nd
might be preserved as virtually the religious department of the State.
He soon saw that any realisation of such views was hopeless. He writes
from India in 1870 to a friend, whom he had advised upon a prosecution
for heresy, saying that he saw clearly that we were drifting towards
voluntaryism. Any other solution was for the present out of the
question; although he continued to regard this as a makeshift compound,
and never ceased to object to disestablishment.

Fitzjames's political views show the same tendencies. He had not
hitherto taken any active interest in politics, taken in the narrower
sense. Our friend Henry Fawcett, with whom he had many talks on his
Christmas visits to Trinity Hall, was rather scandalised by my brother's
attitude of detachment in regard to the party questions of the day.
Fitzjames stood for Harwich in the Liberal interest at the general
election of 1865; but much more because he thought that a seat in
Parliament would be useful in his profession than from any keen interest
in politics. The Harwich electors in those days did not, I think, take
much interest themselves in political principles. Both they and he,
however, seemed dimly to perceive that he was rather out of his element,
and the whole affair, which ended in failure, was of the comic order.
His indifference and want of familiarity with the small talk of politics
probably diminished the effect of his articles in so far as it implied a
tendency to fall back upon principles too general for the average
reader. But there was no want of decided convictions. The death of
Palmerston marked the end of the old era, and was soon succeeded by the
discussions over parliamentary reform which led to Disraeli's measure of
1867. Fitzjames considered himself to be a Liberal, but the Liberals of
those days were divided into various sections, not fully conscious of
the differences which divided them. In one of his 'Cornhill'
articles[98] Fitzjames had attempted to define what he meant by
liberalism. It meant, he said, hostility to antiquated and narrow-minded
institutions. It ought also to mean 'generous and high-minded sentiments
upon political subjects guided by a highly instructed, large-minded and
impartial intellect, briefly the opposite of sordidness, vulgarity, and
bigotry.' The party technically called Liberal were about to admit a
larger popular element to a share of political power. The result would
be good or bad as the new rulers acted o