114 JAMES CLERK MAXWELL. [CHAP. V. 



The metaphysical writers who had received most 

 of his attention before going to Cambridge were Des- 

 cartes and Leibnitz. He knew Hobbes well also, but 

 chiefly on the ethical side. 



When, in his address to Section A of the British 

 Association at the Liverpool meeting in 1870, Maxwell 

 spoke of the barren metaphysics of past ages, he knew 

 the full force of his own words. And he certainly felt 

 that his psychological studies had given him a distinct 

 advantage in conceiving rightly the functions of the 

 eye. 



His grasp of Moral Philosophy at the age of nine- 

 teen, when he had been stimulated to precise thought 

 on the subject by listening to the vague harangues of 

 Professor Wilson (Christopher North), appears in 

 some of his letters, and reveals an aspect of his genius 

 of which too little is known ; and one which his subse- 

 quent career did not allow him to carry to perfection. 



In the third year of his course, as above men- 

 tioned, besides attending Professor Wilson's lectures, 

 he renewed his study of Chemistry under Professor 

 Gregory, to whose laboratory he had unlimited access, 

 and also to some extent continued his attendance on 

 Professor Forbes. 



It cannot be said that this period was unfruitful ; 

 yet perhaps it is to be regretted that he did not go 

 to Cambridge at least one year earlier. His truly 

 sociable spirit would have been less isolated, he would 

 have gained more command over his own genius, and 

 his powers of expression would have more harmoniously 

 developed. The routine of Cambridge would have 



