See also: Mackintosh
James Mackintosh (born the October 24th 1765 with Aldourie, close to Inverness, Scotland - died the May 30th 1832) was a Médecin, Philosophe, Journaliste, judge and British Politician of the end of the 18th century and beginning of the 19th century, considered as one of the most cultivated spirits of its time.
Biography
The parents of James Mackintosh descended both from old families of the Highland S. His/her mother died whereas he was still child. His/her travelling father frequently abroad, it was raised by his large mother. He began his studies in Fortrose Seminary academy.
In 1780, old fifteen years, it came to continue its studies in King' S College of Aberdeen, where it tied a friendship which lasted all their life with Robert Hall, which will become later a famous preacher.
In 1784, it starts to study the Médecine with the Université of Edinburgh. It took an active share with the intellectual agitation of the time, without never neglecting its medical studies. It obtained its diploma in 1787.
In 1788, Mackintosh settles with London, then agitated by the lawsuit of Warren Hastings and the first signs of madness of the king George III. It was interested more by these events and other political activities that by its professional future. Its attention was particularly directed towards the events which were the cause or preceded the Révolution in France.
In 1789, it married Catherine Stuart, whose brother Daniel will become later the editor of the Morning Post . They had a son, who died in low age, and three girls:
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Mary Mackintosh (1789 - 1876), which married Claudius James Rich (1787 - 1821), a British Archéologue , born in France, close to Dijon;
- Maitland Mackintosh (1792 - 1861), which married William Erskine;
- Catherine Mackintosh (1795 -? ), which married William Saltonstall Wiseman, 7th Baron (1794 - 1845), and was the mother of William Saltonstall Wiseman, 8th Baron, the naval officer.
Mackintosh was very quickly worried by the question of the time: the French revolution. The May 17th 1791, after a long meditation, it published its Vindiciae Gallicae , which constitutes an answer to the Réflexions on the French revolution of Edmund Burke, published the previous year. It was the only worthy answer to Burke. Its Vindiciae Gallicae expressed the philosophical point of view of a Libéral on the event of the French revolution until spring 1791. Excesses of the Revolutionists led it a few years later to be opposed to them and to join Burke in its criticism, but its initial defense of the Human rights at that time constitutes a valid testimony from the point of view of a Whig cultivated. They placed their author at the first rank of the European publicity agents, and gained to him the friendship of some of the men most distinguished from the time, of which Burke itself. The success of the Vindiciae decided finally Mackintosh to give up medicine for the occupation of judge, whom he kissed in 1795, acquiring a considerable reputation quickly, while attempting to preserve a practice of tolerance.
In 1797, his wife died, and the following year, it married Catherine Allen, sister-in-law of Josiah and John Wedgwood, by which it introduced Coleridge with the Morning Post .
As a lawyer, his greater public demonstrations were its courses (1799) with the Lincoln' S Inn on “ the law of nature and the nations ”, whose inaugural lesson was published, and brought an additional notoriety to him, which enabled him to open many doors in the continuation of its career.
Mackintosh acquired even more celebrity in 1803 with its speech to defend Jean Gabriel Peltier, a French refugee, against whom one makes out, inspired by Napoleon - then First consul - had been published. It was widely diffused in English, but also through the Europe, in a French translation due to Madam de Staël. This same year 1803, James Mackintosh is anobli and is made knight.
Named To retie (principal judge) of Bombay, in India, it takes its station in 1804. It did not feel well in India, where it fell sick, and it was happy to leave this country to return to the the United Kingdom in November 1811.
In July 1813, it enters to the Parlement as a deputy Whig of the district of Nairn. There will remain appointed - thereafter of the district of Knaresborough, in the Yorkshire - until its death. Its parliamentary career was marked by same broad and ingenuous the Libéralisme that its private life. He was opposed to reactionaries measurements of the government Tory, supported Samuel Romilly in his efforts to reform the Penal code and to then succeeded him, and took a big part at the same time in the emancipation of the Catholique S and in the adoption of the Reform Bill .
In the London company, as with Paris, at the time of its occasional visits in France, he was appreciated for his wisdom and his great capacity of conversation. At the time of the visit of Madam de Staël, he was the only British able to represent with dignity his country while speaking with it.
Of 1818 with 1824, he was law professor and of political science to the East India Company' S College with Haileybury.
Work
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1791 : Vindiciæ Gallicæ .
- 1830 : Essay on ethical Philosophy .
- 1831 : History of England .
- 1834 : Causes of the Revolution of 1688 , (started in 1811-12, unfinished, published by William Wallace after the death of Mackintosh).
- 1846 : complete Works .
Quotations
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Vindiciæ Gallicæ
- “To diffuse knowledge, it is to make oneself immortal”.
- “the Common , faithful to their system, remain in wise and masterly inactivity”.
- “the authority of a rabble corrupted and tumultuous must rather be regarded a Ochlocratie that a Démocratie, as the Despotisme of the mob, and not the government of the people”.
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Essay on ethical Philosophy
- “the frivolous work of impeccable idlers”.
- “It is good to be satisfied with what one has, never the EC what we are”.
November 11th 1813 -->
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