Author: [HUTCHESON (Francis)]:
Title: An Essay on the Nature and Conduct of the Passions and Affections. With Illustrations on the Moral Sense. The Third Edition, with Additions.
Description: London: Printed for A. Ward...[et al], 1742. 8vo, 190 x 122 mms., pp. xx [xxi - xxiii Contents, xxiv blank], 339 [340 blank], contemporary calf, spine restored with original black leather label retained. A very good copy with "M. Crabb" inscribed on the top margin of the front paste-own end-paper and with further notes in his hand on the two rear end-papers This work was first published in 1728, with a second edition in 1730; this was the last edition published in his lifetime. "In the Essay Hutcheson answered the arguments of John Clarke of Hull, who had contended that benevolence is traceable to self-love; one feels uneasiness when one perceives that others are in misery or in distress; benevolence or kind affection for others is prompted by a desire to satisfy or relieve this uneasiness in oneself; accordingly, benevolence or kind affection is derived not from an original or distinct or irreducible instinct, it is traceable, like all affections and passions, to self-love. Hutcheson thought Clarke's 'Scheme' of deducing disinterested affection from self-love 'more ingenious than any which the Author of the Inquiry ever yet saw in print' (Essay, Preface, xii). His answer, adumbrated in section I of the Essay, was that there are different classes of desires; that the desire to assist the afflicted or distressed or to act for the benefit of the public is entirely different from the desire to seek happiness or satisfaction or pleasure for oneself. He connected the desire to act in a spirit of kindness or benevolence to a public sense; this was a new sense, introduced together with a sense of honour for the first time in the Essay" (James Moore in ODNB),

Keywords: philosophy morality prose Scottish Enlightenment


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