GAY'S ETHICAL SYSTEM.
IT might seem highly improbable that an anonymous dissertation of only about thirty pages, prefixed to a translation, actually by another hand, of a third writer's Latin work, should be one of the most interesting and important contributions to the early development of the 'greatest happiness' principle. Yet such undoubtedly is the "Preliminary Dissertation," now known to have been written by a Rev. Mr. Gay, prefixed to Law's translation of King's Origin of Evil. The first edition (of the translation and the Dissertation) was published in 1731; the second, "revised and enlarged,"—an exact reprint,[1] so far as the Dissertation is concerned,—in 1732.
A few dates should be kept in mind here. The first edition of Shaftesbury's Inquiry concerning Virtue and Merit was published in 1711; that of Hutcheson's Inquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue in 1725. Hume's ethical system first appeared in 1740, as the third book of the Treatise of Human Nature, the other two books having been published the year before. Gay's Dissertation, therefore, appeared six years after Hutcheson's first ethical work, and nine years before the corresponding work of Hume. It is interesting to note that Gay's true successors, Tucker and Paley,—for Hume does not seem to have been influenced by him,—belong to a later generation. The Light of Nature Pursued was first published in 1768-74, and the Moral and Political Philosophy in 1785.
We shall now turn to the "Preliminary Dissertation" itself, and give it the very careful examination which its importance justifies. The author's own order of exposition, which is not uniformly fortunate, will be followed substantially, except where notice is given to the contrary. This is possible on account of the brevity of the Dissertation, and desirable, on the whole, as
- ↑ Except that the concluding sentence of the first edition, which is really superfluous, is left out in the second.
