432 JAMES CLERK MAXWELL. [CHAP. XIII. 



for genius, though their intellectual interests lay 

 in different spheres from his, could not forbear their 

 testimony. Out of many such expressions it is enough 

 to have selected one. Mr. Frederick Pollock in his 

 work on Spinoza, having occasion to refer to Maxwell's 

 views on matter and space, adds the following note 

 (p. 115):- 



Clerk Maxwell was living when these lines were 

 written : I cannot let them pass through the press without 

 adding a word of tribute to a man of profound and original 

 genius, too early lost to England and to Science. 



Great as was the range and depth of Maxwell's 

 powers, that which is still more remarkable is the 

 unity of his nature and of his life. This unity came 

 not from circumstance, for there were breaks in his 

 outward career, but from the native strength of the 

 spirit that was in him. In the eyes of those who knew 

 him best, the whole man gained in beauty year by 

 year. As son, friend, lover, husband ; in science, in 

 society, in religion ; whether buried in retirement or 

 immersed in business he is absolutely single-hearted. 

 This is true of his mental as well as of his emotional 

 being, for indeed they were inseparably blended. 

 And the fixity of his devotion both to persons and 



on 5th December 1876 he was elected Honorary Member of the New 

 York Academy of Science ; on 27th April 1877, Member of the Koyal 

 Academy of Science of Amsterdam ; on 18th August 1877, Foreign 

 Corresponding Member in the Mathematico-Natural-Science Class of 

 the Imperial Academy of Sciences of Vienna ; and in the spring of 

 1878 he received the Volta Medal and degree of Doctor of Physical 

 Science honoris causd in the University of Pavia. 



