maxwell in his presidential address to a section of the
British Association meeting in 1870 also referred to the way
mathematicians by their operations on symbols of number
and quantity are able to ‘express the same thing in many
different ways’. This means ‘the mathematician’ can trans-
form an expression which is puzzling to us into one which
explains its ‘meaning in more intelligible language’27.
This understanding accords with the way Maxwell used
relationships between integral expressions in the Treatise
such as those considered above. The transition between the
expressions associated with the two approaches is a purely
mathematical one, but for Maxwell one was more intel-
ligible, especially in the light of his own approach.
Maxwell’s claim that the two approaches are ‘mathemati-
cally identical’ was to cause confusion later on for the
Maxwellians, the group who came after him and developed
his ideas, such as to FitzGerald in 1879 when considering
the possibility of electromagnetic waves28. Heaviside wrote
to FitzGerald 10 years later to point out how FitzGerald had
been misled by these statements of Maxwell. To Heaviside,
Maxwell had only meant an equality regards ‘phenomena
to be got by assuming displacement ignorable’29.
162 Endeavour Vol. 25(4) 2001
It was to become clear later that the transformation be-
tween the two forms of electrokinetic energy given by
Maxwell is only valid strictly in the case of steady currents
and charges. H.M. MacDonald, for example, in an Adams
prize essay at the University of Cambridge on Maxwell’s
theory in 1902, organized around the significance of the two
energy expressions above that Maxwell gives for the electro-
kinetic energy, remarks on the inadmissibility of the trans-
formation Maxwell makes on going from the expression in
equation (5) to that in equation (6)30. In particular, if one al-
lows for the propagation of electric waves the components
of the magnetic force and electrokinetic momentum are such
that their contribution to the surface integral at large dis-
tances is non negligible, undermining an assumption neces-
sary to make the transition. For MacDonald the first ex-
pression is the only admissible energy expression that can
be derived from Faraday’s theory and the use of the second
led to a wrong assumption that MacCullagh’s optical theory
and Maxwell’s electromagnetic theory are the same since
both have identical Lagrangian functions31.
The matter of how potentials may be seen to propagate
was also of some complexity for the those who followed
Maxwell. Even at the end of the Maxwellian period it re-
mained an issue as correspondence between Larmor, Lodge
and FitzGerald indicates. Larmor in 1901 remarked to Lodge
that he had just come across an article by Levi-Civita of Padua
which ‘aims to do away with the mystery of potentials being
propagated – or rather the uncanniness, not mystery’. Lodge
forwarded Larmor’s letter to FitzGerald who noted in reply
the difference between Larmor’s treatment of potentials as
‘analytic functions’ for calculating the electric from the mag-
netic forces and the use of the potentials by Levi-Civita32.
The transformation of Faraday’s ‘electrotonic
state’
Both Maxwell’s treatment of Faraday’s electrotonic state
and his remarks on Faraday’s approach illustrate directly
one of Maxwell’s aims in the Treatise to demonstrate that
within the tradition of action within a local medium there
was possible a mathematical treatment that matched the
Continental action at a distance approaches. In the Treatise
Maxwell’s treatment of induction between two current
carrying wires led him to a quantity, M, that determined the
electro-magnetic action between two circuits. It was a func-
tion of the relative shape and relation of the two circuits
and for Maxwell it represented the ‘potential of one circuit
over another’ [543]. It was directly related to the ‘electro-
magnetic momentum’ of equation (3) above and corre-
sponded to the condition of matter Faraday had identified
as the ‘electrotonic state’ in his study of electromagnetic
induction. One half of Maxwell’s first paper on electro-
magnetism was devoted to providing a theoretical and
mathematical analysis of Faraday’s electrotonic state.
This quantity, by virtue of its structure as a type of ‘mo-
mentum’ whose time rate of change provided the electric
force was pivotal to his development of a dynamic approach
to the field based on Lagrangian and Hamiltonian formu-
lations of the dynamics of connected systems. To Maxwell
it forms the fundamental quantity of electromagnetism
and was moreover a ‘mathematical quantity’.
 By adopting a course of experiments, guided by intense
application of thought, but without the aid of mathematical
calculations, he was led to recognize the existence of some-
thing which we now know to be a mathematical quantity,
and which may even be called the fundamental quantity of
electromagnetism [540].
Maxwell then remarked that other ‘eminent investiga-
tors’, namely, F.E. Neumann, had developed a mathemati-
cal theory of induction based on a concept of a potential
between two circuits, and moreover that this potential of
Newmann corresponded to Faraday’s notion of an elec-
trotonic state. For Maxwell, Neumann had ‘completed for
the induction of currents the mathematical treatment which
Ampere had applied to their mechanical action’ [542].
Maxwell noted, however, that none had recognized via
this mathematical path Faraday’s idea which he had done.
Thus just as Maxwell has provided a mathematical theory
to capture action by a local medium that he claimed, via
equivalence of energy expressions, to be mathematically
identical to action at a distance theories by the eminent
continental mathematicians (such as Ampère and Weber),
he had now, in one more area (electromagnetic induc-
tion) provided a mathematical development of one of
Faraday’s ideas to obtain a quantity that was identical
with that of Neumann’s analysis of induction. It can be
seen as part of his hopes in the Treatise to make Faraday’s
‘ideas the basis of a mathematical method’ [528]. The
irony here is that Faraday’s electrotonic state gives rise to
an energy expression that is the one appropriate to an
action at a distance approach rather than his own.
Maxwell also showed that by introducing a vector, B
(defined by B =  × A) in combination with Stoke’s
theorem relating surface and line integrals he could obtain
a surface integral of B over a surface enclosed by a circuit
such that it could be interpreted to represented another
notion of Faraday’s, namely, that of the number of lines of
force through the circuit. Maxwell stressed the mathemati-
cal manner in which B was introduced, and that this pro-
cedure introduced no ‘new fact into the theory’ but was
justified by the agreement of the ‘relations of the math-
ematical quantity with those of the physical quantity
indicated by that name’ [593]. It enabled him to claim that
mathematical equivalence of two of Faraday’s key ideas:
‘the number of lines of force which at any instant pass
through the circuit is mathematically equivalent to
Faraday’s earlier concept of the electrotonic state of that
circuit…’ [542]. It was also a powerful demonstration of
the presence of a mathematical glue holding Faraday’s
ideas together.
Maxwell’s use of Stoke’s theorem in this manner meant
another thread was woven in the mathematical tapestry
of the Treatise. Faraday’s lines of force concept figured
prominently in the Treatise, indeed Tait remarked in his
review that one of the curious features of the Treatise was
the ‘amount of labour bestowed upon the exceedingly
useful, but dry and uninteresting, pursuit of accuracy in
the tracing of the Lines of Force’33. When Maxwell intro-
duced Faraday’s lines of force (induction) in a section on
equipotential surfaces he remarked on their association
with the mathematical theory of the potential that figured
in the Continental tradition, as well as their productivity
compared to that tradition:
There is therefore no contradiction between Faraday’s views
and the mathematical results of the old theory, but, on the
contrary, the idea of lines of forces throws great light on
these results, and seems to afford the means of rising by a
continuous process from the somewhat rigid conceptions of
the old theory of notions which may be capable of greater
expansion, so as to provide room for the increase of our
knowledge by further researches [122].
These lines of force were related mathematically to the
conditions of electric and magnetic forces Maxwell
emphasized [541]. In his claim that the results of the old
theory were met and even improved by his own approach
coupled together with his reference to the mathematical
nature of his own treatment of the lines of force approach,
Maxwell added a further example to his energy analysis,
of the mathematical identical nature of his approach to
that of the continental approach.
The alternative derivation of the inverse square
law to that of Coulomb
Maxwell’s account of electrostatics that begins the Treatise
has a series of experiments woven into a presentation of
the concepts and phenomena of electrostatics. The style
of exposition is not unlike that of Newton’s Optics. Several
of the experiments involve the situation of a hollow metal
vessel and the various phenomena associated with placing
charged bodies within the container [28–32]. Maxwell’s
reference here is to Faraday’s work on electrostatics in
Series 11 of the Experimental Researches. One of the ex-
periments (experiment VII) describes the phenomena of
how a charged body loses all of its charge when it
touches the inside of a closed vessel. On the basis of this
experiment Maxwell provided a mathematical analysis
to show that the result entails an inverse square law for
electric attraction between charged bodies. If the inverse
square law did not hold then the electrified conductor
introduced into the container would remain electrified
after touching the surface. For Maxwell this result
established the ‘perfect accuracy’ of the inverse square
law and was a far more accurate verification of this law
than the more direct means Coulomb had used. Between
editions of the Treatise, Maxwell had become familiar
with the work of H. Cavendish and included mention in
the later edition of Cavendish’s use of this experiment to
prove the inverse square law. Maxwell, himself had repro-
duced the experiment at the Cavendish Laboratory [74b].
Given the centrality of the law of attraction to the
theory of electricity and Maxwell’s remarks that his ap-
proach via the experiments of Faraday and Cavendish
was better than that of Coulomb we have a further subtle
underlining by Maxwell that his exposition builds on
and extends a British experimental tradition. It com-
plements his demonstration that the dynamic theory of
electromagnetism arises from Faraday’s notion of an
electrotonic state.
Endeavour Vol. 25(4) 2001 163
 Maxwell also hints that the priority of making the con-
cept of potential the basis of electrical science belongs to
George Green, whose essay on these matters had not been
known until 1846, by which time his important theorems
had been rediscovered by others such as Gauss [16]. In
his notes to the edited papers of Cavendish, Maxwell re-
marks that Cavendish implicitly had the concept of poten-
tial in the modern sense in his analysis of electrostatic
phenomena, and moreover, that there was no hint of that
idea in Coulomb’s papers34. While I am drawing on a
source other than the Treatise, overall Maxwell’s intent
in his writings on electromagnetism at the time of the
Treatise are clear: the origins of what was a central term
in the mathematics of central force situations analysed in
the mathematics within the Continental contexts lies
within a British context.
Representing the stress in the medium
As indicated above Maxwell used integrals expressions
to transform energy expressions involving quantities that
expressed charges and currents to those quantities that
existed in the space between charges and currents. When
considering the electric force between two electrified
systems in the Treatise Maxwell first arrived at an ex-
pression that involved a volume integral and a potential
that arises from both systems. Using one of his general
integral theorems Maxwell transforms this to a surface
integral enclosing one and only one of the electrical sys-
tems [105]. Maxwell noted of the terms in the integrand
that if one has an action at a distance theory then these
terms can only be taken as symbolic expressions having
no physical significance, but if one is to take the mutual
action to be by ‘means of a stress in the medium’ between
the two systems then these components can actually rep-
resent the stress existing in a medium. Thus in a particular
context the mathematics can be interpreted as referring to
supporting an action via a medium approach. Then after
quoting Faraday’s description of induction in a dielectric
Maxwell notes that Faraday’s account is the exact con-
clusion of what he has been led to via a ‘mathematical
investigation’ [109].
Maxwell acknowledged, however, that he had not been
able to account for such stresses by mechanical consid-
erations. Still, for Maxwell, when considering the topic
of stress in the medium in the context of electrodynamic
matters the task of explaining this stress was a separate
and independent part of the theory and one that did not
affect his electrodynamic theory [645]. In his Encyclo-
paedia Britannica article on ‘Attraction’ Maxwell admits
he was more successful in accounting for electro-
dynamical stress by a mechanism involving rotation rather
than what he was able to do in explaining electrostatic
stress35. Nevertheless, the very idea of stress in the medium
in the electrostatic context leads to one of the distinctive
features of Maxwell’s theory, in particular, that charge is
an effect of the polarization of a medium and only be-
comes apparent when the medium meets a surface other
than itself such as metal.
Maxwell’s closing remarks in the Treatise critique the
action at a distance theories of Gauss, Weber, C. Neumann,
164 Endeavour Vol. 25(4) 2001
and others. His main point of criticism is that while the
mathematical implication of these theories is that effects
are propagated between bodies they provide no ‘consist-
ent representation’ of that propagation. Such a represen-
tation to Maxwell entails a medium for this propagation
to take place in. The critique is entirely in line with one
of the arguments for the medium Maxwell has provided
by the energy and force considerations: a mathematical
exploration with the concepts and expressions of action
at a distance theories leads to expressions which natu-
rally suggest action in a medium. Such local action in a
medium provides a natural mathematical expression of
Faraday’s notions.
There are also other places in the Treatise where Maxwell
demonstrates his grounding in a non-Continental world,
both physical and mathematical. While Lagrange’s
equations of motion form a connected system and are
a part of Maxwell’s dynamic approach to the field in
Part IV of the Treatise, it was the dynamic form given
to them by W. Hamilton and in particular the use given
to them by W. Thomson and P.J. Tait in their recently
published, Natural Philosophy, that is at the heart of the
form Maxwell praises and uses in the Treatise [554].
In addition, the value for ‘physical reasoning’ of the
mathematical notation and system of representing di-
rected magnitudes in space by the quaternions created
by W. Hamilton and developed in texts by Hamilton and
Tait was extolled by Maxwell compared to the methods
and ‘geometry of Des Cartes’ [10]. It is the English-
man, George Green who dominates his formal math-
ematical development of integral theorems. When
developing methods of solving the distribution of elec-
tric forces due to charged bodies, it was not any of the
‘mathematicians’ such as Poisson who noticed certain
mathematical solutions of equations provided a method
of ‘electric images’ as a way to develop solutions, rather
it was William Thomson [155]. There are exceptions,
such as Maxwell’s account of topological notions where
he refers to the work of Lebniz, Gauss and Listing, how-
ever, it features little in any physical reasoning in the
Treatise [18].
Steadily then throughout the Treatise Maxwell’s
various strategies have woven interpretative practices to
do with giving physical significance to mathematical
expressions into a skillful theorizing on the status of his
approach. The result is to present his own position as
equivalent mathematically to the well established
Continental electromagnetism yet grounded in an action
via a medium approach to electromagnetism and more
broadly, in a British experimental and to a lesser extent
mathematical tradition. The results are in accord with
other deep themes in Maxwell’s writings, ones that ground
him intellectually and personally in the world of 19th cen-
tury British Natural Philosophy and the early formative
influences of his Scottish education36.
Acknowledgement
Conversations with Jed Buchwald, Bruce Hunt and
Andrew Warwick on the subject of this paper are grate-
fully acknowledged.
Notes and references
1 Maxwell, J.C. A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism, 2 Vols
(3rd edition Dover Reprint) In the following references will
be given in the text to paragraphs of this edition
2 Tait, P.J. (1873) Clerk-Maxwell’s Electricity and
Magnetism. Nature 7, 478–80
3 Maxwell, J.C. (1890) Review of Reprint of papers on
Electrostatics and Magnetism by W. Thomson reproduced
in The Scientific Papers of James Clerk Maxwell (Niven,
W.D., ed.) (2 vols, Cambridge), Vol. 2, p. 304, hereafter
referred to as SP
4 Maxwell, J.C. On Faraday’s Lines of Force. In SP Vol. 1,
p. 207
5 Ibid p. 208. Similar praise for Weber’s work may be found
in ‘A Dynamic Theory of the Electromagnetic Field’. In SP
Vol. 1, p. 527
6 Maxwell, J.C. ‘On Physical Lines of Force’ in SP Vol. 1,
p. 208
7 Maxwell, J.C. (1881) An Elementary Treatise on Electricity
(Garnett, W., ed.) (Oxford, Clarendon Press) Preface
8 Maxwell, J.C. (1873) ‘Electromagnetism’, English
Cyclopaedia Supplementary volume on ‘Arts and Sciences’
columns 854–857
9 Maxwell, J.C. ‘On Faraday’s Lines of Force’ in SP Vol. 1,
p. 156
10 Maxwell, J.C. ‘Address to the Mathematical and Physical
Society Sections of the British Association,’ in SP Vol. 2,
p. 228
11 Also e.g. Maxwell, J.C. On the Mathematical Classification
of Physical Quantities. In SP Vol. 2, p. 260
12 Maxwell, J.C. Review of Elements of Natural Philosophy.
In SP Vol. 2, p. 328
13 Maxwell, J.C. op. cit. note 11, p. 258
14 Thomson, W. (1872) ‘II. On the Mathematical Theory of
Electricity in Equilibrium’ reproduced in Reprint of papers
on Electrostatics and Magnetism, MacMillan, London
15 Review of ‘On Conservation of Force A Lecture delivered
by Prof. Faraday at the Royal Institution February 27,
1857,’ The Athenaeum No. 1535 March 28, 1857
16 M. Faraday to J. Clerk Maxwell 13 November 1857 in The
Selected Correspondence of Michael Faraday L. Pearce
Williams (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press 1971)
Vol. 2, p. 884
17 See e.g. Richards, J.L. (1980) ‘The Art and the Science of
British Algebra: A Study in the Perception of Mathematical
Truth,’ Historia Mathematica 7, 343–365
18 De Morgan, A. Penny Cyclopaedia, 27 Vols, London
1833–1843
19 e.g. For S. Alter the metaphor of the evolution of languages
represented in a tree structure provided an analogy for
Darwin to understand and express the evolution of species
see Atler, S.G. (1999) Darwinism and the Linguistic Image:
Language Race and natural Theology in the Nineteenth
Century, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore
20 Maxwell, J.C. ‘Faraday.’ In SP Vol. 2, p. 355
21 Thomson, W. Op. cit. note 14, p. 29. Thomson notes e.g.:
‘…that Faraday arrives at a knowledge of some of the most
important of the general theorems which from their nature
seemed destined never to be perceived except as
mathematical truths, p. 31
22 Maxwell, J.C. Op. cit. note 20, p. 360
23 Maxwell, J.C. (1879) in ‘The electrical researches of the
Honourable Henry Cavendish: written between 1771 and
1781 edited from the original manuscripts in the possession
of the Duke of Devonshire’ (Maxwell, J.C., ed.), p. 410,
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
24 Maxwell, J.C. ‘Inaugural Lecture at King’s College London
October 1860’ . In The Scientific Letters and Papers of
James Clerk Maxwell, (Harman, P.M., ed.) Vol. 1,
pp. 662–674, 672
25 Whewell, W. (1845) On a Liberal Education in General:
and with Particular Reference to the Leading Studies of the
University of Cambridge, John W. Parker, London. To
Whewell, in geometrical reasoning ‘we treat the ground
ourselves, at every step feeling ourselves firm, and directing
our steps to the end aimed at. In the other case, that of
analytical calculation, we are carried along in a rail-road
carriage, entering it at one station, and coming out of it at
another, without having any choice in our progress in the
intermediate space’. For Whewell this provided no exercise
of our reasoning powers. See p. 41.
26 Later in the Treatise Maxwell speaks of ‘extending our
mathematical vision into the interior of the molecules’ when
considering Ampère’s theory [835]
27 Maxwell, J.C. ‘Address to the Mathematical and Physical
Society Sections of the British Association.’ In SP, Vol. 2,
pp. 215-229
28 FitzGerald, G.F. (1902) In The Scientific Writings of the
Late George Francis FitzGerald (Larmor, J., ed.),
pp. 90–92, Dublin University Press, Dublin
29 For a discussion of this point with reference to Heavside’s
letter to FitzGerald see Hunt, B.J. (1991) The Maxwellians,
p. 34f, Cornell University Press, Ithaca
30 MacDonald, H.M. (1902) Electric Waves: Being an Adams
Prize Essay in the University of Cambridge, Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge
31 Ibid. p. 34
32 Letters Larmor to Lodge January 8 1901 and FitzGerald to
Lodge January 16 1901 (University College London Lodge
Papers Ms.Add.89)
33 Tait, P.J. op. cit. note 2. p. 479
34 Maxwell, J.C. Op. cit. note 23, p. xlix
35 Maxwell, J.C. ‘Attraction’ in SP Vol. 2, p. 488
36 For recent studies of the formative influences on Maxwell’s
world see Cat, J. (2001) On Understanding: Maxwell on the
Methods of Illustration and. Scientific Metaphor. In Studies
in History and Phililosophy of Modern Physics 32,
pp. 395–441 and Harman, P. (1998)The Natural Philosophy
of James Clerk Maxwell. Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge
Endeavour Vol. 25(4) 2001 165