An Inquiry into the Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue

Francis Hutcheson

Description

A seminal text of the Scottish Enlightenment, this consists of two treatises exploring our aesthetic and our moral abilities.

Sujets

• Philosophie
• Éthique et morale
• Esthétique et philosophie de l'art
• Philosophy
• Ethics
• Aesthetics
• Ethique et morale

Informations

• Publié par: Rare Treasure Editions
• Date de parution: 03 novembre 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781774642498
• Langue: English

Extrait

An Inquiry into the Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue
by Francis Hutcheson

First published in 1725
This edition published by Rare Treasures
Victoria, BC Canada with branch offices in the Czech Republic and Germany
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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, except in the case of excerpts by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.
[i]
An Inquiry
INTO THE Original of our Ideas OF

BEAUTY and VIRTUE,
In Two Treatises .
I. Concerning BEAUTY, ORDER, HARMONY, DESIGN.
II. Concerning MORAL GOOD and EVIL.
[iii]
TO
His Excellency
JOHN ,
Lord CARTERET ,
Lord Lieutenant of IRELAND .
May it please your Excellency ,
W hen I publish'd thesePapers, I had so littleConfidence of their Success,that I was unwilling [iv] to own them; and what Iwas unwilling myself to own,I durst not presume to inscribeto any great Name.
Your Excellency's favourableReception of them, soonput me out of all Fears abouttheir Success with the wiserand better Part of the World;and since this has given meAssurance to own them, I humblypresume to inscribe themin this second Edition to yourExcellency, that I may haveat once an Opportunity of expressingthe sincerest Gratitudefor the Notice you werepleas'd to take of me, and havethe Pleasure also of letting theWorld know, that this smallWork has your Excellency's [v] Approbation.
The Praise bestow'd byPersons of real Merit andDiscernment, is allow'd by allto give a noble and rationalPleasure. Your Excellencyfirst made me feel this inthe most lively manner; andit will be a Pleasure as lastingas it is great: 'twill everbe matter of the highestJoy and Satisfaction to me,that I am Author of a Bookmy Lord Carteret approves.
I know , my Lord, thatmuch of your Commendationis to be attributed to yourown Humanity: You can intirelyapprove the Works ofthose alone, who can think [vi] and speak on these Subjectsas justly as Yourself; and thatis what few, if any, even ofthose who spend their Lives insuch Contemplations, are ableto do. In the Conversation,with which your Excellencyhas been pleas'd to honour me,I could not, I own, withoutthe utmost surprize, observeso intimate an Acquaintancewith the most valuable Writingsof contemplative Men,Antient and Modern, so justa Taste of what is excellentin the ingenious Arts, in soyoung a Man, amidst theHurry of an active Life. Forgiveme, my Lord, that mentionthis Part of your Character:'tis so uncommon, that [vii] it deserves the highest Admiration;and 'tis the only onewhich an obscure Philosopher,who has receiv'd the greatestObligations from your Excellency,can with any Proprietytake notice of.
Those other great Endowmentswhich have enabledYou, even in Youth, to dischargethe most difficult Employments,with the highestHonour to Yourself, and Advantageto your Country, Idare not presume to describe.He who attempts to do Justiceto so great and good a Character,ought himself to be oneof uncommon Merit and Distinction:And yet the ablest [viii] Panegyrist would find it difficultto add any thing to yourExcellency's Fame. The Voicesof Nations proclaimyour 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.
T here no Part of Philosophy of more Importance,than a just Knowledge of Human Nature, and its various Powersand Dispositions. Our late Inquiryshave been very much employ'dabout our Understanding, and the severalMethods of obtaining Truth. We generally acknowledge, that theImportance of any Truth is nothingelse than its Moment, or Efficacy tomake Men happy, or to give them thegreatest and most lasting Pleasure;and Wisdom denotes only a Capacityof pursuing this End by the best Means.It must surely then be of the greatestImportance, to have distinct Conceptionsof this End itself, as well asof the Means necessary to obtain it;that we may find out which are the [x] greatest and most lasting Pleasures,and not employ our Reason, after allour laborious Improvements of it, intrifling Pursuits. It is to be fear'dindeed, that most of our Studys, withoutthis Inquiry, will be of very littleUse to us; for they seem to havescarce any other Tendency than to leadus into speculative Knowledge itself.Nor are we distinctly told how it is that Knowledge or Truth is pleasant to us.
This Consideration put the Author of the following Papers upon inquiringinto the various Pleasureswhich Human Nature is capable ofreceiving. We shall generally find inour modern philosophick Writings, nothingfarther on this Head, than somebare Division of them into Sensible, and Rational, and some trite Common-placeArguments to prove the latter more valuable than the former. Our sensible Pleasures are slightlypass'd over, and explained only by someInstances in Tastes, Smells, Sounds, orsuch-like, which Men of any tolerableReflection generally look upon as very [xi] trifling Satisfactions. Our rationalPleasures have had much the samekind of Treatment. We are seldomtaught any other Notion of rationalPleasure than that which we haveupon reflecting on our Possession ofClaim to those Objects, which may beOccasions of Pleasure. Such Objectswe call advantageous; but Advantage, or Interest, cannot be distinctly conceiv'd,till we know what those Pleasuresare which advantageous Objectsare apt to excite; and what Senses orPowers of Perception we have withrespect to such Objects. We may perhapsfind such an Inquiry of more Importancein Morals, to prove what wecall the Reality of Virtue, or that itis the surest Happiness of the Agent, than one would at first imagine.
In reflecting upon our externalSenses, we plainly see, that our Perceptionsof Pleasure or Pain do notdepend directly on our Will. Objectsdo not please us, according as we inclinethey should. The Presence ofsome Objects necessarily pleases us, and [xii] the Presence of others as necessarilydispleases us. Nor can we, by our Will, any otherwise procure Pleasure,or avoid Pain, than by procuring theformer kind of Objects, and avoidingthe latter. By the very Frame of our Nature the one is made the Occasion ofDelight, and the other of Dissatisfaction.
The same Observation will holdin all our other Pleasures and Pains.For there are many other sorts of Objects,which please, or displease us asnecessarily, as material Objects dowhen they operate upon our Organs ofSense. There is scarcely any Objectwhich our Minds are employ'd about,which is not thus constituted the necessaryOccasion of some Pleasure orPain. Thus we find ourselvespleas'd with a regular Form, a Pieceof Architecture or Painting, a Compositionof Notes, a Theorem, an Action, an Affection, a Character. Andwe are conscious that this Pleasurenecessarily arises from the Contemplationof the Idea, which is then present [xiii] to our Minds, with all its Circumstances,altho' some of these Ideas havenothing of what we commonly call sensiblePerception in them; and in thosewhich have, the Pleasure arises fromsome Uniformity, Order, Arrangement,Imitation; and not from thesimple Ideas of Colour, or Sound, orMode of Extension separately consider'd.
These Determinations to bepleas'd with any Forms, or Ideaswhich occur to our Observation, the Author chooses to call Senses ; distinguishingthem from the Powerswhich commonly go by that Name, bycalling our Power of perceiving the Beauty of Regularity, Order, Harmony, an Internal Sense ; and ,that Determination to approve Affections,Actions, or Characters of rationalAgents, which we call virtuous, he marks by the Name of a MoralSense .
His principal Design is to shew,"That Human Nature was not leftquite indifferent in the Affair of Virtue, to form to itself Observa [xiv] tionsconcerning the Advantage, or Disadvantage of Actions, and accordinglyto regulate its Conduct." TheWeakness of our Reason, and the Avocationsarising from the Infirmitiesand Necessitys of our Nature, are sogreat, that very few Men could everhave form'd those long Deductions ofReason, which shew some Actions tobe in the whole advantageous to the Agent, and their Contrarys pernicious. The Author of Nature has muchbetter furnish'd us for a virtuous Conduct,than our Moralists seem to imagine,by almost as quick and powerfulInstructions, as we have for the Preservationof our Bodys. He has givenus strong Affections to be the Springsof each virtuous Action; and madeVirtue a lovely Form, that we mighteasily distinguish it from its Contrary,and be made happy by the Pursuit ofit.
This Moral Sense of Beauty in Actions and Affections, may appearstrange at first View. Some of our Moralists themselves are offended at it [xv] in my Lord Shaftesbury ; somuch are they accustomed to deduceevery Approbation, or Aversion, fromrational Views of private Interest, ( exceptit be merely in the Simple Ideas ofthe external Senses) and have such aHorror at innate Ideas, which theyimagine this borders upon. But this moral Sense has no relation to innateIdeas, as will appear in the secondTreatise.
Our Gentlemen of good Taste, cantell us of a great many Senses, Tastes, and Relishes for Beauty, Harmony, Imitation in Painting and Poetry; andmay not we find too in Mankind a Relish fora Beauty in Characters, in Manners? It will perhaps be found,that the greater Part of the Ingenious Arts are calculated to please some NaturalPowers, pretty different either fromwhat we commonly call Reason, or theExternal Senses .
In the first Treatise, the Author perhaps in some Instances has gone toofar, in supposing a greater Agreement [xvi] of Mankind in their Sense of Beauty, than Experience will confirm; but allhe is sollititous about is to shew, "Thatthere is some Sense of Beauty natural to Men; that we find as great anAgreement of Men in their Relishesof Forms, as in their exter