Sense' and in his doctrine of Benevolence, he is distinctly original; and in many respects his moral philosophy suggests, and bears, the comparison with his greater English contemporary, Bishop Butler. In view of its influence upon his successors, it is not too much to call Hutcheson's Inquiry an epoch-making work in the history of ethical science.
Hutcheson's polemic is chiefly directed, like Shaftesbury's, against the egoism of Hobbes and his followers. Virtue, he insists, is not a matter of self-interest, as "some of our moralists themselves" would have us believe, "so much are they accustomed to deduce every approbation or aversion from rational views of interest." On the contrary, there is "some quality apprehended in actions, which procures approbation and love toward the actor, from those who receive no advantage by the action," and "a contrary quality, which excites aversion and dislike toward the actor, even from persons unconcerned in its natural tendency."[1] Hutcheson's aim is to prove "the reality of virtue," and for him its disinterestedness and its reality are one. Between the object and the subject of morality there is, moreover, a perfect adaptation. "His principal design," he tells us, "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 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 preservation of our bodys. 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."[2] "May not we find too in mankind a relish for a beauty in characters, in manners? I doubt we have made Philosophy, as well as Religion, by our foolish management of it, so austere and ungainly a form, that a gentleman cannot easily bring himself to like it and those who are strangers to it, can scarcely bear to hear our description of it. So much it is changed from what was once
