If one great aural surgeon became a martyr of science, another was no less a martyr of philanthropy. The name of James Hinton, which gained wide celebrity during his lifetime, has been progressively elevated since his death by the publication of his “Life and Letters,” by Miss Ellice Hopkins, and of his works on “The Art of Thinking,” 1879, “Philosophy and Religion,” 1881, and “The Law-Breaker, and the Coming of the Law,” 1884. Even yet, fortunately, much more may be hoped for, in the shape more especially of an autobiography, and of a work on Ethics.
It has become increasingly evident that James Hinton was, if not a true genius, a man who approached very nearly to that altitude of nature. As Mr. Shadworth Hodgson remarks in the introduction to the “Chapters on the Art of Thinking,” Hinton is a hander-on of Coleridge’s torch, with less of systematic theology and more of emotional spiritualism. It is quite impossible to attempt here to sketch his various philosophical contributions. Indeed the time has not yet fully come to estimate them, their influence, or the man who gave birth to them. As an aural surgeon he perhaps scarcely rose to Toynbee’s level, but this was rather because the greatness of his mind and soul in vaster fields overpowered him, than from defect of ability. An outline of his life and work only can here be given.
James Hinton was the third child (of eleven) of the well-known Baptist minister, John Howard Hinton, having been born at Reading in 1822. His father’s mother was aunt to Isaac Taylor, the author of the “Natural History of Enthusiasm.” It was from his mother, Eliza Birt, however, that James Hinton derived most. She is described as a fervent, lofty-souled woman, full of enthusiasm and compassion, yet dignified and able to rule others with mild but irresistible sway.
As a little child, James Hinton, though sweet-tempered, showed a strong tendency to investigate everything, and to rearrange the elder children’s games “as they ought to be.” The father taught the children to be keenly observant of natural history. The mother bred them up to have an instinctive feeling for religion, especially in its aspect of love to God. An elder brother, Howard, died when James was but twelve, and this bereavement made such an impression upon him that he soon after was baptized and publicly received as a member of the Baptist Church.
At school James Hinton did not show special ability, though he had a remarkable verbal memory until a certain period, when he suddenly lost it without any special cause. In 1838 his father left Reading for London, becoming minister of the Devonshire Square Chapel. Feeling some pressure of circumstances with his large family, Mr. Hinton placed James in the first situation which presented itself, viz., that of cashier at a wholesale woollen-draper’s shop in Whitechapel. This temporary immersion in proximity to some of the coarsest scenes imaginable had a very deep influence in educing the thoroughgoing altruism which afterwards characterised him.
After holding the Whitechapel situation about a year, and spending some time in search of a more suitable occupation, Hinton became a clerk in an insurance office in the city. Here, while not becoming an adept at book-keeping, he sat up at night and gave himself a miscellaneous education. At this time he has been described as “an abstract idea untidily expressed;” he was wholly indifferent to appearances, and his clothes could never be made to fit him; and he was often guilty of lapses from politeness. He was full of argumentativeness, and determined to get to the bottom of everything.
A little later his intense intellectual labours, combined with the deep sense he now and ever after entertained of the wrongs to which women were subjected, brought him into a state of mind in which he resolved to run away to sea. His intention being discovered, his father consulted a doctor about him, who wisely advised that he should enter the medical profession, as being more fitted to give scope for his mental powers. He was consequently entered at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital at the age of twenty. He was able to perform his entire course of medical study with very great rapidity, and before taking his diploma went on a voyage to China and back as surgeon of a passenger ship. On his return in 1847 be became a member of the College of Surgeons, and settled for a time as a surgeon’s assistant at Newport in Essex.
He did not remain here long, but in the autumn of 1847 took the position of surgeon to a shipload of freed slaves who were to be shipped by voluntary agreement from Sierra Leone to Jamaica. He remained for more than a year after this in Jamaica, taking the practice of a medical man in ill-health, and looking after the progress of his late charges. In 1849-50 he travelled homewards by way of New Orleans, where he gained further insight into the slavery question. In 1850 he entered into partnership with a Mr. Fisher, a surgeon in general practice in Bartholomew Close; and became engaged to Miss Margaret Haddon, after an attachment of ten years.
In August 1850 we find the first note of his success in aural surgery; he cured his mother’s deafness by a syringing properly performed. Some other cases of success followed this, and were very cheering. Soon after this he was introduced to Mr. Toynbee, and spent much time with him both at St. Mary’s Hospital and privately. Yet he did not find anything in practice large enough to satisfy his aspirations. “Too many things crowd upon me; none commands me,” he writes March 1851. “The thing which shall fill my heart must be not for myself but for others. To be contented I must toil not for comfort, nor money, nor for fame, nor for love, but for truth and righteousness.”