Makers of ElectricityWalsh, James J. (James Joseph)
History
Makers of Electricity
Walsh, James J. (James Joseph)
Electricity -- Biography
It may be added to this, that his religion had nothing of the merely
formal about it, nor was it perfunctory. It entered into most of the
details of his life, and the fact that, every day as the head of the
house he led evening prayers for the family, was only a token of the
deep hold which religion had upon his life. When his last illness came,
though he knew that his end was not far off, and at his age sometimes
the approach of death hampers religious faith because it does seem that
longer life might be afforded to one who has been so faithful in his
realization of the obligations of life, Clerk Maxwell's piety increased
rather than diminished. A favorite expression of his during his last
days was the verselet from Richard Baxter, which one would be apt to
think of as frequently repeated by some feminine devotee rather than by
the greatest mathematical scientist of the nineteenth century:
"Lord, it belongs not to my care,
Whether I die or live;
To love and serve Thee is my share,
And that Thy grace must give."
A friend who knew him intimately says: "In private life, Clerk Maxwell
was one of the most lovable of men, a sincere and unostentatious
Christian. Though perfectly free from any trace of envy or ill-will, he
yet showed on fit occasions his contempt for that pseudo-science which
seeks for the applause of the ignorant by professing to reduce the whole
system of the universe to a fortuitous sequence of uncaused events."
In these phases of his intellectual life, the greatest of the
mathematical electricians of the nineteenth century deserves to be taken
as the type of the man of science, rather than the many mediocre
intelligences whose minds were not large enough apparently for the two
sets of truths--those of the moral as well as of the physical order.
[Illustration: LORD KELVIN]
FOOTNOTES:
[31] See life of Johann Müller, in Makers of Modern Medicine,
Fordham University Press, N. Y., 1906.
[32] Heroes of Science Physicists, N.Y., Young & Co., 1885.
[33] Heroes of Science Physicists, by Wm. Garnett, M. A., D. C.
L. London Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, Northumberland
Ave., Charing Cross, W. C. New York, E. and J. B. Young.
[34] The Life of James Clerk Maxwell, with a selection from his
correspondence and occasional writings, and a sketch of his
contributions to science. Lewis Campbell and William Garnett. London,
1882.
CHAPTER XII.
LORD KELVIN.
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