Sir Leslie Stephen KCB FBA (28 November 1832 – 22 February 1904) was an English author, critic, historian, biographer, mountaineer, and an Ethical movement activist.

At his father's house, he saw a good deal of the Macaulays, James Spedding, Sir Henry Taylor and Nassau Senior.

[4] In 1859, he was ordained, but his study of philosophy, together with his perception of the religious controversies surrounding the publication of On the Origin of Species (1859) by Charles Darwin, led to his losing his faith in 1862, and in 1864 he resigned from his positions at Cambridge, and moved to London.

These sketches were reprinted from The Pall Mall Gazette, to the proprietor of which, George Murray Smith, he had been introduced by his brother.

His sister Caroline met Thackeray's daughters, Anny (1837–1919) and Minny (1840–1875) when they were mutual guests of Julia Margaret Cameron (of whom, see later).

After the wedding, they travelled to the Swiss Alps and Northern Italy, and on return to England lived at the Thackeray sisters' home at 16 Onslow Gardens with Anny, who was a novelist.

[6] After Minny's death, Leslie Stephen continued to live with Anny, but they moved to 11 Hyde Park Gate South in 1876, next door to her widowed friend and collaborator, Julia Duckworth.

During the eleven years of his editorship, in addition to three volumes of critical studies, he made two valuable contributions to philosophical history and theory.

This work was generally recognised as an important addition to philosophical literature and led immediately to Stephen's election at the Athenaeum Club in 1877.

It was extensively adopted as a textbook on the subject and made him the best-known proponent of evolutionary ethics in late-nineteenth-century Britain.

He was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB) in the 1902 Coronation Honours list published on 26 June 1902.

In Social Rights and Duties (1896), he explained how he came to lose his faith of his parents: "When I ceased to accept the teaching of my youth, it was not so much a process of giving up beliefs as of discovering that I never really believed.

He concluded his essay "An Agnostic's Apology" with a reply to religious critics who hold atheists and agnostics in contempt: "Til then, we shall be content to admit openly what you whisper under your breath or hide in technical jargon, that the ancient secret is secret still; that man knows nothing of the Infinite and Absolute; and that, knowing nothing, he had better not be dogmatic about his ignorance.

[19] He gave numerous addresses and lectures to the ethical society during his tenure as president, which are collected at length across multiple volumes of writings.

(Ref: The Diaries and Letters of Virginia Woolf) His probate is worded: STEPHEN sir Leslie of 22 Hyde Park-gate Middlesex K.C.B.