An Inquiry into the Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue. Francis Hutcheson
conflatur & efficitur id quod quaerimus honestum: Quod etiamsi nobilitatum non sit, tamen honestum sit: quodque etiamsi à nullo laudetur, naturâ est laudabile. Formam quidem ipsam & ||2tanquam|| faciem honesti vides, quae si oculis cerneretur, mirabiles amores excitaret sapientiae.
—Cic. de Off. lib. I. c. 4.i
London: 1726.
3To His Excellency, John, Lord Carteret,ii Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.
May it please your Excellency,
When I publish’d these Papers, I had so little Confidence of their Success, that I was unwilling to own them; and [iv] what I was unwilling myself to own, I durst not presume to inscribe to any great Name.
Your Excellency’s favourable Reception of them, soon put me out of all Fears about their Success with the wiser and better Part of the World; and since this has given me Assurance to own them, I humbly presume to inscribe them in this second Edition to your Excellency, that I may have at once an Opportunity of expressing the sincerest Gratitude for the Notice you were pleas’d to take of me, and have the Pleasure also of letting the [v] World know that this small Work has your Excellency’s Approbation.
The Praise bestow’d by Persons of real Merit and Discernment, is allow’d by all to give a noble and rational Pleasure. Your Excellency first made me feel this in the most lively manner; and it will be a Pleasure as lasting as it is great: ’twill ever be matter of the highest Joy and Satisfaction to me, that I am Author of a Book my Lord Carteret approves.
I know, my Lord, that much of your Commendation [vi] is to be attributed to your own Humanity: you can entirely approve the Works of those alone, who can think and speak on these Subjects as justly as your self; and that is what few, if any, even of those who spend their Lives in such Contemplations, are able to do. In the Conversation, with which your Excellency has been pleas’d to honour me, I could not, I own, without the utmost surprize, observe so intimate an Acquaintance with the most valuable Writings of contemplative Men, Antient, and Modern; so just a Taste of what is excellent in the ingenious Arts, [vii] in so young a man, amidst the Hurry of an active Life. Forgive me, my Lord, that ||4I|| mention this part of your Character: ’tis so uncommon that it deserves the highest Admiration; and ’tis the only one which an obscure Philosopher, who has receiv’d the greatest Obligations from your Excellency, can with any Propriety take notice of.
Those other great Endowments which have enabled you, even in Youth, to discharge the most difficult Employments, with the highest Honour to your self, and Advantage to your Country, I dare not presume to de-[viii]scribe. He who attempts to do Justice to so great and good a Character, ought himself to be one of uncommon Merit and Distinction: and yet the ablest Panegyrist would find it difficult to add any thing to your Excellency’s Fame. The Voices of Nations proclaim your Worth. I am,
May it please your Excellency,
Your most obliged,
Most obedient, and
Most devoted humble Servant,
Dublin,
June 19.
1725.
Francis Hutcheson. [ix]
THE PREFACE
There is no part of Philosophy of more importance, than a just Knowledge of Human Nature, and its various Powers and Dispositions. Our late Inquirys have been very much employ’d about our Understanding, and the several Methods of obtaining Truth. We generally acknowledge, that the Importance of any Truth is nothing else than its Moment, or Efficacy to make Men happy, or to give them the greatest and most lasting Pleasure; and Wisdom denotes only a Capacity of pursuing this End by the best Means. It must surely then be of the greatest importance, [x] to have distinct Conceptions of this End it self, as well as of the Means necessary to obtain it; that we may find out which are the greatest and most lasting Pleasures, and not employ our Reason, after all our laborious Improvements of it, in trifling Pursuits. It is to be fear’d indeed, that most of our Studys, without this Inquiry, will be of very little use to us; for they seem to have scarce any other tendency than to lead us into speculative Knowledge it self. Nor are we distinctly told how it is that Knowledge, or Truth is pleasant to us.
This Consideration ||5put|| the Author of the following Papers ||6upon|| inquiring into the various Pleasures which Human nature is capable of receiving. We shall generally find in our modern philosophick Writings, nothing ||7further|| on this Head, than some bare Division of them into Sensible, and Rational, and some trite [xi] Common-place Arguments to prove the ||8latter more|| valuable than the former. Our sensible Pleasures are slightly pass’d over, and explain’d only by some Instances in Tastes, Smells, Sounds, or such like, which Men of any tolerable Reflection generally look upon as very trifling Satisfactions. Our rational Pleasures have had much the same kind of treatment. We are seldom taught any other Notion of rational Pleasure than that which we have upon reflecting on our Possession, or Claim to those Objects, which may be Occasions of Pleasure. Such Objects we call advantageous; but Advantage, or Interest, cannot be distinctly conceiv’d, till we know what ||9those|| Pleasures are which advantageous Objects are apt to excite; and what Senses or Powers of Perception we have ||10with respect to|| such Objects. We may perhaps ||11find|| such an Inquiry of more importance in Morals, to prove what we call the Reality of Virtue, or [xii] that it is the surest Happiness of the Agent, than one would at first imagine.
In reflecting upon our external Senses, we plainly see, that our Perceptions of Pleasure, or Pain, do not depend directly on our Will. Objects do not please us, according as we incline they should. The presence of some Objects necessarily pleases us, and the presence of others as necessarily displeases us. Nor can we by our Will, any otherwise procure Pleasure, or avoid Pain, than by procuring the former kind of Objects, and avoiding the latter. By the very Frame of our Nature the one is made the occasion of Delight, and the other of Dissatisfaction.
The same Observation will hold in all our other Pleasures and Pains. For there are many other sorts of Objects, which please, or displease us as necessarily, as material Objects [xiii] do when they operate upon our Organs of Sense. There ||12is scarcely any Object which our Minds are employ’d about, which is|| not thus constituted the necessary occasion of some Pleasure or Pain. Thus we ||13find|| our selves pleas’d with a regular Form, a piece of Architecture or Painting, a Composition of Notes, a Theorem, an Action, an Affection, a Character. And we are conscious that this Pleasure necessarily arises from the Contemplation of the Idea, which is then present to our Minds, with all its Circumstances, although some of these Ideas have nothing of what we ||14call|| sensible Perception in them; and in those which have, the Pleasure arises from some Uniformity, Order, Arrangement, Imitation; and not from the simple Ideas of Colour, or Sound, or mode of Extension separately consider’d.
These Determinations to be pleas’d with ||15any Forms, or Ideas [xiv] which occur to our Observation,|| the Author chuses to call Senses; distinguishing them from the Powers which commonly go by that Name, by calling our Power of perceiving the Beauty of Regularity, Order, Harmony, an Internal Sense; and that Determination to ||16be pleas’d with the Contemplation of those|| Affections, Actions, or Characters of rational Agents, which we call virtuous, he marks by the name of a Moral Sense.
His principal Design is to shew, “That Human Nature was not left quite indifferent in the affair of Virtue, to form to it self Observations concerning the Advantage, or Disadvantage of Actions, and accordingly to regulate its Conduct.” The weakness of our Reason, and the avocations arising from the ||17Infirmity|| and Necessitys of our Nature, are so great, that very few ||18Men could ever have|| form’d those [xv] long Deductions of Reason, which ||19shew|| some Actions to be in the whole advantageous to the Agent, and their Contrarys pernicious. The Author