clouds his spirits. In striking contrast to Butler, he is smooth, voluble, and discursive; and the even flow of his eloquence is apt to become soporific. The 'System of Moral Philosophy' appeared in 1755, eight years after his death, and gives the fullest account of his system; but the essence is contained in his earlier treatises. 57. Hutcheson is a far more servile disciple of Shaftesbury than Butler, and his easy-going optimism resembles that of his master. 'Happiness,' he tells us, 'is far superior to misery, even in this present world,' and he lays little stress upon the other. God is everywhere revealed in nature. The stupendous orbs' (a cant phrase which at once stamps the argument), the convenient arrangements of the earth and the solar system, and the structure of animals, testify unmistakably to the beneficent Creator. Our sufferings are 'the kind admonitions and exhortations of the Universal Parent;'2 and we may enable ourselves to meet cheerfully all apparent evils by 'a firm persuasion of an omnipotent, omniscient, and most benign Universal Parent, disposing of all things in this system for the very best . . . and permitting no further evil than what the most proper constitution requires or necessarily brings along with it.' His theology differs from Shaftesbury's, by attributing a slightly more distinct personality to the Creator; the Universal Parent is not so closely identified with nature; and, instead of an all-pervading harmony, Hutcheson prefers to use the more technical and definite phraseology of final causes. The chief difference between the master and the disciple is, that Hutcheson forces into the framework of a system the doctrines which are in a state of solution in Shaftesbury's rather turbid eloquence. This is especially the case with the 'moral sense'—a term which had been used by Shaftesbury, though with no special emphasis, whilst in Hutcheson it becomes the keystone of an elaborate system. By explaining its nature and functions, we shall give the essential principle of Hutcheson's philosophy. 58. 'The mind,' says Shaftesbury, '. . . cannot be without its eye and ear, so as to discern proportion, distinguish sound, and scan each sentiment and thought which comes before it.' It detects the harmonious and the dissonant in affections as 1 'System of Moral Philosophy,' i. 190. 2 Ib. i. 185. 3 Ib. i. 215. 4 the bodily eye detects them in outward things. Hutcheson takes up this hint, and presents the resulting theory in a compact form in the opening of the 'Enquiry concerning Beauty and Virtue.' We have, as he puts it, internal as well as external senses; the external perceiving sounds and colours as the internal perceive moral excellence or turpitude. This theory is worked up into an elaborate psychological analysis in the opening chapters of the System of Moral Philosophy.' He there endeavours to anatomise the complex internal organisation by which our actions are determined; for, as he remarks, 'human happiness which is the end of this art' (the art, that is, of morality) 'cannot be distinctly known without the knowledge of the constitution of this species.' Beyond and above the senses which reveal the external world and provide us with all our 'materials of knowledge,' we have a number of 'finer perceptions,' 5 which he proceeds to enumerate. There are the senses of beauty and harmony, or of the imagination; the sympathetic sense, the sense which causes us to take pleasure in action, the moral sense, the sense of honour, the senses of decency and dignity, a parental, and social, and religious sense. Each of these senses produces, or is identical with, a certain 'determination of the will.' There is a determination of the will towards our own happiness and another, not resoluble into the first, and entitled to override it in cases of conflict, towards the 'universal happiness of others.' The system, already sufficiently complex, is further perplexed by cross-divisions of the various passions which appear to be identical with the senses, into selfish and benevolent, extensive and limited, calm and turbulent; and we are ready, after reading the list, to agree fully with Hutcheson's observation that human nature must appear a very complex and confused fabric, unless we can discover some order and subordination among these powers.' 7 The complexity is reached by the simple device, common to many metaphysicians, of assuming that to every name that can be given corresponds a distinct entity. He makes, however, very little 1 Shaftesbury, 'Virtue,' book i. part ii. sec. 3. ♦ Ib. p. 6. 10. Ib. p. 38. Ib. p. 7. • Ib. p. 9. use of these elaborate divisions and cross-divisions in working out his theory; and we need only remember that human nature is, in his opinion, a machine of innumerable parts, cunningly put together for benign purposes by the Divine artisan; and that each sense has a final cause which reveals itself to the reverent observer. 59. It is enough to speak of the moral sense. The proof that it is an independent faculty is, that none of the methods hitherto applied have resolved it into simpler elements. It cannot be analysed into sympathy, for we approve the virtues of our enemies; nor into the pleasure derivable from virtuous action, for it is the root and not the fruit of that pleasure; nor into a perception of utility to the agent or the approver, for bad actions may be useful as well as good; nor can it be derived from approval of conformity to the divine will, for the moral attributes of God must be previously known; nor from conformity to the truth or fitness of things, for that is a nugatory definition.' It remains, then, so Hutcheson assumes, that the moral sense must be a primitive faculty. 60. What, in the next place, are its functions? Is it an internal teacher, making known to us by declarations from which there is no appeal, that such an action is right, and such another action wrong? In that case, our duty would be revealed to us by a series of direct intuitions. Hutcheson, however, follows Locke in denying that we have innate ideas. The moral sense perceives virtue and vice as the eye perceives light and darkness; but it no more frames general propositions than the external sense provides us with mathematical theorems.2 The object of the sense is merely the internal feeling; and our judgments of actions may vary indefinitely as we infer that they proceed from one or other motive. He anticipates and retorts the ordinary objection that, to make the moral sentiments dependent upon feeling, is to make them variable. The variety in our judgments is 'not owing to any irregularity in the moral sense, but to a wrong judgment or opinion.'3 If putting the aged to death 'really tends to the public good,'3 it is a good action; and circumstances are conceivable in which this would actually be the case; as, for example, in an 'Inquiry,' sec. iv. 'Moral Philosophy,' book i. ch. iv. 2 'Inquiry,' sec. i. § 8 and 'System,' i. 97. overloaded boat in a storm. Different courses of action may be approved as they may flow from the same affections. And thus the moral sense is simply a natural tendency to approve certain affections which tend to the public good. It approves the benevolent affections directly, and indirectly it leads us to approve such actions, and such actions alone, as flow from goodwill, or, at lowest, from dispositions which exclude the highest selfishness.' Benevolence, for example, meets with the highest, fortitude and veracity 2 meet with lower degrees of approval. To the self-regarding virtues he assigns, like Shaftesbury, an inferior place, and, indeed, falls into the assumption that a tendency to promote the public happiness is not only the measure of goodness in actions, but should be the sole motive to performing them. 61. The complication which follows from Hutcheson's theory that 'to each of our powers we seem to have a corresponding taste or sense commending the proper use of it to the agent, and making him relish or value the like exercise of it by another,' 3 is characteristic; and were it removed, the moral sense would become identical with the benevolent instincts. The result of this false analysis is to produce a curious and more important confusion. The moral sense, as we discover, and as is apparent from remarks just quoted, approves the benevolent affections because, and in so far as, they conduce to the public good. From considering the moral sense, he tells us, we might 'proceed to consider more particularly the several offices of life, and to discover what partial affections and actions consequent upon them are to be entirely approved, as beneficial to some parts of the system, and perfectly consistent with the general good; and what appetites and affections, even of a beneficent kind, though they may be useful to a part, are pernicious to the general system, and thus deduce the special laws of nature from this moral faculty and generous determination of soul.' We find, in short, that Hutcheson uses two standards-the public good, and the approval of the moral sense-and uses them indifferently, because he is convinced of their absolute identity. In his discussion of particular problems, the moral sense 'System,' i. 63. Ib. i. 59. + Ib. i. 98. 2 Ib. i. 66. 4 passes out of sight altogether, and he becomes a pure utili tarian. 3 62. Hutcheson, indeed, appears to have been the first person to proclaim the celebrated formula, 'the greatest happiness of the greatest number.' This principle is thoroughly interwoven into his system. The moral faculty,' he tells us, 'most approves and recommends such dispositions as tend most to the general good, and, at the same time, such as may give the noblest enjoyment to the agent upon consideration ;'2 for, like Shaftesbury, he takes great pains to prove that virtue is happiness even to the individual. Still more expressly, he declares that the ultimate notion of right is that which tends to the universal good.' He attacks Butler for asserting that there can be any other justification of punishment than 'the tendency of sufferings to the public good,' and points out very clearly the confusion produced in this instance by Butler's habitual confusion between punishment and suffering. Finally, he maintains that a precept of the Law of Nature is ' no more than a conclusion from observation of what sort of conduct is ordinarily useful to society.'5 Hutcheson, in short, though he occasionally refers to the metaphysical doctrine of compacts underlying certain social arrangements, refers habitually and distinctly to utility as the sole and sufficient measure of virtue. 63. Hutcheson, then, substantially propounds a problem. His 'moral sense' is nothing but the approval of such affections, and consequently of such courses of action, as are most conducive to the public welfare. How, then, does it happen that such affections and actions are approved? Hutcheson assumes that because none of the ordinary explanations are 1 Hutcheson's use of this phrase occurs in the 'Inquiry concerning Moral Good and Evil,' sec. iii. § 8. 'In the same manner,' he says, 'the moral evil or vice' (of a given action) is as the degree of misery and number of sufferers; so that that action is best which procures the greatest happiness of the greatest numbers.' In Bentham's Works, x. 79, 80, it is said that Bentham first thought of the principle on reading Priestley's Treatise on Government.' At p. 142 the alternative is suggested that the phrase may have been borrowed from Beccaria; who, in the preface to his essay on crimes and punishments, condemns laws which have not been made from the point of view of la massima felicità divisa nel maggior numero. Hutcheson has clearly the right of priority, whatever the value of the thing Ib. p. 266. • Ib. p. 256. 5 lb. p. 273. claimed. 26 'System,' i. 139. 3 L |