Succeeded his brother, John Henry (b. 1821), as Marquis of Lorne, 1837; published writings relating to the struggle in church of Scotland, 1842–8; succeeded to dukedom, 1847; F.R.S., 1851; chancellor of St. Andrews University, 1851; lord rector of Glasgow University, 1854; president of Royal Society of Edinburgh, 1861; prominent in politics as a whig; privy seal, 1853–5, 1859–60, and 1860–6; postmaster-general, 1855–8 and 1860; secretary of state for India, 1868–74, and adopted foreign policy of friendship to neighbouring states, and financial policy of “decentralisation;” opposed tory government’s policy in Eastern question, and in Afghanistan, 1877–80; privy seal, 1880–1; opposed home rule, 1886 and 1893; K.T., 1856; D.C.L. Oxford, 1870; K.G., 1883. A follower of the cataclysmal school in geology, and never in agreement with the younger evolutional school, he yet exerted a useful influence on scientific progress. He published works on science, religion, and politics.

Personal

  The Duke of Argyll has a strikingly interesting and intellectual face. He has long red hair, which he dashes from off his high white forehead in a most effective manner, while he speaks.

  He never grew to be popular in the House of Lords, and I believe is not popular anywhere. His style is far too self-assured and pedantic, his faith in his own superiority to everybody else is too evident, to allow of his having many enthusiastic admirers. Moreover, though the Duke of Argyll has shown himself a much sounder and better man than most people at first believed him to be, he is far indeed from holding the place which his manner would seem to claim as a right. He never could be in politics more than a second-class man; and he is not even a remarkably good second-class man. Every commendation that is given him must be qualified. He has written one or two remarkable books—for a duke. He has been a very liberal politician—for a duke. He is a good speaker—for one who never had any oratorical gift. Of all the noblemen who have been put into high office during my time, merely because they were noblemen, he is, I think, on the whole, the ablest and the best…. When the Duke of Argyll is not vehement he is rather an uninteresting speaker. He is fluent, but formal and pedantic, and his speeches are not brightened by fancy or humor. As an after-dinner speaker he is especially ineffective. To be heard to advantage, he should be taken either in the sudden heat of some parliamentary contest, or else when addressing from the lecturer’s platform some scientific or philosophical society. In political life he has “given his measure,” and I think we may safely assume that he will never be a great statesman.

General

  As a speaker the Duke of Argyll has many imperfections; he talks with a pedantic positiveness which has been compared to the harangues of a school-master. His very virtues of enthusiasm and earnestness often carry him away, and losing control of himself, he not infrequently exposes himself to the telling attacks of Lords Derby and Cairns. Sometimes he is passionate, and transcends the rules of parliamentary law; he attacks his opponents fiercely and sometimes recklessly; he has neither the patience, nor the craft, nor the fertility of forensic resources, to fit him for the position of party leadership…. Although not an orator he is a fluent speaker; has confidence in himself, and says always what he means without apparent difficulty. He is probably destined to rank no higher in the national councils than the position he has already attained; but by his earnest liberalism he has already a reputation if less brilliant, at least no less honorable, than that of any of that long succession of Argylls who have for so many centuries illustrated the history of Britain. In his leisure hours, he has composed and (recently) published a very highly regarded philosophical treatise on “The Reign of Law;” and perhaps his best claim to fame rests in the literary works which he has from time to time given to the world, and which have, far better than his parliamentary career, done justice to mental accomplishments which, even had he been untitled and obscure, would certainly have given him no mean position in the literary annals of his generation.

  “The Reign of Law” is like everything else the Duke of Argyll does. It is far above average work. It would be sure to be read with attention even if it were not written by a duke. But it is not one of the books that force themselves upon the public. It is one of the books that, although good enough in themselves and worthy of careful reading when once they are found out, stand in need of some external impulse to push them into notice.

  The Duke has laid his contemporaries and those who shall come after under an obligation it would be difficult to estimate. “The Reign of Law” was published opportunely. Physical science had achieved great triumphs both as science and as subservient to the practical purposes of life. In view of this, not her special devotees alone, but all right-thinking men were exultant…. While, therefore, we have a very high estimate of both the ability and value of “The Reign of Law,” and of each of the papers on the “Unity of Nature,” we yet feel that in their total effect they do not present truly the relation of personality to Natural Law.

  Though the Duke of Argyll can hardly be ranked as a man of science, he undoubtedly exerted a useful influence on the scientific progress of his day. His frequent controversies on scientific questions roused a wide-spread interest in these subjects, and thus helped to further the advance of the departments which he subjected to criticism. It is perhaps too soon to judge finally of the value of this criticism. There can be no doubt, however, that it was in itself stimulating, even to those who were opposed to it. A prominent public man, immersed in politics and full of the cares of a great estate, who finds his recreation in scientific inquiry, must be counted among the beneficent influences of his time. The duke began his writings on scientific subjects in 1850, and continued them almost to the end of his life.