HUTCHESON, FRANCIS, a distinguished philosopher of last century, was the son of a Presbyterian minister in the n. of Ireland, where lie was born in 1694. He studied for the church at the university of Glasgow, but shortly after the completion of his theologi cal .course, he was induced to open a private academy in the city of Dublin, which proved highly successful. In 1720 he published his Inquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue, etc., which was the means of introducing him to the notice of many influential personages, such as lord Granville, then lord-lieutenant of Ireland, archbishop King, primate Bonner, and others. This work was followed, in 1728, by his Essay on the Nature and Conduct of the Passions; and in the year after, he was appointed professor of moral philosophy in the university of Glasgow. Hem he died in 1747. His largest and most important work, A System of Philosophy, was pub lished at Glasgow in 1755 by his son, Francis Hutcheson, 11.13., with a preface on the
life, writings, and character of the author, by Dr. Leeehman, professor of divinity in the same university. As, a metaphysician, Hutcheson may be considered a pioneer of the so-called " Scotch school." FrOM the period of his lectUrea, tieedrding to Dugald Stewart, may be dated the metaphysical philosophy of Scotland, and, indeed, the literary taste in general, which marked that country during the last century, although, as Stewart acknowledges and Hamilton shows, traces of the Scotch philosophy appear in earlier writers. But it is as a moral philosopher, rather than as a metaphysician, Hutcheson shines. His system is, to a extent, that of Shaftesbury, but it is more complete, coherent, and clearly illustrated. Hutcheson is a strong opponent of the doctrine that benevolence has a selfish origin. The faculty by which moral distinc tions are recognized, Hutcheson (after Shaftesbury) terms a moral sense. See ETHICS.