Francis Hutcheson (1694-1746)

Francis Hutcheson

[ top ]

[ top ]

Bibliographical details
A System of Moral Philosophy, in Three Books / written by the late Francis Hutcheson; Published from the Original Manuscript, by Francis Hutcheson, MD. To which is prefixed, Some account of the life, writings, and character of the author, by the Reverend William Leechman, DD, 2 vols. (Glasgow & London: Printed and sold by R. and A. Foulis ... Sold by A. Millar ... and by T. Longman ... 1755), 4°/27 cm. [For further publication details, see attached.]

[ top ]

[ top ]

Commentary
W. B. Stanford, Ireland and the Classical Tradition (1984), Francis Hutcheson, son and grandson of Presbyterian ministers and himself a minister; ed. locally in Co. Down, and in Glasgow Univ.; accepted invitation to open a Presbyterian academy in Dublin. Published first, An Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue (1725; and 5 eds.); trans. in French and German; influenced Burke - who in contrast took up a position against traditional aesthetics; partly a defence of Lord Shaftesbury’s Hellenic views on aesthetics and morality and partly a refutation of Mandeville’s Fable of the Bees, it was characterised by the author’s respect for beauty and its enlightened hedonism, in reaction to severe puritanism. Elected Prof. of Moral Theology at Glasgow in 1729, and there co-operated with Alexander Dunlop in promoting a Greek revival; his annotated ed. of Marcus Aurelius Meditations (1742), with Dunlop’s successor James Moor[e], and printed by Robert Foulis whom he supported to the post of University printer [196]

J. W. Foster, ‘Topographical Tradition in Anglo-Irish Poetry’ [1974], in Colonial Consequences (Dublin: Lilliput Press 1991), remarks on Down-born Frances Hutcheson, Inquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue (1725) written in the tradition of Shaftesbury’s Characteristics (1711) and dealing with the aesthetic balance of art and nature exemplified in contemporary landscaping tastes in country houses of England. Further comments that such values were implemented in Patrick Delany’s Delville at Glasnevin, improved after 1724, and a place of resort to Swift, Tickell, and Addison. (pp.16-19.)

D. D. Raphael, ‘A New Light’, in ‘Francis Hutcheson Special Number’ [of] Fortnight Educational Supplement (Belfast July 1992), remarks: ‘soon after Francis Hutcheson took up his post as professor of moral philosophy at Glasgow University in 1730, he wrote to a friend in Ireland that, at Glasgow, he was called a “new light”; the description [properly] referred to his theology but it could apply to his philosophy.’

Eve Patten, Samuel Ferguson and the Culture of Nineteenth-Century Ireland (Dublin: Four Courts Press 2004): ‘The key documents of the [eighteenth-century Scottish] Enlightenment, including Adam Ferguson’s Essay on the history of civil society (1767) and Adam Smith’s Theory of moral sentiments (1759), combined to sustain a distinct moral philosophy. Civic humanism or, in its evolved formulation, civic virtue, was understood to be a working compound of three elements: first, New Light Presbyterianism, which emphasized the authority of individual conscience and promoted religious tolerance; secondly, the so-called “Real Whiggery” of Locke and Paine, and thirdly, an Enlightenment rationalism heavily influenced by the didactic moralism of Armagh-born philosopher Francis Hutcheson. Hutcheson’s Inquiry into our original ideas of beauty and virtue (1725) was central to establishing ar, ethos of social community within Scottish intellectual tradition. In order to make aesthetic or moral judgments, Hutcheson argued, the individual requires a level of cultiration only attainable through interaction in the polis. Society as a whole is responsible for, but is also the beneficiary of, the development of individual sensibility: the civic community acts as a conduit for the virtuous and cultivated citizen, and as a barrier to the excesses of private passion. / This version of civic sensibility passed into a general European public discourse through a related body of journalism and fiction, with the novelists Edgeworth, Maturin and the Banim brothers heading a list of Irish writers indebted in some measure to an eighteenth-century Scottish school of moral and social philosophy. But its long-term influence on Irish social and [17] cultural practice in the nineteenth century has not been extensively explored. Given that the Scottish civic idealism significantly coloured the political complexion of the United Irishmen, and given too, the important conduit provided by the Ulster-Scotland corridor well beyond 1798, it is hardly surprising that such a philosophy laid the groundwork for post-rebellion cultural activists such as William Drennan, Charles Teeling and Henry Montgomery.’ (p.17-18; refs. incl. Norman Vance, Irish Literature: A Social History, 1990.)

Manus Charlton, ‘Do the Right Thing’, in Dublin Review of Books (16 June 2014): "[...] For Hutcheson we distinguish a good act from a bad one through how we feel about it. A good act gives us an immediate feeling of pleasure, which makes the act attractive and arouses admiration. A bad act, on the other hand, pains us with upset, anger or distress, which gives us an aversion towards it. These immediate feelings come through what Hutcheson calls our “moral sense”. The moral sense is similar to our five external senses in providing access to our experience of the world. But it is an “internal” sense which registers information about right and wrong. In the first instance we become aware of right and wrong immediately and directly by the way we are emotionally moved or affected, independently of our will or our reasoning. We are passive in the sense of being acted upon, as when we are moved by the suffering of famine victims to see their condition as morally wrong without needing to work out a judgement. He calls our internal moral sense through which we are moved a “passive power”. As to what it is about behaviours and conditions which make us feel they are good or right, Hutcheson’s answer is that they contain an element of kindness or helpfulness towards other people. “Kind affections” and “kind intentions”, he maintains, can be discovered as the mark of goodness from the examination of any action or intention which is recognised as good. “Benevolence” is the word he uses most frequently. Benevolent actions have to do with the good of at least one other person and, by extension, with the good of people in general. They are acts which “tend towards the good of the whole” or towards “doing good to mankind”.’ [See full text - online; accessed 23.07.2014.]

[ top ]

Quotations

‘That action is best, which procures the greatest happiness for the greatest numbers.’ (from Inquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue, 1725; quoted in Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, 1967 Edn.)

Wisdom defined: ‘Wisdom denotes the pursuing of the best needs by the best means’; ‘That action is best, which procures the greatest happiness for the greatest numbers’ (from Inquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue, 1725; quoted in Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, 1967 Edn.; but see original, in which the original is differently stated - as infra.)

Preface to An Inquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue (1729; 1753 Edn.): There is no part of philosophy of more importance, than a just knowledge of human nature, and its various powers and dispositions. Our late inquir[i]es have been very much employed about our understanding, and the several methods of obtaining truth. We generally acknowledge, that the Importance of any truth is nothing else than its moment, or efficacy to make men happy, or to give them the greatest and most lasting pleasure; and wisdom denotes only a capacity of pursuing this end by the best means. It must surely then be of the greatest importance, to have distinct conceptions of this end itself, as well as of the means necessary to obtain it; that we may find out which are the greatest and most lasting pleasures, and not employ our reason, after all our laborious Improvements of it, in trifling pursuits. It is to be feared indeed, that most of our studies, without this inquiry will be of very little use to us; for they seem to have scarce any other tendency than to lead us into speculative knowledge itself. Nor are we distinctly told how it is that knowledge, or truth, is pleasant to us. This consideration put the of the following papers upon inquiring into the various pleasures which human nature is capable of receiving. We shall generally find in our modern philosophic writings, nothing farther on this head, than some bare division of them into sensible, and rational, and some trite commonplace arguments to prove the latter more valuable than the former. Our sensible pleasures are slightly passed over, and explained only by some instances in tastes, smells, sounds, or such like, which men of any tolerable reflection generally look upon as very trifling satisfactions. Our rational pleasures have had much the same kind of treatment. We are seldom taught any other notion of rational pleasure than that which we have upon reflecting on our possession, or claim to those objects, which may be occasions of pleasure. Such objects we call advantageous; but advantage, or interest, cannot be distinctly concerned, till we know what those pleasures are which advantageous objects are apt to excite; and what senses or powers of perception we have with respect to such objects. We may perhaps find such an inquiry of more importance in morals, to prove what we call the reality of virtue, or that it is the surest happiness of the agent, than one would at first imagine. In reflecting upon our external senses, we plainly see, that our perceptions of pleasure, or pain, do not depend directly on our will. Objects do not please us, according as we incline they should. The presence of some objects necessarily pleases us, and the presence of others as necessarily displeases us. Nor can we by our will, any otherwise procure pleasure, or avoid pain, than by procuring the former kind of objects, and avoiding the latter. By the very frame of our nature the one is made the occasion of delight, and the other of dissatisfaction. The same observation will hold in all our other pleasures and pains. In the later editions of this volume, what alterations are made, are partly owing to the objections of some gentlemen, who wrote very keenly against several principles in this book. The was convinced of some inaccurate expressions, which are now altered; and some arguments, he hopes, are now made clearer: but he has not yet seen cause to renounce any of the principles maintained in it. Nor is there any thing of consequence added, except in Sect. II. of Treatise 2nd (see record); and the same reasoning is found in Sect. I. of the essay on the passions (see record). In this there are additions interspersed, to prevent objections which have been against this scheme by several editionss; and some mathematical expressions are left out, which, upon second thoughts, appeared useless, and were disagreeable to some readers. (Electronic copy by American Psychological Association [Washington, D.C.] 2005; available at COPAC - online; accessed 12.11.2012).

Party time: ‘All strict attachment to party, sects, factions, have but an imperfect species of beauty’ (ibid.; cited in Philip McGuinness, ‘The Peculiar contradictions of John Toland’, Times Literary Supplement, 27 Sept. 1996, p.14.

Short Introduction to Moral Philosophy (1753): ‘The celebrated division of philosophy among the ancients was into the rational or logical, the natural and the moral. Their moral philosophy contained these parts, ethicks taken more strictly, teaching the nature of virtue and regulating the internal dispositions; and the knowledge of the law of nature. This latter contained: 1. the doctrine of private rights, or the laws obtaining in natural liberty; 2. Oeconomicks, or the laws and rights of the several members of a family; and 3. Politicks, shewing the various plans of civil government, and the rights of fates with respect to each other. The following books contain the elements of these several branches of moral philosophy; which if they are carefully studied may give the youth an easier access to the well known and admired works either of the ancients, Plato, Aristotle, Xenophon, Cicero; or of the moderns, Grotius, Cumberland, Puffendorf, Harrington and others, upon this branch of philosophy.” (q.p.; quoted in COPAC - online; accessed 12.11.2102.)

Appetites & passions (“To Hibernicus” - ded. letter prefixed to Remarks upon the Fable of the Bees, 1750): ‘[...] What his own private happiness is, any one may know by reflecting upon the several sorts of pleasant perceptions he is capable of. We imagine our fellows capable of the same, and can in like manner conceive public happiness. They are happy who have what they desire, and are free from what occasions pain. He is in a sure state of happiness, who has a sure prospect that in all parts of his existence he shall have all things which he desires, or at least those which he most earnestly desires, without any considerable pains. He is miserable who is under grievous pain, or who wants what he most violently desires. / There is one old distinction of our desires, according as some of them are preceded naturally by a sense of pain, previously to any opinion of good to be found in the object; which is desired chiefly in order to remove the pain; whereas other desires arise only upon a previous opinion of good in the object, either to ourselves, or to those we love. These desires, though they do not presuppose any sense of pain previous to the opinion, yet may be attended with pain, when the object imagined to be good is uncertain. The former sort of desires are called appetites; the latter affections or passions. The pains of the appetites when they are not gratified are unavoidable. But the pains of many disappointed passions might have been prevented, by correcting the false opinions, or by breaking foolish associations of ideas, by which we imagine the most momentous good or evil to be in these objects or events, which really are of little or no consequence in themselves. / No reason or instruction will prevent sensible pain, or stop a craving appetite. Men must first be free from violent bodily pain, and have what will remove hunger and thirst, before they can be made happy. Thus much is absolutely necessary. If there be but small pleasure attending the enjoyment of the bare necessaries of life, yet there is violent pain in their absence. Whatever farther pleasures men enjoy, we may count so much positive happiness above necessity. [...]’ (For full-text copy, see attached.) [Note: Hibernicus is James Arbuckle, q.v.]

[ top ]

References
R. F. Foster, Modern Ireland (1988), p.214: b. Co. Down, ed. Glasgow; Inquiries into Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue (1725), won friendship of Archbishop [Wm.] King and Viscount Molesworth; appt. Chair of Moral Phil., Glasgow, without solicitation, 1729; taught Adam Smith; he coined the phrase, ‘the greatest happiness of the greatest number’. Note also: ‘Hutcheson’s idea of armed militias to protect civil rights may have been returned to Ulster with interest.’ (Ibid., p.266).

Seamus Deane, gen. ed., The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing (Derry: Field Day 1991), Vol. 1, pp.xxii, xxv, 659, 761, 762, Letter to William Mace, 786-88; An Inquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue, 889-93; BIOG, 805, protegé of Molesworth and the inspiring teacher of Adam Smith, d. in Ireland; see also The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing, Vol. 2; leading exponent of the ‘moral sense’ school; editorial reference to his place in Moore Pim’s A History of Celtic Philosophy (1920), overlooked in Richard Kearney, ed., The Irish Mind, Exploring Intellectual Traditions (Wolfhound 1985).

Website: Thoemmes has a scholarly and informative web page incorporating Daniel Carey’s Introduction to the Thoemmes rep. edn. of A System of Moral Philosophy (2000) at Thoemmes > 18th Century Philosophy > A System [... &c.] - online.

Notes
Trouble at presbytery: In 1738 Hutcheson was accused before the Glasgow Presbytery for ‘following two false and dangerous doctrines: first, that the standard of moral goodness was the promotion of the happiness of others; and second, that we could have a knowledge of good and evil without and prior to a knowledge of God.’ (See Rae, Life of Adam Smith, 1895; quoted in WWW.Answers [online] - itself based on the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica.)

Belfast sojourn?: Note one sources relates that Hutcheson returned to Ulster and taught in the Presbyterian College, Belfast, 1729, in company with Thomas Drennan - presumably immediately prior to his appointment to the chair of Moral Theology in Glasgow.

[ top ]

Lorem ipsum: The book which Hutcheson holds in his left hand in the portrait by Allan Ramsay made in 1745 [supra] is Cicero’s De finibus bonorum et malorum (On the Ends of Good and Evil). In it falls the sentence ‘Neque porro quisquam est qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit (Neither is there anyone who loves pain itself since it is pain and thus wants to obtain it)’ which is known to be the source of the nonsense Latin used by printers to focus font rather than meaning in trial pages. The identity of the sources was established by Richard McClintock, the scholarly director of publications at the Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia (USA, who located the phrase lorem ipsum that falls in that sentence at the top of p.136 of the Loeb Classical Library bilingual edition (1914) which breaks the word dolorem across the pages 134-36. ‘lorem ipsum (... &c.)’. The Lorem Ipsum was popularised as a Letraset transfer sheet and has also appeared on furniture materials such as curtains and upholstery. In its common form, it reads:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

The relevant passage in Cicero’s source-work reads:

Sed ut perspiciatis, unde omnis iste natus error sit voluptatem accusantium doloremque laudantium, totam rem aperiam eaque ipsa, quae ab illo inventore veritatis et quasi architecto beatae vitae dicta sunt, explicabo. Nemo enim ipsam voluptatem, quia voluptas sit, aspernatur aut odit aut fugit, sed quia consequuntur magni dolores eos, qui ratione voluptatem sequi nesciunt, neque porro quisquam est, qui dolorem ipsum, quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci[ng] velit, sed quia non numquam eius modi tempora incidunt, ut labore et dolore magnam aliquam quaerat voluptatem. Ut enim ad minima veniam, quis nostrum exercitationem ullam corporis suscipit laboriosam, nisi ut aliquid ex ea commodi consequatur? Quis autem vel eum iure reprehenderit, qui in ea voluptate velit esse, quam nihil molestiae consequatur, vel illum, qui dolorem eum fugiat, quo voluptas nulla pariatur?
 At vero eos et accusamus et iusto odio dignissimos ducimus, qui blanditiis praesentium voluptatum deleniti atque corrupti, quos dolores et quas molestias excepturi sint, obcaecati cupiditate non provident, similique sunt in culpa, qui officia deserunt mollitia animi, id est laborum et dolorum fuga. Et harum quidem rerum facilis est et expedita distinctio. Nam libero tempore, cum soluta nobis est eligendi optio, cumque nihil impedit, quo minus id, quod maxime placeat, facere possimus, omnis voluptas assumenda est, omnis dolor repellendus. Temporibus autem quibusdam et aut officiis debitis aut rerum necessitatibus saepe eveniet, ut et voluptates repudiandae sint et molestiae non recusandae. Itaque earum rerum hic tenetur a sapiente delectus, ut aut reiciendis voluptatibus maiores alias consequatur aut perferendis doloribus asperiores repellat...  

Although whole sentences and some syllables have been omitted, with a very few syllables added, only the the characteristically English suffix -ing at the end of adipsci is not consistent with Latin orthography and the letters K and Z are noticeably missing. The Loeb edition includes a facing translation by Harris Rackham, which reads as follows:

 But I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing of a pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system, and expound the actual teachings of the great explorer of the truth, the master-builder of human happiness. No one rejects, dislikes, or avoids pleasure itself, because it is pleasure, but because those who do not know how to pursue pleasure rationally encounter consequences that are extremely painful. Nor again is there anyone who loves or pursues or desires to obtain pain of itself, because it is pain, but occasionally circumstances occur in which toil and pain can procure him some great pleasure. To take a trivial example, which of us ever undertakes laborious physical exercise, except to obtain some advantage from it? But who has any right to find fault with a man who chooses to enjoy a pleasure that has no annoying consequences, or one who avoids a pain that produces no resultant pleasure? [33]
 On the other hand, we denounce with righteous indignation and dislike men who are so beguiled and demoralized by the charms of pleasure of the moment, so blinded by desire, that they cannot foresee the pain and trouble that are bound to ensue; and equal blame belongs to those who fail in their duty through weakness of will, which is the same as saying through shrinking from toil and pain. These cases are perfectly simple and easy to distinguish. In a free hour, when our power of choice is untrammeled and when nothing prevents our being able to do what we like best, every pleasure is to be welcomed and every pain avoided. But in certain circumstances and owing to the claims of duty or the obligations of business it will frequently occur that pleasures have to be repudiated and annoyances accepted. The wise man therefore always holds in these matters to this principle of selection: he rejects pleasures to secure other greater pleasures, or else he endures pains to avoid worse pains. (pp.33, 35.)

[See Wikipedia > Lorem Ipsum - online; accessed 14.11.2012.]

[ top ]