CAIRNS and in 1895-96. His Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion, published in 1880, is an attempt to show the essential rationality of religion. It is idealistic in character, being, in fact, a reproduction of Hegelian teaching in clear and melodious language. His line of argument for the Being of God is based, briefly, on the hypothesis that thought—not individual but universal—is the reality of all things, the existence of this Infinite Thought being demonstrated by the limitations of finite thought. Again, his Gifford Lectures are devoted to the proof of the truth of Christianity on grounds of right reason alone. Principal Caird also wrote an excellent study of Spinoza, in which he showed the latent Hegelianism of the great Jewish philosopher. He died 30th July 1898. Cairns, Hugh IVTCalmont Cairns, 1st Earl (1819-1885), Irish statesman, and Lord Chancellor of England, was born at Cultra, county Down, Ireland, 27th December 1819. One of the ablest lawyers who ever adorned the woolsack, he also played in politics a more prominent part than lawyers have usually sustained, leading the Conservative party in the House of Lords between 1869 and 1880. His father, William Cairns, formerly a captain in the 47th Regiment, came of a family of Scottish origin, which migrated to Ireland in the time of James I. Hugh Cairns was his second son, and was educated at Belfast Academy and at Trinity College, Dublin. He showed such talent that his tutor at Trinity College, the Rev. George Wheeler, persuaded his father that he should be trained for the Law instead of for the Church, for which he had been intended. Accordingly, after taking a first-class in classics, and a B.A. degree in 1838, he left Ireland for London and entered at the Middle Temple, Avhere he was called to the bar in 1844, afterwards becoming a member of Lincoln’s Inn. During his first years at the Chancery Bar, Cairns showed little promise of the eloquence which afterwards distinguished him. Never a rapid speaker, he was then so slow and diffident, that he feared that this defect might interfere with his legal career. Fortunately he was soon able to rid himself of the idea that he was only fit for practice as a conveyancer. In 1852 he entered Parliament as member for Belfast, and his Inn, on his becoming a Q.C. in 1856, made him a Bencher. In 1858 Cairns was appointed Solicitor-General, and was knighted, and in May of that year made two of his most brilliant and best-remembered speeches in the House of Commons. In the first, he defended the action of Lord Ellenborough, who, as President of the Board of Control, had not only censured Lord Canning for a proclamation issued by him as Governor-General of India, but had made public the despatch in which the censure was conveyed. On the other occasion referred to, Sir Hugh Cairns spoke in opposition to Lord John Russell’s amendment to the motion for the second reading of the Government Reform Bill, winning the most cordial commendation of Mr Disraeli. Disraeli’s appreciation found an opportunity for displaying itself some years later, when in 1868 he invited him to be Lord Chancellor in the brief Conservative administration which followed Lord Derby’s resignation of the leadership of his party. Meanwhile, Cairns had maintained his reputation in many other debates, both when his party was in power, and when it was in opposition. In 1866 Lord Derby, returning to office, had made him Attorney-General, and in the same year he had availed himself of the retirement of Sir J- Knight Bruce, to seek the comparative rest of the Court of Appeal. While a Lord Justice he had been offered a peerage, and though at first unable to accept it, be had finally done so on a relative, a member of the
493 wealthy family of M'Calmont, providing the means necessary for the endowment of a title. The appointment of Baron Cairns of Garmoyle as Lord Chancellor involved the superseding of Lord Chelmsford, an act which apparently was carried out by Mr Disraeli with less tact than might have been expected of him. Lord Chelmsford bitterly declared that he had been sent away with less courtesy than if he had been a butler, but the testimony of Lord Malmesbury is strong that the affair was the result of an understanding arrived at when Lord Chelmsford took office. Mr Disraeli held office on this occasion for a few months only, and when Lord Derby died in 1889, Lord Cairns became the leader of the Conservative opposition in the House of Lords. He had distinguished himself in the Commons by his resistance to the Roman Catholics’ Oath Bill brought in in 1865; in the Lords, his efforts on behalf of the Irish Church were equally strenuous. His speech on Mr Gladstone’s Suspensory Bill was afterwards published as a pamphlet, but the attitude which he and the peers who followed him had taken up, in insisting on their amendments k> the preamble of the Bill, was one difficult to maintain, and Lord Cairns made terms with Lord Granville in circumstances which precluded his consulting his party first. He issued a circular to explain his action in taking a course for which many blamed him. Viewed dispassionately, the incident appears to have exhibited his statesmanlike qualities in a marked degree, for he secured concessions which would have been irretrievably lost by continued opposition. Not long after this, Lord Cairns resigned the leadership of his party in the Upper House, but he had to resume it in 1870, and took a strong part in opposing the Irish Land Bill in that year. On the Conservatives coming into power in 1874, he again became Lord Chancellor; in 1878 he was made Viscount Garmoyle and Earl Cairns; and in 1880 his party went out of office. In opposition he did not take as prominent a part as previously, but when Lord Beaconsfield died in 1881, there were some Conservatives who considered that his title to lead the party was better than that of Lord Salisbury. His health, however, never robust, had for many years shown intermittent signs of failing. He had periodically made enforced retirements to the Riviera, and for many years had had a house at Bournemouth, and it was here that he died on 2nd April 1885. Cairns was a great lawyer, with an immense grasp of first principles and the power to express them; his judgments taking the form of luminous expositions or treatises upon the law governing the case before him, rather than of controversial discussions of the arguments adduced by counsel, or of analysis of his own reasons. Lucidity and logic were the leading characteristics of his speeches in his professional capacity, and in the political arena. An incident of his Lord Chancellorship deserves record. In the hearing of an appeal by the House of Lords, a noble lord fresh from the Appeal Court, where interruptions of counsel are still too common, kept interposing questions during the argument. Lord Cairns turned to this gentleman and said coldly but decisively, “ I think the House is desirous of hearing the argument of counsel, and not of putting questions to him.’’ In an eloquent tribute to his memory in the House of Lords, Lord Chief Justice Coleridge expressed the high opinion of the legal profession upon his merits, and upon the severe integrity and single-minded desire to do his duty which animated him in his selections for the bench. As far as the higher judicial appointments filled by Lord Cairns were concerned, such eulogy was not undeserved. Giffard, V.C., Hayes, Brett, Cleasby, Archibald, Field,
