Jean-Joseph Thonissen

Thonissen first performed duties in the magistracy and the administration of Limburg, but was occupied with juridical works on penal law.

The first part, which met with considerable success, dealt with Brahminical India, Egypt, and Judea, and contained a "Penal Code of the Pentateuch".

He had been impressed by the Revolution of 1848 which determined his career and he devoted himself to a laborious study of innovating systems, especially of the Utopian Socialists - Henri de Saint-Simon, Charles Fourier, Étienne Cabet, Robert Owen, Louis Blanc, and others, being led eventually to write a history of Socialism from ancient times to 1852.

In 1872, during a period of turmoil, the King entrusted him with the formation of a ministry, he was not supported by his party, which dreaded concessions to the Left or to the Crown.

When he finally entered the ministry (1884), age had rendered him unfit for hard work, though he was able to enforce the new school law which the victorious Right had substituted for the lay regime of 1879; this task consumed the last of his strength and left him unable to resume his scientific pursuits in his retirement (1887); his faculties soon became clouded.