HUTCHESON 409 tions, the prevalance of them in his own temper would at least form an amiable one." la addition to the works already named, the following were published during Hutcheson s lifetime: a pamphlet entitled Considerations on Patronage, addressed to the Gentlemen of Scotland, 1735 ; Philosophic Moral-is Insti- tutio Compendiaria, Ethices et Jurisprudentice Natitralis Elementa continens, Lib. III., Glasgow, Foulis, 174-2; Mctaphi/sicce Synopsis Oiitologiam et Pneumatologiam com- plectens, Glasgow, Foulis, 1742. The last work was pub lished anonymously. After his death, his son, Francis Hutcheson, M.D., pub lished in two volumes, quarto, what is much the longest, though by no means the most interesting, of his works, A System of Moral Philosophy, in Three Books, London, 1755. To this is prefixed a life of the author, by Dr William Leechman, professor of divinity in the university of Glasgow. The only remaining work that we are able to assign to Hutcheson is a small treatise on Logic, which, according to his biographer, was " not designed for the public eye," but which was published by Foulis at Glasgow in 1764. This compendium, together with the Compendium of Metaphysics, was republished at Strasburg in 1772. Of all these works, however, those alone on which Hut cheson s philosophical reputation rests are the four essays, and perhaps the letters, all published during his residence in Dublin. To the more distinctive features of his philo sophical system, so far as they may be gathered from these and his other works, we now proceed to draw attention. In the publication of the first two essays, Hutcheson acted quite rightly in connecting his name on the title-page with that of Shaftesbury. There are no two names, perhaps, in the history of English moral philosophy, which stand in a closer connexion. The analogy drawn between beauty and virtue, the functions assigned to the moral sense, the position that the benevolent feelings form an original and irreducible part of our nature, and the unhesitating adop tion of the principle that the test of virtuous action is its tendency to promote the general welfare, or good of the whole, are at once obvious and fundamental points of agreement between the two author.?. According to Hutcheson, man has a variety of senses, internal as well as external, reflex as well as direct, the general definition of a sense being "any determination of our minds to receive ideas inde pendently on our will, and to have perceptions of pleasure and pain" (Essay on -the Nature and Conduct of the Passions, sect. 1). He does not attempt to give an exhaustive enumeration of these " senses," but, in various parts of his works, he specifies, besides the five external senses commonly recognized (which, he rightly hints, might be added to), (1) consciousness, by which each man has a perception of himself and of -all that is going on in his own mind ("Sensus quidam internus, aut conscientia, cujus ope nota sunt ea omiii.a, qu;e in mente geruntur ; hac animi vi se novit quisque, suique sensum habet, " Metaph. Syn., pars i. cap. 2) ; (2) the sense of beauty (sometimes called specifically "an internal sense") ; (3) a public sense, orsensus communis, " a determination to be pleased with the happiness of others and to be uneasy at their misery ; " (4) the moral sense, or "moral sense of beauty in actions and affections, by which we perceive virtue or vice, in ourselves or others ; " (5) a sense of honour, or praise and blame, " which makes the approbation or gratitude of others the necessary occasion of pleasure, and their dislike, condemnation, or resentment of injuries done by us the occasion of that uneasy sensation called shame"; (6) a sense of the ridiculous. It is plain, as the author confesses, that there may be "other perceptions, distinct from all these classes," and, in fact, there seems to be no limit to the number of "senses" in which a psychological division of this kind might result. Of these "senses" that which plays the most important part in Hutcheson s ethical system is the "moral sense." It is this which pronounces immediately on the character of actions and affections, approving of those which are virtuous, and disapproving of those which are vicious. "His principal design," he says in the pre face to the two first treatises, " is to show that human nature was not left quite indifferent in the affair of virtue, to form to itself observations concerning the advantage or disadvantage of actions, and accordingly to regulate its conduct. The weakness of our reason, and the avocations arising from the infirmity and necessities of our nature are so great that very few men could ever have formed those long deductions of reason, which show some actions to be in the whole advantageous to the agent, and their con traries pernicious. The Author of nature has much better furnished us for a virtuous conduct than our moralists seem to imagine, by almost as quick and powerful instructions as we have for the pre servation of our bodies. He has made virtue a lovely form, to excite our pursuit of it, and has given us strong affections to be the springs of each virtuous action." Passing over the appeal to final causes involved in this and similar passages, as well as the assump tion that the " moral sense " has had no growth or history, but was "implanted" in man exactly in the condition in which it is now to be found among the more civilized races, an assumption common to the systems of both Hutcheson and Butler, it may be remarked that the employment of the term "sense" to designate the approving or disapproving faculty has a tendency to obscure the real nature of the process which goes on in an act of moral approbation or dis approbation. For, as is so clearly established by Hume, this act really consists of two parts : one an act of deliberation, more or less prolonged, resulting in an intellectual judgment ; the other a reflex feeling, probably instantaneous, of either satisfaction or repugnance, of satisfaction at actions of a certain class which we denominate as good or virtuous, of dissatisfaction or repugnance at actions of another class which we denominate as bad or vicious. By the in tellectual part of this process we refer the action or habit to a certain class, and invest it with certain characteristics ; but no sooner is the intellectual process completed than there is excited in us a feeling similar to that which myriads of actions and habits of the same class, or deemed to be of the same class, have excited in us on former occasions. Now, supposing the latter part of this process to be instantaneous, uniform, and exempt from error, the former cer tainly is not. All mankind may, apart from their selfish interests, approve of that which is virtuous or makes for the general good, but surely they entertain the most widely divergent opinions, and, if left to their own judgment, would frequently arrive at directly opposite conclusions as to the nature of the particular actions and habits which fall under this class. This distinction is undoubtedly recognized by Hutcheson, as it could hardly fail to be, in his analysis of the mental process preceding moral action, nor does he invariably ignore it, even when treating of the moral approbation or disapprobation which is subsequent on action. Witness the follow ing passages : " Men have reason given them, to judge of the ten dencies of their actions, that they may not stupidly follow the first appearance of public good ; but it is still some appearance of good j which they pursue" (Inquiry concerning Moral Good and Evil, sect, i 4). " All exciting reasons presuppose instincts and affections ; and the justifying presuppose a moral sense" (Illustrations upon the
Moral Sense, sect. 1). "When we say one is obliged to an action,
i we either mean (1) that the action is necessary to obtain happiness i to the agent, or to avoid misery ; or (2) that every spectator, or he himself upon reflexion, must approve his action, and disapprove his omitting it, if he considers fully all its circumstances. The- former meaning of the word obligation presupposes selfish affections, and the sense of private happiness ; the latter meaning includes the
- moral sense" (Hid.). Notwithstanding these passages, however, it
remains true that Hutcheson, both by the phrases which he employs j to designate the moral faculty, and by the language in which he ordinarily describes the process of moral approbation, has done much I to favour that loose and popular view of morality which, ignoring the difficulties that often attend our moral decisions, and the neces sity of deliberation and reflexion, encourages hasty resolves and unpremeditated judgments. The term "moral sense " (which, it may be noticed, had already been employed by Shaftesbury, not only, as Dr Whewell appears to intimate in the margin, but also in the text of his Enquiry), if invariably coupled with the term " moral judgment," would be open to little objection; but, taken alone, as designating the complex process of moral approbation, it is liable to lead not only to serious misapprehension but to grave practical errors. For, if each man s decisions are solely the result of an immediate intuition of the moral sense, why be at any pains to test, correct, or review them 1 Or why educate a faculty whose j decisions are infallible ? The expression has, in fact, the fault of j most metaphorical terms : it leads to an exaggeration of the truth , which it is intended to suggest. But though Hutcheson usually describes the moral faculty as acting instinctively and immediately, he does not, like Butler, cou- ! found the moral faculty with the moral standard. The test or 1 criterion of right action is with Hutcheson, as with Shaftesbury, its tendency to promote the general welfare of mankind. "In com- ! paring the moral qualities of actions, in order to regulate our elec-
tion among various actions proposed, or to find which of them has
! the greatest moral excellency, we are led by our moral sense of ! virtue to judge thus that, in equal degrees of happiness expected to proceed from the action, the virtue is in proportion to the num ber of persons to whom the happiness shall extend (and here the dignity or moral importance of persons may compensate numbers), and, in equal numbers, the virtue is as the quantity of the happi-
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