yohn Austin and his Wife.
49
would have done at a later date, when a of his feelings and reflections. The dissatisfac tion with life and the world, felt more or less in spirit of compromise prevailed, and each the present state of society and intellect by every school had learned to profit by the favorite discerning and highly conscientious mind, gave truths of its opponent. But it must be added, in his case a rather melancholy tinge to the char too, that it was unfortunate for Austin and acter, very natural to those whose passive moral for English law, that his German training susceptibilities are more than proportioned to was not received from the historical school. their native energies. For it must be said that The sympathy which that school has since the strength of will of which his manner seemed shown for English law is a sufficient proof to give such strong assurance expended itself that he would have found in their doctrines principally in manner. With great zeal for hu teaching far better adapted for transplanta man improvement, a strong sense of duty, and tion, theories answering far more truly to the capacities and acquirements the extent of which facts of the common law, than those of Thi is proved by the writings he has left, he hardly baut. Had Austin become as zealous a dis ever completed any intellectual task of magni ciple of Savigny as he was of his rival, the tude. He had so high a sense of what ought to be done, so exaggerated a sense of deficiencies study of scientific jurisprudence in England in his own performances, and was so unable to might have reached, a generation earlier, the content himself with the amount of elaboration point to which it has later been brought, sufficient for the occasion and the purpose, that under the guidance of jurists like Sir Henry he not only spoilt much of his work for ordinary Maine. use by overlaboring it, but spent so much time The Lectures on Jurisprudence were de and exertion in superfluous study and thought, livered for the first time in London Univer that when his task ought to have been completed he had generally w:orked himself into an illness sity, in 1828-1829, to a class which is said to without having half finished what he undertook. have exceeded his expectations and to have included several men who afterward became From this mental infirmity combined with liabil famous in law, politics, or philosophy. Some ity to frequent attacks of disabling though not of these, such as John Stuart Mill for in dangerous ill-health, he accomplished through stance, took full notes of his lectures, and life little in comparison of what he seemed capa ble of; but what he did produce is held in the entered into the new study with a zest that very highest estimation by the most competent must have been a delightful reward for all the judges." 1 labor of preparation. " He was much im When the new London University, with pressed and excited," says his wife, " by the all the confidence of inexperience, undertook spectacle of this noble band of young men, to revolutionize the study of law, Mr. Austin and he felt with a sort of awe the responsi seems to have been selected, by common bility attaching to his office. He had the consent, to inaugurate the new system. He highest possible conception of the impor had already given up the attempt to practise, tance of clear notions on the foundation of and went to Germany to prepare himself Law and Morals to the welfare of the hu there for his duties. He spent the greater man race; the thought of being the medium part of a year at Bonn, in studying German through which these were to be conveyed and civil law. He came entirely under the into so many of the minds destined to exer influence of the so-called philosophical school cise a powerful influence in England, filled of jurists, of which Thibaut was the recognized him with ardor and enthusiasm." Any leader. The conflict between this school and teacher who loves and appreciates his work, that of Savigny was then at its fiercest, and whatever his topic, can understand at least neither party could have exerted so useful an the enjoyment which Austin found with influence upon an English stranger as it such pupils. If the highest of all intellect ual pleasures be, as we may well believe it 1 Mill's Autobiography, pp. 73-75.
