page_title: A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism
section_title: Contents
hierarchical_section_title: A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism / Contents
caption_attribution_description: Maxwell, James Clerk: A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism.
context_page_description: 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,
  The Treatise was notoriously hard to read; it teemed with ideas but lacked the clear focus and orderly presentation that might have enabled it to win converts more readily. Rather than simply expounding his own system, Maxwell had set out to write a comprehensive treatise on electrical science, and so he had allowed his own new distinctive ideas, notably that of the displacement current, to be almost buried under long accounts of miscellaneous phenomena discussed from several points of view. Except for a fuller treatment of the Faraday effect, Maxwell added little to his earlier work on the electromagnetic theory of light; he said nothing, for example, about how electromagnetic waves might be generated, nor did he attempt to derive laws governing reflection and refraction.
context_section_description: Preliminary. On the Measurement of Quantities.
  PART I. Electrostatics. 
  Description of Phenomena.
  Elementary Mathematical Theory of Electricity.
  On Electrical Work and Energy in a System of Conductors.
  General Theorems.
  Mechanical Action Between Two Electrical Systems.
  Points and Lines of Equilibrium.
  Forms of Equipotential Surfaces and Lines of Flow.
  Simple Cases of Electrification.
  Spherical Harmonics.
  Confocal Surfaces of the Second Degree.
  Theory of Electric Images.
  Conjugate Functions in Two Dimensions.
  Electrostatic Instruments.
  PART II. Electrokinematics.
  The Electric Current.
  Conduction and Resistance.
  Electromotive Force Between Bodies in Contact.
  Electrolysis.
  Electrolytic Polarization.
  Mathematical Theory of the Distribution of Electric Currents.
  Conduction in Three Dimensions.
  Resistance and Conductivity in Three Dimensions.
  Conduction through Heterogeneous Media.
  Conduction in Dielectrics.
  Measurement of the Electric Resistance of Conductors.
  Electric Resistance of Substances.
  PART III Magnetism
  Elementary Theory of Magnetism.
  Magnetic Force and Magnetic Induction.
  Particular Forms of Magnets.
  Induced Magnetization.
  Magnetic Problems.
  Weber's Theory of Magnetic Induction.
  Magnetic Measurements.
  Terrestrial Magnetism.
  Part IV. Electromagnetism.
  Electromagnetic Force.
  Mutual Action of Electric Currents.
  Induction of Electric Currents.
  Induction of a Current on Itself.
  General Equations of Dynamics.
  Application of Dynamics to Electromagnetism.
  Electrokinetics.
  Exploration of the Field by means of the Secondary Circuit.
  General Equations.
  Dimensions of Electric Units.
  Energy and Stress.
  Current-Sheets.
  Parallel Currents.
  Circular Currents.
  Electromagnetic Instruments.
  Electromagnetic Observations.
  Electrical Measurement of Coefficients of Induction.
  Determination of Resistance in Electromagnetic Measure.
  Comparison of Electrostatic With Electromagnetic Units.
  Electromagnetic Theory of Light.
  Magnetic Action on Light.
  Electric Theory of Magnetism.
  Theories of Action at a distance.
caption: Title, author and publisher page from first volume of Maxwell's masterwork
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