Sir James Fitzjames Stephen (1829-1894) : un intellectuel sceptique, critique des idées libérales de son temps

Sir James Fitzjames Stephen is known for his book entitled Liberty, Equality, Fraternity (1873) in which he opposed John Stuart Mill’s liberal ideas. For a jurist like him, political societies could not be built on liberty but much more on force and on the subordination to law. At a time—the second half of the 19th century—when religion could not dominate societies any longer, the only way to preserve society was to impose the law and to have it respected, including through the use of force. One had to resist progress which could destroy society. Impervious to the ideas of his period but unquestionably stamped with the teachings of the Old Whigs, Sir James Fitzjames Stephen remains a key character to understand the spirit of resistance at work in the second half of the 19th century, at the same time a sceptic, a moraliser and a Conservative.