. The
positivists were beginning to make themselves known, and, for various
reasons, were anything but attractive to him. He denounces a manifesto
from Mr. Congreve in January 1857, and again from the patriotic side.
Mr. Congreve had suggested, among other things, the cession of Gibraltar
to Spain, in accordance with his view of international duties. The
English nation, exclaims Fitzjames, 'cannot be weighed and measured, and
ticketed, and classified, by a narrow understanding and a cold heart.'
The 'honest and noble passions of a single nation would blow all Mr.
Congreve's schemes to atoms like so many cobwebs. England will never be
argued out of Gibraltar except by the _ultima ratio_.' These doctrines,
he thinks, are the fruits of abandoning a belief in theology. 'We, too,
have a positive philosophy, and its fundamental maxim is that it is wise
for men and nations to mind their own business, and do their own duty,
and leave the results to God.' The argument seems to be rather
questionable; and perhaps one which follows is not altogether
satisfactory, though both are characteristic. The Indian Mutiny had
moved him deeply, and, in an article called 'Deus Ultionum'[71] he
applies one of his doctrines to this case. He holds that a desire for
revenge upon the perpetrators of the atrocities (of which, I may
observe, exaggerated accounts were then accepted) was perfectly
legitimate. Revenge, he urges, is an essential part of the true theory
of punishment--a position which he defends by the authority of Bishop
Butler. The only alternative is the theory of simple 'deterrence,'
which, as he holds, excludes every moral element of punishment, and
supposes man to be a mere 'bag of appetites.'

I have dwelt upon these utterances, not, of course, to consider their
value, or as representing his permanent conviction, but simply as
illustrating a very deeply rooted sentiment.

His work in the 'Saturday Review' did not exhaust all his literary
activity. Between 1856 and 1861 he contributed a few articles to the
'Edinburgh Review,' of which I have already mentioned one. He very
naturally turned to the organ in which his father's best-known writings
had appeared, and which still enjoyed a high reputation. I believe that
the 'Edinburgh Review' still acted upon the precedent set by Jeffrey,
according to which a contributor, especially, of course, a young
contributor, was regarded as supplying raw material which might be
rather arbitrarily