Mackintosh, SIR JAMES, philosopher, was born at Aldonrie in Inverness-shire, October 24, 1765. Having studied at King's College, Aberdeen, and then medicine at Edinburgh, he settled in London, for some time supporting himself and his young wife by writing for the newspapers. The first work that brought him into notice was his Vindiciæ Gallicæ (1791), in reply to Burke's Reflections on the French Revolution. Fox, Sheridan, and other leading Whigs sought the author's acquaintance; and when the association of the 'Friends of the People' (q.v.) was formed he was appointed secretary. He was called to the bar in 1795, and ere long attained high eminence as a forensic lawyer. In 1799 he delivered a brilliant series of lectures on the law of nature and of nations before the benchers of Lincoln's Inn; and his defence of Peltier (1803), charged with a libel on Bonaparte, was a splendid triumph. In 1804 he was knighted, and appointed recorder of Bombay, and in 1806 judge of the Admiralty Court; here he spent seven years, entering parliament on his return as Whig member for Nairn (1813). He was professor of Law in the college of Haileybury from 1818 to 1824, and in 1830 became a member of the Board of Control under the Grey ministry, and spoke in favour of the Reform Bill. He died not long after, on the 22d May 1832. His Dissertation on the Progress of Ethical Philosophy (1831), written for the Encyclopædia Britannica, although very incomplete, shows the admirable powers of the author. For Lardner's Cyclopædia he wrote a brief but excellent survey of the History of England. A mere fragment of a great projected work, entitled A History of the Revolution in England in 1688, appeared after his death.
A collection of Mackintosh's miscellaneous works was published in 3 vols. in 1854. See the Memoirs by his son (2 vols. 1835), and the essays of Macaulay and De Quincey.