The Scottish Philosophy [51]
on the other hand, his view of the moral power falls greatly beneath that of the great English moralists of the previous century, and below that of the school of Clarke {85} in his own day. The word sense allies the conscience too much with the animal organism, and the whole account given of it separates it from the reason or higher intelligence. On this point he was met, immediately on the publication of his views, by Gilbert Burnet, who maintains that moral good and evil are discerned by reason; that there is first reason, or an internal sense of truth and falsehood, moral good and evil, right and wrong, which is accompanied by another succeeding internal sense of beauty and pleasure; and that reason is the judge of the goodness and badness of our affections and of the moral sense itself. Hutcheson does speak of the moral sense as being superior in its nature to the other senses, but he does not bring out so prominently and decisively as Butler did its supremacy and its right to govern.
If his theory of the moral power is superficial and defective, his account of that to which the conscience looks is positively erroneous. He represents virtue as consisting in benevolence, by which he means good-will. This view cannot be made to embrace love to God, except by stretching it so wide as to make it another doctrine altogether; for surely it is not as a mere exercise of good-will that to love God can be described as excellent. His theory is especially faulty in that it overlooks justice, which has ever been regarded by our higher moralists as among the most essential of the virtues. Nor is it to be omitted that his moral system is self-righteous in its injunctions, and pagan in its spirit. No doubt he speaks everywhere with deep admiration of the morality of the New Testament; but the precepts which he inculcates, are derived fully as much from Antoninus and the Stoics as from the discourses of our Lord, and the epistles of the apostles; and we look in vain for a recommendation of such graces as repentance and humility, meekness and long-suffering.
By bringing down morality from the height at which the great ethical writers, of ancient and modern times, had placed it, he prepared the way for the system of Adam Smith, and even for that of Hume. Smith was a pupil of his own, and Hutcheson was brought into contact with Hume. Hume submitted to Hutcheson in manuscript the " Third Part of his Treatise of Human Nature," that on morals, before giving it {86} to the world. The remarks which Hutcheson offered have been lost, but we can gather what they were from the letter which Hume sent him on receiving them, and which has been preserved. Hutcheson most characteristically objects to Hume, that he had not expressed a sufficient warmth in the cause of virtue, and that he was defective in point of prudence. Was this all that the high moralist Hutcheson had to object to the founder of modern utilitarianism? On the publication of his " Institutes of Moral Philosophy," Hutcheson sends a copy of it to Hume, who remarks upon it, specially objecting to it as adopting Butler's opinion, that our moral sense has an authority distinct from its force and desirableness g, but confessing his delight " to see such just philosophy, and such instructive morals, to have once set their foot in the schools. I hope they will next get into the world, and then into the churches." Yes, this was what the rationalists wished in that day, and what they wish in ours, to get their views. Hutcheson, though disapproving of the philosophy of Hume, and refusing to support him as a candidate for the chair of moral philosophy in Edinburgh, which he himself declined, had not retained sufficiently deep principles to enable him successfully to resist the great sceptic who had now appeared. Error has been committed, God's law has been lowered, and the avenger has come.
VIII.-- RELIGIOUS CONFLICTS.-- RALPH ERSKINE. W/E\ are now in the heart of the Scottish conflicts of the century. It is the
If his theory of the moral power is superficial and defective, his account of that to which the conscience looks is positively erroneous. He represents virtue as consisting in benevolence, by which he means good-will. This view cannot be made to embrace love to God, except by stretching it so wide as to make it another doctrine altogether; for surely it is not as a mere exercise of good-will that to love God can be described as excellent. His theory is especially faulty in that it overlooks justice, which has ever been regarded by our higher moralists as among the most essential of the virtues. Nor is it to be omitted that his moral system is self-righteous in its injunctions, and pagan in its spirit. No doubt he speaks everywhere with deep admiration of the morality of the New Testament; but the precepts which he inculcates, are derived fully as much from Antoninus and the Stoics as from the discourses of our Lord, and the epistles of the apostles; and we look in vain for a recommendation of such graces as repentance and humility, meekness and long-suffering.
By bringing down morality from the height at which the great ethical writers, of ancient and modern times, had placed it, he prepared the way for the system of Adam Smith, and even for that of Hume. Smith was a pupil of his own, and Hutcheson was brought into contact with Hume. Hume submitted to Hutcheson in manuscript the " Third Part of his Treatise of Human Nature," that on morals, before giving it {86} to the world. The remarks which Hutcheson offered have been lost, but we can gather what they were from the letter which Hume sent him on receiving them, and which has been preserved. Hutcheson most characteristically objects to Hume, that he had not expressed a sufficient warmth in the cause of virtue, and that he was defective in point of prudence. Was this all that the high moralist Hutcheson had to object to the founder of modern utilitarianism? On the publication of his " Institutes of Moral Philosophy," Hutcheson sends a copy of it to Hume, who remarks upon it, specially objecting to it as adopting Butler's opinion, that our moral sense has an authority distinct from its force and desirableness g, but confessing his delight " to see such just philosophy, and such instructive morals, to have once set their foot in the schools. I hope they will next get into the world, and then into the churches." Yes, this was what the rationalists wished in that day, and what they wish in ours, to get their views
VIII.-- RELIGIOUS CONFLICTS.-- RALPH ERSKINE. W/E\ are now in the heart of the Scottish conflicts of the century. It is the