426 JAMES CLERK MAXWELL. [CHAP. XIII. 



of things. No one was ever more impatient of mere 

 abstractions. 1 Yet few have had so firm a hold upon 

 ideas. Once more, while he was continually striving 

 to reduce to greater definiteness men's conceptions of 

 leading physical laws, he seemed habitually to live in 

 a sort of mystical communion with the infinite. 



His aunt, Mrs. Wedderburn, who had had the care 

 of him during so much of his early life, said on the 

 occasion of his marriage, " James has lived hitherto at 

 the gate of heaven." 



Mr. Colin Mackenzie has repeated to me 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 philoso- 

 phical systems, and I have seen that none will work 

 without a God." 



Maxwell's humour, which with many passed for 

 mere eccentricity, and to some was the characteristic 

 by which he was chiefly known, at least in earlier life, 

 may be passed over lightly here. With strangers it 

 was sometimes the veil of a sensitiveness which but 

 for this would have made him the victim of his 

 immediate surroundings. In confidential intercourse 

 it was a perpetual fund of delight, the vehicle of his 

 exuberant fancy, as it glanced in all directions from 

 the immediate topic of discourse. 



It was his way of acknowledging " the grotesque 

 view " 2 of everything. Like other humourists whom 



He was particularly indignant at the confusion by some would- 

 be philosophers of facts with laws. 2 P. 262. 



