James Clerk Maxwell (The Life of, p. 80-81, p. 96, 1882):
TO L. CAMPBELL, Esq.
[June ? 1850]
...
When a man thinks he has enough of evidence for some notion of his he
sometimes refuses to listen to any additional evidence pro or con, saying,
"It is a settled question, probatis probata; it needs no evidence; it is
certain." This is knowledge as distinguished from faith. He says, "I do not
believe; I know." "If any man thinketh that he knoweth, he knoweth yet
nothing as he ought to know.'' This knowledge is a, shutting, of one's ears
to all arguments, and is the same as "Implicit faith" in one of its
meanings. "Childlike faith," confounded with it, is not credulity, for
children are not credulous, but find out sooner than some think that many
men are liars.
...
7th March 1852.
...
Christianity-that is, the religion of the Bible-is the only scheme or
form of belief which disavows any possessions on such a tenure. Here alone
all is free. You may fly to the ends of the world and find no God but the
Author of Salvation. You may search the Scriptures and not find a text to
stop you in your explorations.
You may read all History and be compelled to wonder but not to doubt.
Compare the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob with the God of the Prophets
and the God of the Apostles, and however the Pantheist may contrast the God
of Nature with the "Dark Hebrew God," you will find them much liker each
other than either like his.
The Old Testament and the Mosaic Law and Judaism [180] are commonly
supposed to be "Tabooed" by the orthodox. Sceptics pretend to have read
them, and have found certain witty objections and composed several
transcendental arguments against "Hebrew O' Clo'," which too many of the
orthodox unread admit, and shut up the subject as haunted. But a Candle is
coming to drive out all Ghosts and Bugbears. Let us all follow the Light.
http://www.sonnetsoftware.com/bio/maxbio.pdf
2 And if any man think that he knoweth any thing, he knoweth nothing yet as
he ought to know.
3 But if any man love God, the same is known of him.
(New Testament | 1 Corinthians 8:2 - 3)
In any case, Maxwell apparently didn't want to get involved with phony
baloneys (I
understand Maxwell wouldn't use language like that, but I'm in an uneviable
position of dealing with this benighted generation, so I use the coarse
language I do to point out your madness and wickedness and that of false
Christian ministers of our time) professing the name of the Lord, being a
private man.
Campbell and Garnett (The Life of James Clerk Maxwell, p. 160, 190-191,
1882):
On Sundays, after returning from the kirk, he would bury himself in the
works of the old divines. For in theology, as in literature, while reckoning
frankly with all phases, his sympathies went largely with the past. Not that
he would have checked the real progress
of thought on the subject of religion, but he did not share the sanguine
hopes of some who
have sought to hasten these "slow-paced" changes; nor did he believe in
progress by ignoring differences, or by merging the sharp outlines of
traditional systems in the haze of a "common Christianity." He was one of
those in whom physical studies seem to [322] have the effect of leading the
mind to dwell on the permanent aspects of thought as well as of things, thus
reinforcing the instincts of conservatism. No mind ever delighted more in
speculation, and yet none was ever more jealous of the practical application
or the popular dissemination of what appeared to him as crude and half-baked
theories about the highest subjects. He preferred resting on the great
thoughts of other ages, though no man knew better wherein they (and
scientific theories likewise) fell short of certainty; and while he
was anything rather than a formalist or a dogmatist, and still clung to the
belief that love remains while knowledge vanishes away, he was the enemy of
indefiniteness and
indifferentism, as well as of a style of preaching which, as he used to say,
"dings ye wi' mere morality." His theological attitude, which it would be
rash to develop further here, is indicated to some extent in his letter to
Bishop Ellicott, and in his reply to the Secretary of the Victoria
Institute, both of which will be found in Chapter XII (pp. 393, 404).
...
FROM THE RIGHT REV. C. J. ELLICOTT, D.D., Lord Bishop of Gloucester and
Bristol.
Palace, Gloucester, 21st Nov. 1876.
MY DEAR SIR-
...
Are you, as a scientific man, able to accept the statement that is often
made on the theological side, viz. that the creation of the sun posterior to
light involves no serious difficulty,-the creation of light being the
establishment of the primal vibrations, generally; the creation of the sun,
the primal formation of an origin, whence vibrations would be propagated
earthward?
My own mind,-far from a scientific one,-is not clear on this point.
I surmise, then, that the scientific mind might not only not be clear as to
the explanation, but equitably bound to say that it was no explanation at
all.
Excuse the trouble I am giving you, for the truth's sake, and believe me,
very faithfully yours,
C. J. GLOUCESTER AND BRISTOL.
Maxwell replied as follows by return of post:- [393]
11 Scroope Terrace, Cambridge, 22d Nov. 1876.
MY LORD BISHOP- ... Now the aether or material substance which fills all the
interspace between world and world, without a gap or flaw of 1/100000 inch
anywhere, and which probably penetrates through all grosser matters is the
largest, most uniform and apparently most permanent object we know, and we
are therefore inclined to suppose that it existed before the formation of
the systems of gross matter which now exist within it, just as we suppose
the sea older than the individual fishes in it.
But I should be very sorry if an interpretation founded on a most
conjectural scientific hypothesis were to get fastened to the text in
Genesis, even if by so doing it got rid of the old statement of the
commentators which has long ceased to be intelligible. The rate of change of
scientific hypothesis is naturally much more rapid than that of Biblical
interpretations, so that if an interpretation is founded on such an
hypothesis, it may help to keep the hypothesis above ground long after it
ought to be buried and forgotten.
At the same time I think that each individual man should do all he can to
impress his own mind with the extent, the order, and the unity of the
universe, and should carry these
ideas with him as he reads such passages as the 1st Chap. of the Ep. to
Colossians (see Lightfoot on Colossians, p. 182), just as enlarged
conceptions of the extent [395] and unity of the world of life may be of
service to us in reading Psalm viii.; Heb. ii. 6, etc. Believe me, yours
faithfully,
J. CLERK MAXWELL.
Instructions by Joseph Smith the Prophet, given at Ramus, Illinois, May 16
and 17, 1843 (History of the Church 5:392-393):
7 There is no such thing as immaterial matter. All spirit is matter, but it
is more fine or pure, and can only be discerned by purer eyes;
8 We cannot see it; but when our bodies are purified we shall see that it is
all matter.
(Doctrine and Covenants | Section 131:7 - 8)
Hebrews 11:3 (1534 Tyndale NT Translation):
Through faith we understand ... that things which are seen,
were made of things which are not seen.
Wisdom of Solomon 11:17 (1611 King James Apocrypha):
For thy Almighty hand that made the world of matter without form, ...
Campbell and Garnett (The Life of James Clerk Maxwell, p. 196, 1882):
Professor Maxwell was frequently invited to join the Victoria Institute, and
in March 1875 he received a letter from the secretary conveying the special
invitation of the President and Council to join the Society, "among whose
members are his Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury, and other prelates and
leading ministers, several professors of Oxford and Cambridge and other
universities, and many literary and scientific men." The following is all
that has been found of a rough draft of his reply:-
SIR-I do not think it my duty to become a candidate for admission into
the Victoria Institute. Among the objects of the Society are some of which I
think very highly. I think men of science as well as other men need to learn
from Christ, and I think Christians whose minds are scientific are bound to
study science that their view of the glory of [405] God may be as extensive
as their being is capable of. But I think that the results which each man
arrives at in his attempts to harmonise his science with his Christianity
ought not to be regarded as having any significance except to the man
himself, and to him only for a time, and should not receive the stamp of a
society. For it is of the nature of science, especially of those branches of
science which are spreading into unknown regions to be continuall
