Francis Hutcheson

Francis Hutcheson was born in 1694 at Drumalig, County Down, Ireland. His father was a Presbyterian minister at nearby Armagh, serving the Scottish colony there.  His grandfather, also a minister, had come from Scotland. Francis matriculated at the University of Glasgow in 1711. He finished his divinity studies there in 1717 and went back to Dublin for his first ministerial service. At the request of the church, he organized a Presbyterian academy in Dublin, where he taught from 1721 to 1730.[1]

An important influence on Hutcheson during his adult time at Dublin was a circle of diverse people that met at the house of Robert Molesworth, an important politician:

What he found was an eclectic array of men, who had gathered under one roof and were prepared to tolerate their internal differences in exchange for the pleasure of company and learning... They represented for Hutcheson a milieu that was intellectually stimulating, socially supportive and politically influential. They also provided him with emotional ties and an entrance into Dublin society during his early years in the capital… the example they provided of social virtue and political tolerance was central to Hutcheson’s thinking on the matter of ethics. They met at Molesworth’s estate at Brackdenstown, discussing ideas of aesthetics, morality and politics...[2]

Among those in Molesworth circle were the Earl of Shaftesbury and Jonathan Swift, and it included scientists as well philosophers and politicians. In 1730, Hutcheson was appointed professor of moral philosophy at the University of Glasgow, a position he held until his death.  In addition to his regular moral philosophy classes, Hutcheson offered a lecture on the truth of Christianity on Sunday evenings. He died in Dublin in 1746, after contracting a fever on a visit there.[3]

Publications

While living in Dublin, Hutcheson published the four essays that have given him most recognition as an original thinker: the Inquiry concerning Beauty, Order, Harmony and Design, the Inquiry concerning Moral Good and Evil, the Essay on the Nature and Conduct of the Passions and Affections and Illustrations upon the Moral Sense, all published between 1725 and 1728. But his textbooks on moral philosophy have perhaps had the most impact. Historian Douglas Sloan, for example, attests to their influence in early American colleges.[4] A Short Introduction to Moral Philosophy was published while he was teaching, and the more complete System of Moral Philosophy was published by his son posthumously, based on his lecture notes.

Personal Characteristics

We have direct evidence of the admiration of his students at Glasgow. Adam Smith referred to him as the "never-to-be-forgotten Dr. Hutcheson."[5] Alexander Carlyle was more explicit: "As his elocution was good, and his voice and manner pleasing, he raised the attention of his hearers at all times; and when the subject led him to explain and enforce the moral virtues and duties, he displayed a fervent and persuasive eloquence which was irresistible."[6] His fellow professor, William Leechman recalls his impressions:

He was all benevolence and affection; none who saw him could doubt of it; his air and countenance bespoke it... Among many other acts of beneficence, he took a peculiar delight in assisting worthy young men, in straitened circumstances, to prosecute their studies with his money, and admitting them to attend his colleges without paying the customary fees... His love of valuable knowledge, his unabating activity in pursuing it and spreading a taste for it, fitted him, in a very singular manner, for the station which Providence had assigned him... fond of well-disposed youths, entering into their concerns, encouraging and befriending them on all occasions, could not fail to gain their esteem and affections in a very high degree. This gave him a great influence over them, which he employed to the excellent purposes of stamping virtuous impressions upon their hearts, and awakening in them a taste for literature, fine arts, and every thing that is ornamental or useful to human life.[7]

In his inaugural lecture, Hutcheson included an exhortation to the students that summarizes his view on life:

Go forward, then, in virtue, beloved young men, the hope of this generation and the glory, I trust, of the generation to come. Take nature and God as your guide, apply your minds to liberal studies, and lay down a varied store of useful knowledge which you may bring forth one day in all honorable, temperate, modest, and courageous service to our country and the human race. And even at this time, with hope and courage, take to yourselves the joyous sense of a mind conscious of its own integrity, the true dignity of life, the esteem [of others], the most honorable kind of fame, and the highest pleasures of life.[8]

[1] William Robert Scott, Francis Hutcheson (Cambridge, England: The University Press, 1900), 4-23.

[2] Michael Brown, Hutcheson in Dublin 1719-1730  (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2002), 50.

[3] William Robert Scott, Francis Hutcheson, 57,142.

[4] Douglas Sloan, The Scottish Enlightenment and the American College Ideal  (New York: Teachers College Press,  Columbia University, 1971), 88, 122.

[5] Adam Smith, quoted in William Robert Scott, Francis Hutcheson, 232.

[6] Alexander Carlyle, Autobiography of the Rev. Dr Carlyle, Second edition (Edinburgh: William Blackwood and Sons, 1860), 70.

[7] William Leechman, "Preface" in Francis Hutcheson, A System of Moral Philosophy (Glasgow: A Foulis, 1755),  xxv-xxvii, xxxvii. 

[8] Francis Hutcheson, On the Natural Sociability of Mankind (1755), Volume 1, Book 2, Ch. 3, Section 3, p. 257.