Paper, 'On the theory of electrodynamics' by Joseph Larmor Larmor writes: 'The electrical ideas of Clerk Maxwell, which were cultivated partly in relation to mechanical models of electrodynamic action, led him to the general principle that electrical currents always flow round complete circuits. To verify this principle for the case of the current which charges a condenser, it was necessary to postulate an electrodynamic action of the same type as that of a current for the electric displacement across the dielectric, in which the excitation of the dielectric may he supposed, after Faraday, to consist.' Annotations in pencil and ink. Subject: Electricity Received 30 April 1891. Read 14 May 1891. Communicated by Joseph John Thomson. A version of this paper was published in volume 49 of the Proceedings of the Royal Society as 'On the theory of electrodynamics'. 1891