Ernest Belfort Bax
| Ernest Belfort Bax | |
|---|---|
Ernest Bax
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| Born | 23 July 1854 |
| Died | 26 November 1926 (aged 72) |
| Nationality | British |
| Occupation | Barrister |
| Known for | Men's rights |
| Notable work | The Legal Subjection of Men (1896) |
Ernest Belfort Bax (/bæks/; 23 July 1854 – 26 November 1926) was an English barrister, journalist, philosopher, men's rights advocate, socialist, and historian.
Ernest Belfort Bax was born on 23 July 1854, in Leamington, son of wealthy garment manufacturers and traditionalist nonconformist parents. In his Reminiscences and Reflexions of a Mid and Late Victorian (1918), he describes the narrow Evangelicanism and Sabbatarianism in which he was brought up which he describes as having left "an enduringly unpleasant reminiscence behind it".
He was privately educated by tutors between the years 1864–1875, and influenced by George Lewes, William Lecky, Alexander Bain, Herbert Spencer and John Stuart Mill, which contributed to his dedication to rationalism. At the age of sixteen his interest in public affairs was awakened by the Franco-German War, and by its sequel, the Commune. His political ideas during this period amounted to a commonplace radicalism combined with aspirations to economic equality.
In his youth Bax had an interest in music and could play the piano, and at the age of 16 (1875) he went to Germany to study music. He visited there again in 1880 as Berlin correspondent of The Standard. It was then that he met with Eduard von Hartmann and came into contact with German philosophy in general. After studying for a period, his interest in Mill, Spencer and Bain yielded to the German greats of Kant and Hegel, and his philosophical interests remained with him for life.
In 1880 at the age of 24, Bax began studying philosophy in Germany, beginning with Kant and Hegel. In 1883 he wrote and published Kant's Prolegomena, and Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science, and in 1884 he wrote his Handbook to the History of Philosophy, which was published in 1885 for Bohn’s Philosophical Library.
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