In order to establish this proposition, Hutcheson successfully demonstrates that by moral good is understood neither that which pleases ourselves by gratifying our benevolent affections, nor that which is good to others, nor any conformity to the will of God, or to order, or law, or truth, nor any other idea distinct from that which the word itself expresses, and which is as simple and primary and incapable of being expressed by any other word as are taste and smell. From this simplicity and originality of the notion Hutcheson infers that the quality about which it is concerned can only be perceived by a sense, and that this sense must be special, because the quality it perceives is distinct from all others. In further confirmation of this conclusion ho observes that the perception of this quality, like all other sensuous perceptions, is accompanied with pleasure, and that moral good is an end and a motive, but that the understanding is incapable of discovering any of the ends of human conduct, or of exercising any influence on the will.
Moral good then is perceived by a sense, and the perception of it or its contrary is accompanied with an agreeable or disagreeable feeling. Now this feeling being a consequent of the perception of the quality, it is impossible to resolve into it either moral good or the approbation we award to moral virtue; for this would be to resolve the cause into the effect, and the principle into the consequence. This sense Hutche son denominates, after Shaftesbury, the moral sense. Now es the quality of which it is percipient exists only in certain mental dispo sitions and the acts to which these give rise, it is necessarily internal. According to Hutcheson there are internal senses; among others the sense of beauty, whose office is to perceive the primary and irreducible quality of beauty. This character of inwardness is all that distinguishes the inner from the outer senses. Although indeed they are not of the same gross nature, they are nevertheless subject to the same laws and conditions. The moral sense therefore, as a sensuous
quality, is affected by its objects immediately, and according as the sensations it experiences are agreeable or disagreeable, they are accom panied by desire or repugnance, that is, by approbation or disappro bation.
The moral sense moreover is capable of regulating all the other facultica of our nature. Whence it derives this authority Hutcheson does not attempt to show, and is content with observing that we are directly conscious of its rule.
As to the question, what are the mental dispositions which this sense approves as good and moral, he at once excludes all those whose end lies in the attainment of man's personal happiness. No action the end of which is the profit of the agent can be accounted virtuous ; it may be blameless, it cannot be moral. Nevertheless the neglect of one's own interests becomes culpable whenever the advancement of them will enlarge the sphere and the means of beneficence. Benevo lent dispositions and acts alone are the objects of moral approbation. Universal beneficence constitutes moral excellence, and the degrees of morality coincide with those of benevolence.
In this system the part of reason is very subordinate. Excluded from the privilege of determining the proper objects of human con duct and of acting directly on the will, it is a mere servant, whose task is to discover and to digest the proper means for the attainment of those entlawhich the moral sense proposes. As to the motive' to virtuous determinations, Hutcheson is not more explicit than Shaftes bury, but as he makes the moral sense to be something more than a simply perceptive faculty, and, like all other eensee, to influence the will, it would appear that be regarded it as the moral motive also.
As a writer lintcheeon is remarkable for chasteness and simplicity of style, with great clearness of expression and happy fullness of illustration.