Logic, Metaphysics, and the Natural Sociability of Mankind. Francis Hutcheson
for the Stoic theory in opposition to the Peripatetics.53 He understood the Stoics to have maintained that the will is determined by a man’s character, by the qualities of his mind, his ideas, his judgment, “and that it cannot happen otherwise.”54 The Peripatetics, in contrast, made provision for the liberty of the will; that when presented with two species of good, “on the one hand, the right and the good, on the other hand, the pleasant and the useful, they [minds] turn themselves of their own accord in the one direction or the other.”55 There had been no mention of the Peripatetics in the first edition of the Metaphysics. In the second edition, more elaborate expositions of the Stoic case invariably preceded succinct statements of the Peripatetic position. Hutcheson was at pains, nonetheless, to insist that notwithstanding the more plausible arguments of the Stoics, the Peripatetics were also men of piety. And he appears to have been eager to reconcile Stoics and Peripatetics, albeit in a manner weighted more heavily on the side of the Stoics and the determination of the will:
In any case, however, both sides hold that God has foreseen most things from certain causes, and that he has determined in himself from the beginning that as he is always present and aware of his own omnipotence, he will rule and govern all things by constantly interposing his power, and that he has always kept in view how far and in what directions men’s freedom might stray and how easily he could check it.56
Hutcheson’s conviction that Stoics and Peripatetics might be reconciled within a metaphysics founded upon internal sensation may have been indebted to a similar project of synthesis he would have found in the writings of Henry More (1614-87), an author on whom Hutcheson conferred high praise, particularly in the 1740s. In his pedagogical treatment of morals, Hutcheson declared that Aristotle’s theory of the virtues had been most usefully summarized by that most devout man, Henry More.57 More thought that it was the common opinion of Aristotle and the Stoics “that to follow God or to follow Nature was the same thing as to follow Right Reason.” And he took it to be Aristotle’s considered response to the question where right reason was to be found “that unless a Man have within himself a Sense of things of this Nature, there is nothing to be done. … So that, in short, the final judgment upon this matter is all referred to inward Sense. …”58 And More concluded his discussion of liberty of the will, as Hutcheson did, by referring the matter to the divine law within us, or right reason, which is to say, an “inward sense,” “by which we are taught and stand bound, to prefer public Good before our private, and never to make our own pleasure or Utility to be the Measure of human Actions.”59
There was a precedent in the ancient world for attempts, like More’s and Hutcheson’s, to reconcile Stoics and Peripatetics. This was the characteristic style of the Neoplatonists or “Eclectics” of the third to the sixth century. It is perhaps the most revealing part of Hutcheson’s very short history of the origins of philosophy, prefaced to A Compend of Logic, that he concluded his narrative with a section on “the Eclectics,” ancient and modern.60 He remarked that while “the best of the ancients … are rightly included among the Eclectics because they were not enslaved to any master,” the term is most properly applied to the Neoplatonists, including Ammonius, Plotinus, and Porphyry; he might have added to this list Simplicius and Nemesius, who are cited and praised elsewhere in his writings.61 But Hutcheson, more remarkably, also brought under the rubric of the Eclectics moderns “who have pointed out or entered upon a new road”: in physics, Bacon and Newton; in ethics, Grotius, Cumberland, and Pufendorf; and in logic and metaphysics, Locke. Hutcheson’s identification of modern natural scientists, natural jurists, and Locke as “eclectics” may have been merely derivative, like so much else in his pedagogical writings, on the work of others.62 But Hutcheson also observed that philosophy has been improved by the efforts of those who have edited and interpreted the books of the ancients. And he reminded his readers that it was the Old Academy that was revived by Pico, Ficino, and Shaftesbury. He appears to have been signaling to his readers and students that modern philosophers, the natural scientists, the natural jurists, Locke, should be read and studied in a spirit of eclecticism, bearing in mind the ideas of philosophers (Stoic, Peripatetic, and Platonic) of the ancient world.
W. R. Scott once described Hutcheson’s philosophy as “a mosaic, in being composed of separate borrowings from many sources. …” He described “the final result” as “an eclectic treatment of modern Philosophy, superimposed upon Ancient Eclecticism.”63 If this is an accurate description of any part of Hutcheson’s philosophy, it applies with particular propriety to the texts included in this volume.
James Moore
A Compend of Logic follows the text of Logicae Compendium (Glasgow, 1756). A transcription of Hutcheson’s “Logica” made between 1746 and 1749 by a student at the University of Glasgow (GUL MS Gen. 872) has been used to amend the published version on occasion; all such amendments have been referenced in footnotes.
A Synopsis of Metaphysics is based on the second edition, Synopsis Metaphysicae (Glasgow, 1744). The section “The Arguments of the Chapters” (Capitum Argumenta) was added in that edition. The subheadings listed in the “Arguments” do not include all of the subheadings entered in the text, and the wording of the subheadings in the text does not always match the wording used in the “Arguments.” In this edition Hutcheson’s wording in both the “Arguments” and the text, however discrepant, has been preserved. We have employed square brackets and footnotes to indicate material added to the second edition. The third edition of Synopsis Metaphysicae (Glasgow, 1749), published posthumously, contains numerous references to the sources of Hutcheson’s arguments. These references may be helpful to the reader and are included in the notes to the text.
Abbreviations used in the notes and bibliography are GUL, Glasgow University Library; EUL, Edinburgh University Library; and GUA, Glasgow University Archives.
Finally, words added to the text to facilitate the flow of the translation have been placed between square brackets.
James Moore
Michael Silverthorne
Our work on this edition of Hutcheson’s Latin texts on logic and metaphysics and his inaugural lecture on the natural sociability of mankind has been assisted and enlivened by discussions with many friends and fellow scholars. The Eighteenth-Century Scottish Studies Society has provided a stimulating forum for exchanges on these subjects, and we are grateful for the hospitality extended to us on different occasions by the Institute for Advanced Studies at the University of Edinburgh and the School of Classics at the University of Exeter. The resourcefulness of the staff in the Department of Rare Books at McGill University and of the librarians of Concordia University is much appreciated.
It is also a pleasure to acknowledge the collaboration of the Department of Special Collections at the University of Glasgow and its director, David Weston. We are also much indebted to Daniel McDowell of the Chaucer Head, Presteigne, Wales, who loaned us a manuscript of Hutcheson’s Logica for an extended period; this manuscript is now housed at the University of Glasgow.
A Compend of Logic To which is prefixed a Dissertation On the Origin of Philosophy And Its Principal Founders and Exponents
Glasgow
At the University
Typeset by Robert and Andrew Foulis
Printers to the University
1756
Dissertation on the Origin of Philosophy and Its Principal Founders and Exponents 1
Philosophy is the knowledge of the true and the good which men build for themselves by the powers of their own reason. Therefore we are