First of the Month readers might not warm to a Victorian criminal lawyer and judge who believed that law and morals were inseparably linked and for whom capital punishment was the bedrock of an effective system of justice. Offenders would emerge from the court presided over by James Fitzjames Stephen (1829-94) with their character in shreds and facing either a long and harsh period of incarceration, or the gallows. The judge, Stephen believed, was merely the servant of the public’s sense of righteous indignation, and was duty bound not to disappoint.
However, law enforcement was only the day job for Stephen; he doubled as a prolific and combative writer who waded into every controversy – political, literary, theological, and scientific – that unsettled his age. He has recently featured in Russell Jacoby’s perceptive book, On diversity: the eclipse of the individual in a global age, as the robust critic of John Stuart Mill.