The Political Attitudes of Sir Henry Maine: Conscience of a 19th Century Conservative

Abstract

r HE AUTHOR OF Ancient Law, Sir Henry Maine (1882-88) was once regarded throughout English-speaking world as the father of political embryology. In his lifetime he enjoyed an unparalleled international reputation as a pioneering student of society. When Maine died in 1888, Fustel de Coulanges, standing at his open grave at Cannes to deliver a funeral oration, pronounced him greatest scientific historian of century. The Times of London, in an obituary notice, declared Maine an English Montesquieu. And, remarkable though it may seem today, a medallion paid for by public subscription to commemorate his scholarly contributions to scientific study of man, was unveiled in Westminster Abbey in December, 1889.2 Yet curiously, despite his fame among contemporaries, we have until recently lacked even most rudimentary biographical materials relating to formulation of Maine's social and political thought. Surely few such distinguished scholars as Maine have had their basic biographical facts as variously interpreted. Grant Duff, in most extensive biographical study of Maine yet published (1892), describes him as a native of Leighton, England, though no such place exists. R. H. Murray places Maine as a native of Kelso, Scotland. The Everyman's Library Edition of Ancient Law suggests that Maine was born in India-and, no less imaginatively, Peter Drucker, ad-