"Henry Sumner Maine, whose private pupil I was in 1857, when he was giving his lectures on "Ancient Law," was rather historian than lawyer, and more social philosopher than jurist. I remained in intimacy with him until his too early death, and never ceased to delight in his brilliant scholarship and analytic genius, as well as his literary culture and charm of manner. His very precarious health quite prevented him from acquiring the profound and exact learning of a modern professor; but he may rank with Herbert Spencer, and indeed with Charles Darwin, as an instance of how intellectual insight and grasp of luminous principles can dispense with any exhaustive study of books, nay, so often can open visions of truths which are denied to the voracious amasser of book learning."
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University of Cambridge facultyJuristsUniversity of Oxford facultyHistorians from ScotlandNon-fiction authors from Scotland
Original Language: English
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Sources
Frederic Harrison, Autobiographic Memoirs, Vol. II (1870–1910) (1911), pp. 76-77
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Henry_James_Sumner_Maine
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Henry James Sumner Maine
Sir Henry James Sumner Maine (15 August 1822 – 3 February 1888) was a British comparative jurist, historian and political proto-progressive nonetheless famous for his varied objections to Whig history.
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