CLERK MAXWELL.
Natural science in every department developed very wonderfully from its
experimental side during the first half of the nineteenth century. Facts
and observations accumulated to such an amount that, shortly after the
middle of the century, there was felt the need of a great mathematical
genius to bring the results of experiment into their proper places in
the great body of applied and theoretic science. Nearly always such a
demand meets with adequate response in its own due time. Clerk Maxwell
came at this most opportune moment for science. No mathematical problem
was too abstruse or difficult for him, and whatever he took up seriously
he always illuminated, and usually solved its problems as completely as
can be hoped for in the present state of scientific knowledge. It was
particularly in electricity that his mathematical faculty proved of the
greatest value, and that he found the abundant opportunities of which he
knew so well how to take advantage.
[Illustration: JAMES CLERK MAXWELL]
Clerk Maxwell's theory of electricity, as developed in his classic
treatise on "Electricity and Magnetism," is well called by Prof. Peter
Guthrie Tait, "One of the most splendid monuments ever raised by the
genius of a single individual." This book became the guide and companion
of more physical scientists during the nineteenth century than perhaps
any other written in that period. It was not alone in England or in
English-speaking countries that it was accepted as an authority and
constantly referred to, but everywhere throughout the world of science.
Not to know it, was to argue that a man knew nothing of the profounder
truths of electrical science and was only a seeker after superficial
information. Clerk Maxwell was known and esteemed by all the great
physical scientists of the world. His name is less widely known than
that of most of the great discoverers in electricity, because
mathematical achievement always has less popular attraction; but he
deserves to be known by all who are interested in science, not only
because of his magnificent contributions to mathematical electricity,
but quite as much for qualities of heart and mind that stamp him as one
of the very great men of the century so rapidly receding from us.
Clerk Maxwell, as he is usually called, because he was the
representative of a younger branch of the well-known Scottish family of
Clerk of Penicuik, was born in Edinburgh, June 13th, 1831. As with
nearly every other person who reaches distinction in after-life, there
are stories told of his precociousness which probably have more meaning
in this case than in most others, since they exhibit real traits that
were characteristic of the man. As a child, it is said that he was never
satisfied until he had found out for himself everything that he could
about anything that attracted his attention. He wanted to know where the
streams of water came from, where and whence all the pipes ran, and the
course of bell-wires and the like. His frequently repeated question was,
"What's the go o' that." If an attempt were made to put him off with
some indefinite answer, then he would insist, "But what's the particular
go of it." This was probably the most prominent trait in his after-life.
General explanations of phenomena that satisfied other men never
satisfied him. He was a nature student from the beginning, and even as a
boy he devised all sorts of ingenious mechanical contrivances. Pet
animals were his special delight, but for experimental purposes always,
and his selection of pets would probably have startled some people.
He received his early education at the Edinburgh Academy, and his
university education at the University of Edinburgh, where he graduated
in 1850. His liking for mathematics, which had already been very
strongly exhibited, led him, at the age of nineteen, to go to Cambridge.
Here, for a term or two, he was a student at Peterhouse, but afterwards
found a more sympathetic place for his mathematical tastes at Trinity.
He took his degree at Cambridge in 1854, though only with the rank of
second wrangler, Routh being senior. In the more serious and more
exacting examination for the Smith's Prize, he was declared equal with
the senior wrangler. His mathematical talents had developed very early,
and it is not surprising that the rest of his life should have been
devoted mainly to the teaching of mathematics and in investigations
connected with applied mathematics. It was not success at the university
that determined his career, for he had shown his marvelous mathematical
ability much earlier than that, and had given some astonishing examples
of his power to treat complex scientific problems in mathematical
journals.
Indeed, his original contributions to the higher mathematics began
before he was fifteen years of age. He was a striking example of the
fact that a great genius usually finds his work very early in life, and
usually accomplishes something significant in it, at once the harbinger
and the token of the future, before he is twenty-five. While Clerk
Maxwell was at the Edinburgh Academy, Professor J. D. B. Forbes, in
1836, communicated to the Royal Society of Edinburgh a short paper by
his youthful student on "A Mechanical Method of Tracing Oval Curves"
(Cartesian Ovals).
In spite of the prejudice that exists with regard to precocious genius
and the distinct feeling that it is not likely to prove an enduring
quality, Clerk Maxwell continued to do excellent original work all
through his teens. When he was but eighteen, he contributed two
important papers to the transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
One of these was on "The Theory of Rolling Curves," and the other on
"The Equilibrium of Elastic Solids." These are now remembered, not only
because of Clerk Maxwell's subsequent distinguished career, but because
of their distinct value as contributions to science. Both of them
demonstrate not only his ability to work out subtle mathematical
problems at this very early age, but show the possession by him of a
power of investigation for original work that stamps them as well worthy
of consideration in themselves, quite apart from the repute of their
author or the successful accomplishments of his subsequent life.
With regard to one of those Edinburgh papers of Clerk Maxwell's
eighteenth year, Prof. Guthrie Tait said "that in it he laid the
foundation of one of the singular discoveries of his later life, the
temporary double refraction produced in viscous liquid by sheering
stress." After his magnificent mathematical training at Cambridge, it is
not surprising that this academic career of great original work should
be continued by contributions to science of ever-increasing importance.
Immediately after his graduation, he read to the Cambridge Philosophical
Society one of the few purely mathematical papers that he ever
published. This had for its title, "On the Transformation of Surfaces by
Bending." Expert mathematicians who read the paper, realized at once
that there was a new genius in the field of mathematics. During the same
year, the young Scotch mathematician took the first step in that series
of electrical investigations which was to occupy so much of his
attention in after-life, and which was to prove the source of his
greatest inspirations. This consisted of the publication of an elaborate
paper on Faraday's "lines of force."
While we think of Maxwell as a mathematical physicist, it must not be
forgotten that he was also one of the leading experimental scientists of
that great epoch, the nineteenth century. Only a man who was himself a
great experimenter could have properly appreciated and developed, from
the mathematical standpoint, the works of such men as Cavendish and
Faraday. From his early years, Maxwell displayed a distinct fondness for
experimentation, and this even extended to experiments upon himself. In
many ways this trait of his would remind us of Johann Müller, the great
father of modern German medicine.[34] Like Müller, there was danger also
of Maxwell's experiments on himself getting him into trouble. For
instance, at one time his love of experiment led him to try sleeping in
the evening and getting up to work at midnight, so as to have the long,
silent hours of the night to himself. In the sketch of his life by Dr.
Garnett,[32] a letter from one of his friends is quoted with regard to
this nocturnal habit, which is amusing as well as interesting. The
friend wrote:
"From 2 to 2:30 a. m. he took exercise by running along the upper
corridor, down the stairs, along the lower corridor, then up the stairs,
and so on until the inhabitants of the rooms along his track got up and
laid _perdus_ behind their sporting doors, to have shots at him with
boots, hair-brushes, etc., as he passed." His love of fun, his sharp
wit, his extensive knowledge, and, above all, his complete
unselfishness, rendered him a universal favorite, in spite of the
temporary inconveniences which his experiments may have occasionally
caused to his fellow-students.
In 1857, Clerk Maxwell received the Adams Prize for his essay on "The
Stability of the Motion of Saturn's Rings." He shows very clearly that
these annular appendages consist of a large number of small masses. This
work would seem to be very distant from anything that Maxwell had
attempted before, and would indeed seem to the superficial observer, at
least, to be quite out of his sphere. It was the mathematics of it that
attracted him, and the fact that the problem was difficult, indeed, one
of the most difficult at that time before astronomers, only added zest
to his resolve to fathom it. All his life, mathematics continued to be
his favorite form of work, and his power to express the most complex
physical phenomena in mathematical formulæ gave him a reputation
throughout Europe unsurpassed by anyone of his generation. The more a
problem seemed incapable of direct statement in mathematical terms,
provided it represented a great occurrence in nature, the more Maxwell
was attracted to it; and the training of these early years in thus
setting mathematics to the solution of physical relations, was to serve
him in good stead when he came to try his hand at demonstrating the
meaning of electricity in mathematical terms.
Just before this, in 1856, Maxwell, though only twenty-five years of
age, was offered the chair of natural history, which included most of
the physical sciences, at Marischal College, Aberdeen. With the
attention that his mathematical papers attracted, it is not surprising
that after four years of teaching experience he was invited to King's
College, London. He held his new position for eight years, and then his
health required him to retire to his estate in Kirkcudbrightshire. After
three years of retirement, his English Alma Mater demanded his services,
and the temptation to get back to an academic career was so great that
he could not resist it. He became, in 1871, Professor of experimental
physics at Cambridge. To him, more than to anyone else, is due the
magnificent development of the physical sciences which took place at
Cambridge during the last quarter of the nineteenth century.
Unfortunately, he was not destined to live to enjoy the fruits of his
labor in organizing the scientific side of the university, but it was
under his direction that the plans of the Cavendish Laboratory were
prepared, and he superintended every step of the progress of the
building. It was under his careful management, too, that the purchase of
the very valuable collection of apparatus, with which it was equipped by
the Duke of Devonshire, was made, and Maxwell's work here counts for
much in the history of English science.
He died in 1879, when only forty-eight years of age, but he had deeply
impressed himself upon the science of the nineteenth century. For quite
one-half of his scant half-century span of life he had occupied a
prominent place in England, and after the age of thirty-five had come to
be generally recognized as one of the leading physical scientists of the
world. His career is, as we have said, a striking illustration of how
early in life a man's real work is likely to come to him, and how little
success in original investigation is dependent on that development of
mind which is supposed to be due only to long years of application to a
particular branch of study. Manifestly it is the original genius that
counts for most, and not any training that it receives, except such as
comes from its own maturing powers. Environment, if unfavorable, does
not hamper it much, nor keep it from reaching the proper terminus of its
destiny; and poor health only serves to prevent the exercise of its full
powers, but does not eclipse the manifestation of its capacity.
Clerk Maxwell's important contribution to science was the demonstration
that electro-magnetic effects travel through space in the form of
transverse waves similar to those of light and having the same velocity.
We have become so familiar with the ideas contained in this explanation,
that they seem almost obvious now. They came, however, as a great
surprise to Clerk Maxwell's generation, and at first seemed to be merely
a theoretic expression of a mathematical formula. Not long afterwards,
however, Maxwell's explanation was corroborated by Hertz, who showed
that these waves were propagated just as waves of light are, and that
they exhibit the phenomena of reflection, refraction and polarization.
Hertz went on from his demonstration of the actuality of Maxwell's
mathematical theory to the demonstration of further electrical waves.
These Hertzian waves, as they were called, were a startling discovery,
but remained only a scientific curiosity until they were taken advantage
of for wireless telegraphy, when a new era of applied electrical science
began.
How his success in this was accomplished will be best understood from
Prof. Guthrie Tait's account of Maxwell's devotion to electricity as a
life-work. He says:
"But the great work of his life was devoted to electricity. He
began by reading with the most profound admiration and attention
the whole of Faraday's extraordinary self-revelations, and
proceeded to translate the ideas of that master into the succinct
and expressive notation of the mathematicians. A considerable part
of this translation was accomplished during his career as an
undergraduate in Cambridge. The writer had the opportunity of
perusing the MS. on Faraday's lines of force, in a form little
different from the final one, a year before Maxwell took his
degree. His great object, as it was also the great object of
Faraday, was to over-turn the idea of action at a distance. The
splendid researches of Poisson and Gauss had shown how to reduce
all the phenomena of statical electricity to mere attractions and
repulsions exerted at a distance by particles of an imponderable on
one another. Sir W. Thomson had, in 1846, shown that a totally
different assumption, based upon other analogies, led (by its own
special mathematical methods) to precisely the same results. He
treated the resultant electric force at any point as an analogous
flux of heat from the sources distributed, in the same manner as
the supposed electric particles. This paper of Thomson's, whose
ideas Maxwell afterwards developed in an extraordinary manner,
seems to have given the first hint that there are at least two
perfectly distinct methods of arriving at the known formulæ of
statical electricity. The step to magnetic phenomena was
comparatively simple; but it was otherwise as regards
electromagnetic phenomena, where current electricity is essentially
involved. An exceedingly ingenious, but highly artificial, theory
had been devised by Weber, which was found capable of explaining
all the phenomena investigated by Ampère as well as the induction
currents of Faraday. But this was based upon the assumption of a
distance-action between electric particles, whose intensity
depended upon their relative motion as well as on their position.
This was, of course, more repugnant to Maxwell's mind than the
statical distance-action developed by Poisson. The first paper of
Maxwell's in which an attempt at an admissible physical theory of
electromagnetism was made, was communicated to the Royal Society in
1867. But the theory in a fully developed form, first appeared in
his great treatise on Electricity and Magnetism (1873). Availing
himself of the admirable generalized coördinate system of Lagrange,
Maxwell has shown how to reduce all electric and magnetic phenomena
to stresses and motions of a material medium, and as one
preliminary, but excessively severe, test of the truth of this
theory has shown that, if the electromagnetic medium be that which
is required for the explanation of the phenomena of light, the
velocity of light in vacuo should be numerically the same as the
ratio of the electromagnetic and electrostatic units. We do not as
yet certainly know either of these quantities very exactly, but
the mean values of the best determination of each separately agree
with one another more closely than do the various values of either.
There seems to be no longer any possibility of doubt that Maxwell
has taken the first grand step towards the discovery of the true
nature of electrical phenomena. Had he done nothing but this, his
fame would have been secure for all time. But, striking as it is,
this forms only one small part of the contents of his truly
marvelous work."
Maxwell's prediction as to the propagation of electric waves has
received its full confirmation, as we have said, in the brilliant
experiments of Hertz, and in the subsequent application of the Hertzian
waves to wireless telegraphy in our own time. It was not by mere chance
that this development of Maxwell's thinking came. Hertz himself
declared, in the introduction to his collected papers, that he owed the
suggestion of his work to Faraday and Maxwell, and above all to
Maxwell's speculations as to the nature of electricity and its relations
to light. Hertz said:
"The hypothesis that light is an electric phenomenon is thus made highly
probable. To give a strict proof of this hypothesis would logically
require experiments upon light itself. There is an obvious comparison
between the experiments and the theory, in connection with which they
were really undertaken. Since 1861, science has been in possession of a
theory which Maxwell constructed upon Faraday's views, and which we
therefore call the Faraday-Maxwell theory. This theory affirms the
occurrence of the class of phenomena here discovered, just as positively
as the remaining electric theories are compelled to deny it. From the
outset, Maxwell's theory excelled all others in its elaboration and in
the abundance of relations between the various phenomena which it
included."
How much Maxwell's work was appreciated across the channel, may be
realized from what Poincaré said: "So sure did the results of his
(Maxwell's) theory appear as worked out for the deepest problems, that a
feeling of distrust and suspicion is likely to be mingled with our
admiration for his magnificent work. It is only after prolonged study
and at the cost of many efforts that this feeling is dissipated."
Maxwell's explanation of electricity is that it is a strain or stress in
the ether, that it is a condition or mode, and not a substance. One
distinguished foreign contemporary who had read Maxwell's books with the
greatest interest, declared that he could not be quite satisfied, since
nowhere did he find what a charge of electricity is, though he seemed to
find satisfactory information with regard to everything else. Maxwell
realized, however, the limitations of his speculation very well, and
hesitated, above all, to bind his mathematical conclusions to statements
that might prove eventually only surmises founded on insufficient
information from the standpoint of observation. Even when he gave his
explanation, he did not insist on it as absolute, but, as pointed out by
Poincaré, discussed it only as a possibility. The French scientist said:
"Maxwell does not give a mechanical explanation of electricity and
magnetism; he is only concerned to show that such an explanation is
possible."
Maxwell thoroughly believed in having a hobby as well as his regular
work, and during the time while he was devoting himself to the
mathematical explanation of electricity he turned for recreation to
certain problems in physics, in physiology and psychology, relating to
color. He worked almost as great a revolution in our knowledge of
color-vision as in any other subject that he took up. Principal Garnett
has condensed so well what Clerk Maxwell accomplished in the matter of
color-vision, in his sketch of him in "The Heroes of Science,"[33] that
I prefer to quote his explanation. He says:
"It has been stated that Thomas Young propounded a theory of
color-vision which assumes that there exists three separate color
sensations, corresponding to red, green and violet, each having
its own special organs, the excitement of which causes the
perception of the corresponding color, other colors being due to
the excitement of two or more of these simple sensations in
different proportions. Maxwell adopted blue instead of violet for
the third sensation, and showed that, if a particular red, green,
and blue were selected and placed at the angular points of an
equilateral triangle, the colors formed by mixing them being
arranged as in Young's diagram, all the shades of the spectrum
would be ranged along the sides of this triangle, the center being
neutral grey. For the mixing of colored lights, he at first
employed the color top; but instead of painting circles with
colored sectors, the angles of which could not be changed, he used
circular discs of colored paper slit along one radius. Any number
of such discs can be combined so that each shows a sector at the
top, and the angle of each sector can be varied at will by sliding
the corresponding disc between the others. Maxwell used discs of
two different sizes, the small discs being placed above the larger
on the same pivot, so that one set forked a central circle and the
other set a ring surrounding it. He found that, with discs of five
different colors, of which one might be white and another black, it
was always possible to combine them so that the inner circle and
the outer ring exactly matched. From this he showed that there
could be only three conditions to be satisfied in the eye, for two
conditions were necessitated by the nature of the top, since the
smaller sectors must exactly fill the circle and so must the
larger. Maxwell's experiments, therefore, confirmed, in general,
Young's theory. They showed, however, that the relative delicacy of
the several color sensations is different in different eyes, for
the arrangement which produced an exact match in the case of one
observer, had to be modified for another; but this difference of
delicacy proved to be very conspicuous in color-blind persons, for
in most of the cases of color-blindness examined by Maxwell the red
sensation was completely absent, so that only two conditions were
required by color-blind eyes, and a match could therefore always be
made in such cases with four discs only. Holmgren has since
discovered cases of color-blindness in which the violet sensation
is absent. He agrees with Young in making the third sensation
correspond to violet rather than blue. Maxwell explained the fact
that persons color-blind to the red divide colors into blues and
yellows, by the consideration that, although yellow is a complex
sensation corresponding to a mixture of red and green, yet in
nature, yellow tints are so much brighter than greens, that they
excite the green sensation more than green objects themselves can
do; and hence greens and yellows are called yellow by such
color-blind persons, though their perception of yellow is really
the same as perception of green by normal eyes. Later on, by a
combination of adjustable slits, prisms, and lenses arranged in a
'color box,' Maxwell succeeded in mixing, in any desired
proportions, the light from any three portions of the spectrum, so
that he could deal with pure spectral colors instead of the complex
combinations of differently colored lights afforded by colored
papers. From these experiments, it appears that no ray of the solar
spectrum can affect one color sensation alone, so that there are no
colors in nature so pure as to correspond to the pure simple
sensations, and the colors occupying the angular points of
Maxwell's diagram affect all three color sensations, though they
influence two of them to a much smaller extent than the third. A
particular color in the spectrum corresponds to light which,
according to the undulatory theory, physically consists of waves,
all of the same period; but it may affect all three of the color
sensations of a normal eye, though in different proportions. Thus
yellow-light of a given wave-length affects the red and green
sensations considerably and the blue (or violet) slightly, and the
same effect may be produced by various mixtures of red or orange
and green."
For his researches on the perception of color, the Royal Society awarded
Clerk Maxwell the Rumford Medal in 1860.
Besides this more or less theoretic work, however, Maxwell made some
interesting and important discoveries and inventions in optics. For
instance, he noted the great differences that exist in the eyes of dark
and fair complexions to different colors when the light falls upon the
center of the yellow spot, the so-called fovea centralis, or central pit
of the retina. His researches with regard to this led him to the
discovery that this portion of the retina is largely lacking in
sensibility to blue light. He was able to demonstrate this by his
experiment of looking through a glass vessel containing a solution of
chrome alum, when the central portion of the field of vision appears of
a light red color for the first second or two. He was also the inventor
of an ingenious optical apparatus, a real image stereoscope. A still
more important discovery was that of the double refraction which is
produced for the time in viscous liquids when they are stirred and their
motion is not as yet stopped. Maxwell showed that Canada balsam, for
instance, when stirred, acquired a distinct power of double refraction,
which it retained so long as the stress in the fluid produced by
stirring remained.
Other departments of physics were not neglected. For instance, one of
his greatest investigations was that on the kinetic theory of gases.
Geniuses had been working before him on this line, for, as pointed out
by Professor Tait, this theory owed its origin to Daniel Bernoulli, the
greatest mathematician of the eighteenth century, and had been developed
by the successful labors of Herapath, Joule and, above all, of Clausius.
The work of these men put the general accuracy of the theory beyond all
doubt and led to its very general acceptance, yet the details of it
needed to be elaborated before it could become definitely scientific.
Its greatest developments are due to Maxwell, and in this field Maxwell
appeared as an experimenter on the laws of gaseous friction as well as a
mathematician. His work with regard to color had showed his ingenuity as
an experimentalist, and this is still further illustrated by his
carefully arranged experiments on gases. Indeed, his work in this line
makes it very clear that nothing was too difficult for him, and that
anything that he turned his hand to in the field of science he was sure
to accomplish with eminent success.
It was not only his scientific monographs, however, that indicate how
great a scientist Clerk Maxwell was, but his text-books, even those of
more or less elementary character, which he wrote bring out this same
idea. He wrote, for instance, an admirable text-book on the theory of
heat, which went through many editions. Students of the subject, even
those who were not far advanced, found it clear and easier of study than
many a less exhaustive work. He also wrote an elementary treatise on
matter and motion, which has gone through several editions. One might
think that so small a work would scarcely interest him enough to tempt
him to put forth his powers at their best, and that at most it would be
a conventional condensation of previous knowledge. Prof. Tait, who
surely must be taken as a good judge in the matter, says that "even
this, like his other and larger works, is full of valuable material
worthy of the most attentive perusal not of students alone, but of the
very foremost scientific men."
One of the characteristic traits of Maxwell was his desire to impart
information to others. This extended not only to his academic relations,
but, above all, to the working classes, who might have few opportunities
for the obtaining of the information that was so interesting with
regard to natural subjects. Everywhere that he held an academic post in
his life, he gave lectures to the workmen. He was an extremely
interesting talker, and one of his friends said of him: "I do believe
there is not a single subject on which he cannot talk, and talk well,
too, displaying always the most curious and out-of-the-way information."
One of his private tutors said of him: "It is not possible for Maxwell
to think incorrectly on physical subjects." It is easy to understand,
then, how much his lectures to the working people at Aberdeen, at
Edinburgh, and at Kings College, London, as well as at Cambridge, meant
for them. If men like Maxwell would take up the popularization of
science generally, then there would be much less opprobrium attached to
the expression popular science than there has been only too often in the
past, and is even at present.
Just as Maxwell set himself to the solution of the most difficult
problems in physics, so he did not hesitate to give himself also to the
discussion of problems in ethics. Here his power of penetration, the
rigid logic of his mind, and his power to follow out conclusions to
their ultimate significance, were quite as manifest as any scientific
writing. It is almost the rule to find that scientists either ignore the
great problems of man's place in nature and his destiny, or treat them
very superficially. Agnosticism had become the fad of the moment, and
was just beginning to make itself felt as a fashion in thinking when
Clerk Maxwell was doing his great work. Maxwell was not an agnostic in
science, and because he could not solve all the problems that came to
him with regard to electricity and the constitution of matter, this did
not keep him from setting himself to the task of seeing what should be
his thoughts with regard to these subjects. He had none of the
agnostic's feelings with regard to them, that since we cannot know all
about them definitely and absolutely, therefore it is not worth while
studying them at all. Had Maxwell been tempted to any such line of
thought, we would have missed some of the most helpful scientific
speculations and suggestions that have ever been made.
No one knew better than Maxwell, that his speculations on matter and
electricity were theories, and that what he was offering to science were
not definite explanations, but possible hypotheses. He has emphasized
this himself over and over again. This inability of the human intellect
at the present moment to solve all the questions that its inquiring
spirit can evoke, did not keep him from investigating and following up
his investigations by mathematical deductions and mechanical suggestions
just as far as possible. He had the same attitude of mind toward the
great problems of man's relation to his fellow-man, to the universe, and
to a hereafter. While he felt that he could not solve the problems
entirely, he felt also that his reasoning was quite sufficient to enable
him to get a little nearer to the heart mystery of them and to
understand something of their significance. In his later years, the
question of the existence of pain and suffering in the world had,
because of Darwin's attitude towards them and his declaration that since
he was unable to understand them they carried him away from the thought
of a beneficent Creator, attracted much attention. We have an essay of
Clerk Maxwell's, then, on "Aspects of Pain," in which he discusses
particularly pain as discipline. It is, of course, the old story, that
men rise on stepping-stones of their dead selves, and that the
successive deaths of self represent a triumphant progress, but it comes
with a new vigor from this great scientist. We all know that it is the
man who has suffered who is able to do things, and we are all well aware
that the man who has lived in comfort all his life is almost sure to be
lacking in character when a great crisis comes upon him. Indeed, as
Clerk Maxwell re-states it, this is such a commonplace that one wonders
why the problem of pain should have seemed so hard to understand.
There is an essay of his, also, on "Science and Free Will," which seems
to deserve special notice. He has no illusions with regard to
determinism. He is perfectly sure that he is free and that the great
majority of men around him do or do not things as they choose. He points
out that science makes for determinism only if one takes a very narrow
view of it. Free will is not only compatible with scientific thinking,
but it represents what would be expected as a culmination of the
significance of life. In a word, Clerk Maxwell wrote as suggestively
with regard to the great problems of human life as with regard to the
physical nature around him that claimed so much of his interest. He was
a true natural philosopher, and his interests were not limited merely to
the lower orders of beings.
Because of the supreme power of Clerk Maxwell's mind to seek out the
very heart of difficulties, the conclusions which he reached with regard
to the existence of matter and the causes for the ultimate qualities
which it exhibits, have an enduring interest. Mathematics is sometimes
said to lead minds into scepticism. Cardinal Newman even thought that
the mathematical cast of mind was the farthest removed from that which
might be expected to accept things confidently on faith. Clerk Maxwell's
intellect was eminently mathematical; yet, far from sending him over
into the camp of the agnostics, his tendency to get at the ultimate
reasons for things seemed almost to push him to conclusions with regard
to the origin of matter, and especially its ultimate constituents, not
ordinarily supposed to be scientific. A passage like the following, for
instance, which may be found in his book on "The Theory of Heat,"
London, 1872, page 312, brings out this tendency very well:
"But if we suppose the molecules to be made at all, or if we suppose
them to consist of something previously made, why should we expect any
irregularity to exist among them? If they are, as we believe, the only
material things which still remain in the precise condition in which
they first began to exist, why should we not rather look for some
indication of that spirit of order, our scientific confidence in which
is never shaken by the difficulty which we experience in tracing it in
the complex arrangements of visible things, and of which our moral
estimation is shown in all our attempts to think and speak the truth,
and to ascertain the exact principles of distributive justice?"
The argument from design for creation is often said in our day to have
lost its weight. For Clerk Maxwell, however, this was evidently not the
case. On the contrary, he seemed to find in the detailed knowledge of
the ultimate constituents of matter which had come in recent years,
additional proofs of the great design which permeates nature. He had
come to the conclusion that not only were the groups of atoms which make
up living things so ordered as to produce definite results, because
there was a great purpose and, above all, a great Designer behind
nature, but he also reached the position that the separate atoms of
matter were so ordered with regard to one another, and in that ordering
were so closely related to corresponding qualities in higher beings,
that only the presence of a great design in nature could possibly
account for all these wonderful attributes, which were to be found even
in the smallest portions of matter. He said in his article on the atom,
in the ninth edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica:
"What I thought of was not so much that uniformity of result which is
due to uniformity in the process of formation, as a uniformity intended
and accomplished by the same wisdom and power of which uniformity,
accuracy, symmetry, consistency, and continuity of plan are as important
attributes as the contrivance of the special utility of each individual
thing."
Here is the old argument for the existence of God, from the design
exhibited in the universe, rehabilitated by its application to the
minutest portions of matter, whose qualities demand such an explanation
quite as much as the highest adaptations of nature.
Perhaps the most striking expression of all with regard to the atoms
that Clerk Maxwell permitted himself, is that in which he finds the type
of what is best in man, in every minute portion of the universe, planted
there by the Creator just as surely as they are in His highest beings,
because they represent the most precious qualities of His own nature as
they are reflected in the creation that He called into existence.
"They (the atoms) continue this day as they were created, perfect in
number and measure and weight, and from the ineffaceable characters
impressed on them we may learn that those aspirations, after accuracy in
measurement, truth in statement, and justice in action, which we reckon
among our noblest attributes as men, are ours because they are essential
constituents of the image of Him Who in the beginning created not only
the heaven and the earth, but the materials of which heaven and earth
consist."
A very interesting side of Maxwell's life is that which shows his
continued interest in literature, and even his occasional dippings into
poetry. Though he reached distinction in mathematics and physics so
early in his career, he yet found time to indulge a liking for the
classics, and we even find some rather good translations of Horace's
odes from his pen. The translation of a part of the Ajax of Sophocles
from the Greek is a striking testimony to the breadth of Maxwell's
intellectual interests. All during life, however, he permitted himself
occasionally the luxury of fitting words into verse forms, and sometimes
with a success that deserves much more than passing interest. It is very
probable that the following verses, for instance, which are the first
and last stanzas of a poem on the formula for being happy in life and
were meant to be sung (or at least so he would hint) to the tune of "Il
segreto per esser felice," will strike many a sympathetic chord in the
modern time.
There are some folks that say
They have found out a way
To be healthy and wealthy and wise:--
"Let your thoughts be but few,
Do as other folks do,
And never be caught by surprise.
Let your motto be follow the fashion,
But let other people alone;
Do not love them nor hate them nor care for their fate,
But keep a lookout for your own.
Then what though the world may run riot,
Still playing at catch who catch can,
You may just eat your dinner in quiet
And live like a sensible man."
In Nature I read quite a different creed,
There everything lives in the rest;
Each feels the same force
As it moves in its course,
And all by one blessing are blest.
The end that we live for is single,
But we labor not therefor alone;
For together we feel how by wheel within wheel
We are helped by a force not our own.
So we flee not the world and its dangers,
For He that has made it is wise;
He knows we are pilgrims and strangers,
And He will enlighten our eyes.
There probably was not a more nicely logical or more accurately
reasoning intellect among all our nineteenth century scientists than
that of the great mathematical electrician. He had none of the
one-sidedness of the merely experimental scientist, nor, on the other
hand, the narrowness of the exclusively speculative philosopher. With a
power of analysis that was seldom equaled during the century, he had a
power of synthesis that probably surpassed any of his contemporaries in
any part of Europe. His ideas with regard to matter and its ultimate
constitution are most suggestive. His suggestion of a strain in the
ether as an explanation of electricity, thus enabling scientists to get
away from the curious theories of the foretime which had required them
to accept "action at a distance," that is, without any connecting
medium, shows his power of following out abstruse ideas to definite
practical conclusions. His religious life, then, will be a surprise to
those who think that science leads men away from religion.
In the life of Clerk Maxwell, written by Campbell and Garnett,[31] there
is a passage from his friend and sometime pastor, Guillemard, in which
the details of his religious life are given so fully as scarcely to
require any further gleaning of information in this regard.
"He was a constant, regular attendant at church, and seldom, if ever,
failed to join in our monthly late celebration of Holy Communion, and he
was a generous contributor to all our parish charitable institutions.
But his illness drew out the whole heart and soul and spirit of the man;
his firm and undoubting faith in the Incarnation and all its results; in
the full sufficing of atonement; in the works of the Holy Spirit. He had
gauged and fathomed all the schemes and systems of philosophy, and had
found them utterly empty and unsatisfying--'unworkable' was his own word
about them--and he turned with simple faith to the Gospel of the
Saviour."
His faith was not disturbed at the near approach of death, but, on the
contrary, seemed strengthened. His biographers tell the story of some
of the expressions used to his friends during these last days, which
furnish manifest proof of this. Some of these passages are so
characteristic and so striking that they deserve to be in the note-book
of those to whom the modern idea that science is opposed to religion or
faith may sometimes have been a source of worry, or at least an occasion
for argument. Here is a typical one of these passages:
"Mr. Colin Mackenzie has repeated to us two sayings of his during those
last days, which may be repeated here: 'Old chap, I have read up many
queer religions; there is nothing like the old thing, after all; and I
have looked into most philosophical systems, and I have seen that none
will work without a God.'"
It must not be imagined, because Clerk Maxwell was a deeply religious
man, that, therefore, he was frigid or formal or extremely serious, or
inclined to be puritanic with regard to the pleasures of life, or a
fanatic in the matter of taking all the good-natured fun there might be
in anything that turned up. He was far from over-serious, or what has
been called, though not quite properly, ascetic; but, on the contrary,
was often, indeed usually, the soul of the party with which he was at
the moment. He had none at all of the self-centered interest of the
narrow-minded, but had many friends, and was liked by all his
acquaintances. His friends were enthusiastic about his kindness of heart
and the thorough congeniality of his disposition. On this point, the
sketch of him in the National Dictionary of Biography gives a charming
picture:
"As a man, Maxwell was loved and honored by all who knew him; to his
pupils, he was the kindest and most sympathetic of teachers; to his
friends, he was the most charming of companions, brimful of fun, the
life and soul of a Red Lion dinner at the British Association meetings;
but in due season brave and thoughtful, with keen interest in problems
that lay outside the domain of his own work, and throughout his life a
stern foe to all that was superficial or untrue. On religious
questions, his beliefs were strong and deeply rooted."
It may be added to this, that his religion had nothing of the merely
formal about it, nor was it perfunctory. It entered into most of the
details of his life, and the fact that, every day as the head of the
house he led evening prayers for the family, was only a token of the
deep hold which religion had upon his life. When his last illness came,
though he knew that his end was not far off, and at his age sometimes
the approach of death hampers religious faith because it does seem that
longer life might be afforded to one who has been so faithful in his
realization of the obligations of life, Clerk Maxwell's piety increased
rather than diminished. A favorite expression of his during his last
days was the verselet from Richard Baxter, which one would be apt to
think of as frequently repeated by some feminine devotee rather than by
the greatest mathematical scientist of the nineteenth century:
"Lord, it belongs not to my care,
Whether I die or live;
To love and serve Thee is my share,
And that Thy grace must give."
A friend who knew him intimately says: "In private life, Clerk Maxwell
was one of the most lovable of men, a sincere and unostentatious
Christian. Though perfectly free from any trace of envy or ill-will, he
yet showed on fit occasions his contempt for that pseudo-science which
seeks for the applause of the ignorant by professing to reduce the whole
system of the universe to a fortuitous sequence of uncaused events."
In these phases of his intellectual life, the greatest of the
mathematical electricians of the nineteenth century deserves to be taken
as the type of the man of science, rather than the many mediocre
intelligences whose minds were not large enough apparently for the two
sets of truths--those of the moral as well as of the physical order.
[Illustration: LORD KELVIN]
FOOTNOTES:
[31] See life of Johann Müller, in Makers of Modern Medicine,
Fordham University Press, N. Y., 1906.
[32] Heroes of Science Physicists, N.Y., Young & Co., 1885.
[33] Heroes of Science Physicists, by Wm. Garnett, M. A., D. C.
L. London Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, Northumberland
Ave., Charing Cross, W. C. New York, E. and J. B. Young.
[34] The Life of James Clerk Maxwell, with a selection from his
correspondence and occasional writings, and a sketch of his
contributions to science. Lewis Campbell and William Garnett. London,
1882.