On Mar 20, 2018 2:58 PM, "Tim Bradshaw" <tfb@tfeb.org> wrote:
This seems like an unduly complicated theory.  Maxwell had a good 19th-century Scottish gentleman's education (he knew great chunks of Paradise Lost by heart as a child) and he would have been far more familiar with classical literature than most scientists are today as a result.  Chances are he knew what daemons were in mythology because he'd  read either the Greek originals or Latin translations at school & university.

Given that, he could also have read about them in Plato's Republic when he discusses the myth of Er at the end of the work.