Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 26, 2025
The utilitarian conception dwells too much upon the 'sanctions, and too little on the living spirit, of which they are one expression. Fitzjames's view may so far be summed up by saying that he denies the possibility of making the state a neutral in regard to the moral and religious problems involved.
It was Fitzjames's fate through life to take the bull by the horns; to hew a path through jungles and up steep places along the steepest and most entangled routes; and to shoulder his way by main strength and weight through a crowd, instead of contriving to combine external pressures into an agency for propulsion.
Moreover, and this is one of Fitzjames's most characteristic theories, 'the establishment of a system of law which regulates the most important part of the daily life of a people constitutes in itself a moral conquest, more striking, more durable, and far more solid than the physical conquest which renders it possible.
Ward might retort that Fitzjames's doctrines would lead to absolute scepticism or atheism. Fitzjames, in fact, still accepts Mill's philosophy in the fullest sense. All truth, he declares, may be reduced to the type, 'this piece of paper is blue, and that is white. In other words, it is purely empirical and contingent.
This indicates Fitzjames's position at the time. He was fully conscious of the administrative abuses assailed, and was as ardent on law reform as became a disciple of Bentham.
He is delighted with everything, including Chief Baron Kelly, a 'very pleasant, chatty old fellow, who had been called to the bar fifty years before, and was still bright and efficient. Fitzjames's duties exactly suit him. They require close attention, without excessive labour. He could judge for nine hours a day all the year round without fatigue.
If I am a coward, I am contemptible: but Louis Philippe was a coward and contemptible whether I am a coward or not; and my feelings on the whole of this subject are, at all events, perfectly sincere, and are the very deepest and most genuine feelings I have. Fitzjames's only personal experience of revolutionary proceedings was on the famous 10th of April, when he was in London, but saw only special constables.
The most important of his appearances was in the Folkestone case. In another case, it was decided, in accordance with Fitzjames's argument, that a sculptured representation of the Crucifixion, as opposed to the exhibition of a crucifix, was lawful. Fitzjames, in his letters at this time, gives his own view pretty emphatically.
But I must not even attempt to conjecture which was right and which was wrong, nor how far there might be right and wrong upon both sides. These rather vague presumptions must take the place of any deliberate estimate of the value of Fitzjames's achievements in India. I must, however, say something more of the impression made upon his own mind.
Coleridge was also of opinion that, in that event, Fitzjames's claims to a seat on the Commission would be irresistible. As, however, it was intended that the Commissioners should be selected from men outside Parliament and independent of political parties, Fitzjames would be disqualified by an election for Liverpool. Upon this he at once declined to stand.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking