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Updated: June 28, 2025


Hutcheson, that self-love is not the source of all our passions, but that disinterested benevolence has its seat in the human heart. At present it is necessary for me to take this for granted. The discussion would lead me too far from my subject. What I would infer from it is, that benevolent affections are capable of a very early commencement. They do not wait to be grafted upon the selfish.

When the upper part of his body was bound, Hutcheson said: 'Hold on a moment, Judge. Guess I'm too heavy for you to tote into the canister. You jest let me walk in, and then you can wash up regardin' my legs! Whilst speaking he had backed himself into the opening which was just enough to hold him. It was a close fit and no mistake.

I., Hutcheson states that the aim of Moral Philosophy is to point out the course of action that will best promote the highest happiness and perfection of men, by the light of human nature and to the exclusion of revelation; thus to indicate the rules of conduct that make up the Law of Nature.

A few further particulars may be emphasized from the comprehensive systematization which Hutcheson industriously and thoughtfully gave to Shaftesbury's ideas. Two points reveal the forerunner of Hume. First, the rôle assigned to the reason in moral affairs is merely subsidiary. Our motive to action is never the knowledge of a true proposition, but always simply a wish, affection, or impulse.

The difficulties attending the stricter interpretation of it have led to various modes of qualifying and explaining it, as will afterwards appear. Shaftesbury and Hutcheson are more especially identified with the enunciation of this doctrine in its modern aspect. It was put forth by Mandeville that Self-interest is the only test of moral rightness.

* I class the principle of moral feeling under that of happiness, because every empirical interest promises to contribute to our well-being by the agreeableness that a thing affords, whether it be immediately and without a view to profit, or whether profit be regarded. We must likewise, with Hutcheson, class the principle of sympathy with the happiness of others under his assumed moral sense.

Although siding in the main with Shaftesbury and Hutcheson, Brown objects to their designation Moral Sense, as expressing the innate power of moral approbation. If 'Sense' be interpreted merely as susceptibility, he has nothing to say, but if it mean a primary medium of perception, like the eye or the ear, he considers it a mistake.

But the more noble and generous view of the subject has been powerfully supported by Shaftesbury, Butler, Hutcheson and Hume. On the last of these I particularly pique myself; inasmuch as, though he became naturalised as a Frenchman in a vast variety of topics, the greatness of his intellectual powers exempted him from degradation in this.

Forerunners continued to 1787 divided from this time into four classes First class consists principally of persons in Great Britain of various description Godwyn Baxter Tryon Southern Primatt Montesquieu Hutcheson Sharp Ramsay and a multitude of others, whose names and services follow. I have hitherto traced the history of the forerunners in this great cause only up to about the year 1640.

Hutcheson argues a complete distinction between moral approval and the perception of the agreeable and the useful, from the facts that we judge a benevolent action which is forced, or done from motives of personal advantage, quite differently from one inspired by love; that we pay esteem to high-minded characters whether their fortunes be good or ill; and that we are moved with equal force by fictitious actions, as, for instance, on the stage, and by those which really take place.

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