The most distinctive of Hutcheson’s ethical doctrines still remaining to be noticed is what has been called the “benevolent theory” of morals. Hobbes had maintained that all our actions, however disguised under apparent sympathy, have their roots in Benevolence. self-love. Hutcheson not only maintains that benevolence is the sole and direct source of many of our actions, but, by a not unnatural recoil, that it is the only source of those actions of which, on reflection, we approve. Consistently with this position, actions which flow from self-love only are pronounced to be morally indifferent. But surely, by the common consent of civilized men, prudence, temperance, cleanliness, industry, self-respect and, in general, the “personal virtues,” are regarded, and rightly regarded, as fitting objects of moral approbation. This consideration could hardly escape any author, however wedded to his own system, and Hutcheson attempts to extricate himself from the difficulty by laying down the position that a man may justly regard himself as a part of the rational system, and may thus “be, in part, an object of his own benevolence” (Ibid.),—a curious abuse of terms, which really concedes the question at issue. Moreover, he acknowledges that, though self-love does not merit approbation, neither, except in its extreme forms, does it merit condemnation, indeed the satisfaction of the dictates of self-love is one of the very conditions of the preservation of society. To press home the inconsistencies involved in these various statements would be a superfluous task.
The vexed question of liberty and necessity appears to be carefully avoided in Hutcheson’s professedly ethical works. But, in the Synopsis metaphysicae, he touches on it in three places, briefly stating both sides of the question, but evidently inclining to that which he designates as the opinion of the Stoics in opposition to what he designates as the opinion of the Peripatetics. This is substantially the same as the doctrine propounded by Hobbes and Locke (to the latter of whom Hutcheson refers in a note), namely, that our will is determined by motives in conjunction with our general character and habit of mind, and that the only true liberty is the liberty of acting as we will, not the liberty of willing as we will. Though, however, his leaning is clear, he carefully avoids dogmatizing, and deprecates the angry controversies to which the speculations on this subject had given rise.
It is easy to trace the influence of Hutcheson’s ethical theories on the systems of Hume and Adam Smith. The prominence given by these writers to the analysis of moral action and moral approbation, with the attempt to discriminate the respective provinces of the reason and the emotions in these processes, is undoubtedly due to the influence of Hutcheson. To a study of the writings of Shaftesbury and Hutcheson we might, probably, in large measure, attribute the unequivocal adoption of the utilitarian standard by Hume, and, if this be the case, the name of Hutcheson connects itself, through Hume, with the names of Priestley, Paley and Bentham. Butler’s Sermons appeared in 1726, the year after the publication of Hutcheson’s two first essays, and the parallelism between the “conscience” of the one writer and the “moral sense” of the other is, at least, worthy of remark.
II. Mental Philosophy.—In the sphere of mental philosophy and logic Hutcheson’s contributions are by no means so important or original as in that of moral philosophy. They are interesting mainly as a link between Locke and the Scottish school. In the former subject the influence of Locke is apparent throughout. All the main outlines of Locke’s philosophy seem, at first sight, to be accepted as a matter of course. Thus, in stating his theory of the moral sense, Hutcheson is peculiarly careful to repudiate the doctrine of innate ideas (see, for instance, Inquiry concerning Moral Good and Evil, sect. 1 ad fin., and sect. 4; and compare Synopsis Metaphysicae, pars i. cap. 2). At the same time he shows more discrimination than does Locke in distinguishing between the two uses of this expression, and between the legitimate and illegitimate form of the doctrine (Syn. Metaph. pars i. cap. 2). All our ideas are, as by Locke, referred to external or internal sense, or, in other words, to sensation and reflection (see, for instance, Syn. Metaph. pars i. cap. 1; Logicae Compend. pars i. cap. 1; System of Moral Philosophy, bk. i. ch. 1). It is, however, a most important modification of Locke’s doctrine, and one which connects Hutcheson’s mental philosophy with that of Reid, when he states that the ideas of extension, figure, motion and rest “are more properly ideas accompanying the sensations of sight and touch than the sensations of either of these senses”; that the idea of self accompanies every thought, and that the ideas of number, duration and existence accompany every other idea whatsoever (see Essay on the Nature and Conduct of the Passions, sect. i. art. 1; Syn. Metaph. pars i. cap. 1, pars ii. cap. 1; Hamilton on Reid, p. 124, note). Other important points in which Hutcheson follows the lead of Locke are his depreciation of the importance of the so-called laws of thought, his distinction between the primary and secondary qualities of bodies, the position that we cannot know the inmost essences of things (“intimae rerum naturae sive essentiae”), though they excite various ideas in us, and the assumption that external things are known only through the medium of ideas (Syn. Metaph. pars i. cap. 1), though, at the same time, we are assured of the existence of an external world corresponding to these ideas. Hutcheson attempts to account for our assurance of the reality of an external world by referring it to a natural instinct (Syn. Metaph. pars i. cap. 1). Of the correspondence or similitude between our ideas of the primary qualities of things and the things themselves God alone can be assigned as the cause. This similitude has been effected by Him through a law of nature. “Haec prima qualitatum primariarum perceptio, sive mentis actio quaedam sive passio dicatur, non alia similitudinis aut convenientiae inter ejusmodi ideas et res ipsas causa assignari posse videtur, quam ipse Deus, qui certa naturae lege hoc efficit, ut notiones, quae rebus praesentibus excitantur, sint ipsis similes, aut saltem earum habitudines, si non veras quantitates, depingant” (pars ii. cap. 1). Locke does speak of God “annexing” certain ideas to certain motions of bodies; but nowhere does he propound a theory so definite as that here propounded by Hutcheson, which reminds us at least as much of the speculations of Malebranche as of those of Locke.
Amongst the more important points in which Hutcheson diverges from Locke is his account of the idea of personal identity, which he appears to have regarded as made known to us directly by consciousness. The distinction between body and mind, corpus or materia and res cogitans, is more emphatically accentuated by Hutcheson than by Locke. Generally, he speaks as if we had a direct consciousness of mind as distinct from body (see, for instance, Syn. Metaph. pars ii. cap. 3), though, in the posthumous work on Moral Philosophy, he expressly states that we know mind as we know body “by qualities immediately perceived though the substance of both be unknown” (bk. i. ch. 1). The distinction between perception proper and sensation proper, which occurs by implication though it is not explicitly worked out (see Hamilton’s Lectures on Metaphysics, Lect. 24; Hamilton’s edition of Dugald Stewart’s Works, v. 420), the imperfection of the ordinary division of the external senses into five classes, the limitation of consciousness to a special mental faculty (severely criticized in Sir W. Hamilton’s Lectures on Metaphysics, Lect. xii.) and the disposition to refer on disputed questions of philosophy not so much to formal arguments as to the testimony of consciousness and our natural instincts are also amongst the points in which Hutcheson supplemented or departed from the philosophy of Locke. The last point can hardly fail to suggest the “common-sense philosophy” of Reid.
Thus, in estimating Hutcheson’s position, we find that in particular questions he stands nearer to Locke, but in the general spirit of his philosophy he seems to approach more closely to his Scottish successors.
The short Compendium of Logic, which is more original than such works usually are, is remarkable chiefly for the large proportion of psychological matter which it contains. In these parts of the book Hutcheson mainly follows Locke. The technicalities of the subject are passed lightly over, and the book is readable. It may be specially noticed that he distinguishes between the mental result and its verbal expression [idea—term; judgment—proposition], that he constantly employs the word “idea,” and that he defines logical truth as “convenientia signorum cum rebus significatis” (or “propositionis convenientia cum rebus ipsis,” Syn. Metaph. pars i. cap 3), thus implicitly repudiating a merely formal view of logic.
III. Aesthetics.—Hutcheson may further be regarded as one of the earliest modern writers on aesthetics. His speculations on this subject are contained in the Inquiry concerning Beauty, Order, Harmony and Design, the first of the two treatises published in 1725. He maintains that we are endowed with a special sense by which we perceive beauty, harmony and proportion. This is a reflex sense, because it presupposes the action of the external senses of sight and hearing. It may be called an internal sense, both in order to distinguish its perceptions from the mere perceptions of sight and hearing, and because “in some other affairs, where our external senses are not much concerned, we discern a sort of beauty, very like in many respects to that observed in sensible objects, and accompanied with like pleasure” (Inquiry, &c., sect. 1). The latter reason leads him to call attention to the beauty perceived in universal truths, in the operations of general causes and in moral principles and actions. Thus, the analogy between beauty and virtue, which was so favourite a topic with Shaftesbury, is prominent in the writings of Hutcheson also. Scattered up and down the treatise there are many important and interesting observations which our limits prevent us from noticing. But to the student of mental philosophy it may be specially interesting to remark that Hutcheson both applies the principle of association to explain our ideas of beauty and also sets limits to its application, insisting on there being “a natural power of perception or sense of beauty in objects, antecedent to all custom, education or example” (see Inquiry, &c., sects. 6, 7; Hamilton’s Lectures on Metaphysics, Lect. 44 ad fin.).
Hutcheson’s writings naturally gave rise to much controversy. To say nothing of minor opponents, such as “Philaretus” (Gilbert Burnet, already alluded to), Dr John Balguy (1686-1748), prebendary of Salisbury, the author of two tracts on “The Foundation of Moral Goodness,” and Dr John Taylor (1694-1761) of Norwich, a minister of considerable reputation in his time (author of An Examination of the Scheme of Morality advanced by Dr Hutcheson), the essays appear to have suggested, by antagonism, at least two works which hold a permanent place in the literature of English ethics—Butler’s Dissertation on the Nature of Virtue, and Richard Price’s Treatise of Moral Good and Evil (1757). In this latter work the author maintains, in opposition to Hutcheson, that actions are in themselves right or wrong, that right and wrong are simple ideas incapable of analysis, and that these ideas are perceived immediately by the understanding. We thus see that, not only directly but also through the replies which it called forth, the system of Hutcheson, or at least the system of Hutcheson combined with that of Shaftesbury, contributed, in large measure, to the formation and development of some of the most important of the modern schools of ethics (see especially art. [Ethics]).
Authorities.—Notices of Hutcheson occur in most histories, both of general philosophy and of moral philosophy, as, for instance, in pt. vii. of Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments; Mackintosh’s Progress of Ethical Philosophy; Cousin, Cours d’histoire de la philosophie morale du XVIIIe siècle; Whewell’s Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy in England; A. Bain’s Mental and Moral Science; Noah Porter’s Appendix to the English translation of Ueberweg’s History of Philosophy; Sir Leslie Stephen’s History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century, &c. See also Martineau, Types of Ethical Theory (London, 1902); W. R. Scott, Francis Hutcheson (Cambridge, 1900); Albee, History of English Utilitarianism (London, 1902); T. Fowler, Shaftesbury and Hutcheson (London, 1882); J. McCosh, Scottish Philosophy (New York, 1874). Of Dr Leechman’s Biography of Hutcheson we have already spoken. J. Veitch gives an interesting account of his professorial work in Glasgow, Mind, ii. 209-212.