Liberty, Fraternity, Equality

Very solidly bound by the Pembroke College (Cambridge) Debating Society ("PCDS"), some foxing on early pages, otherwise tight, bright and clean, with a little age-darkening, no marks, tears. Has PCDS sticker on front board, Pembroke College bookplate (cancelled), signature of former owner Glenn R. Morrow, the eminent Plato scholar and philosopher, and his inscription to the subsequent owner. Spine somewhat cracked and abraded, front hinge starting.

James Stephen (1829-1894) was a jurist, lawyer, distinguished judge and writer, particularly influential in Indian jurisprudence, and the uncle of Virginia Woolf. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity (1873–1874) was written principally as an attack against John Stuart Mill's essay On Liberty, and in opposition to Mill's neo-utilitarianism. Stephen argued for an ordered freedom through some forms of compulsion or restraint, and that without these, civilized society would be impossible.

This is the second edition, with Stephen's long Preface, occasioned, as he says, because "...this work has been fortunate enough to be very generally criticised."

Widely known, debated, and influential in its time, this book is very hard to find in its original. After the Hart-Devlin debates in the 1950's, Lord Devlin tried to obtain a copy of the book and did so "only with great difficulty," according to Wikipedia.