Xll PREFACE. 



It was originally intended that Maxwell should follow his father's profession of advocate, 

 but this intention was abandoned as soon as it became obvious that his tastes lay in a 

 direction so decidedly scientific. It was at length determined to send him to Cambridge 

 and accordingly in October, 1850, he commenced residence in Peterhouse, where however he 

 resided during the Michaelmas Term only. On December 14 of the same year he migrated 

 to Trinity College. 



It may readily be supposed that his preparatory training for the Cambridge course 

 was far removed from the ordinary type. There had indeed for some time been practically 

 no restraint upon his plan of study and his mind had been allowed to follow its natural 

 bent towards science, though not to an extent so absorbing as to withdraw him from 

 other pursuits. Though he was not a sportsman, indeed sport so called was always repugnant 

 to him he was yet exceedingly fond of a country life. He was a good horseman and a 

 good swimmer. Whence however he derived his chief enjoyment may be gathered from the 

 account which Mr Campbell gives of the zest with which he quoted on one occasion the 

 lines of Burns which describe the poet finding inspiration while wandering along the banks 

 of a stream in the free indulgence of his fancies. Maxwell was not only a lover of poetry 

 but himself a poet, as the fine pieces gathered together by Mr Campbell abundantly testify. 

 He saw however that his true calling was Science and never regarded these poetical 

 efforts as other than mere pastime. Devotion to science, already stimulated by successful 

 endeavour, a tendency to ponder over philosophical problems and an attachment to English 

 literature, particularly to English poetry, these tastes, implanted in a mind of singular 

 strength and purity, may be said to have been the endowments with which young Maxwell 

 began his Cambridge career. Besides this, his scientific reading, as we may gather from his 

 papers to the Royal Society of Edinburgh referred to above, was already extensive and 

 varied. He brought with him, says Professor Tait, a mass of knowledge which was really 

 immense for so young a man but in a state of disorder appalling to his methodical 

 private tutor. 



Maxwell's undergraduate career was not marked by any specially notable feature. His 

 private speculations had in some measure to be laid aside in favour of more systematic 

 -tuily. Yet his mind was steadily ripening for the work of his later years. Among those 

 with whom he was brought into daily contact by his position, as a Scholar of Trinity 

 College, were some of the brightest and most cultivated young men in the University. In 

 thi- genial fellowship of the Scholars' table Maxwell's kindly humour found ready play, while 

 in the more select coterie of the Apostle Club, formed for mutual cultivation, he found a field 

 for the exercise of his love of speculation in essays on subjects beyond the lines of the 

 unliiiary University course. The composition of these essays doubtless laid the foundation 

 f that literary finish which is one of the characteristics of Maxwell's scientific writings. 



biographers have preserved several extracts on a variety of subjects chiefly of a specu- 

 lative character. They are remarkable mainly for the weight of thought contained in them 

 but occasionally also for smart epigrams and for a vein of dry and sarcastic humour. 



