428 JAMES CLERK MAXWELL. [CHAP. XIII. 



beneath the ironical shell. I might have added the 

 union of speculation with mysticism, and of conser- 

 vatism with progressive thought. But in one essen- 

 tial point, the dialectical cross -questioning method, 

 the analogy fails. For Maxwell had not spent his 

 youth in the Athenian agora, but in the solitudes of 

 Galloway, where he had interrogated Nature more 

 than Man. 



In his conversation he might rather be compared 

 with the earlier Greek thinkers, " who/' says Plato, 

 (Soph. 243 B) " went 'on their several ways, without 

 caring whether they took us with them, or left us 

 behind." The necessity of utterance was often 

 stronger with him than the endeavour to make him- 

 self understood, and he would pour out his ideas 

 in simple affectionateness to those who. could not 

 follow them. His thoughts were often tentative, 

 but his expression of them was always dogmatic, 

 even in the negative formula "No one knows what is 

 meant by " so and so. 



His indirect, allusive way of speaking was not, 

 however, wilfully assumed, but was the result of 

 idiosyncrasy and early habit ; and it disappeared 

 utterly in the presence of any great occasion a great 

 joy, a great sorrow, or a great duty. Then his speech 

 resolved itself into statements of fact, brief and 

 unemotional, but absolutely simple and direct. And, 

 latterly at all events, such were generally the charac- 

 teristics of his style in writing. I have been told by 

 Mr. Huddlestone, a late Fellow of King's College, 

 Cambridge, that when consulted about a lightning 



