congregation at Magherally, in his native county, but was easily persuaded to accept instead an invitation to open an academy in Dublin, to give instruction in the higher branches. About the time he settled there the Protestant Non-conformists, aided by the government, but after a keen opposition from the Irish bishops, had succeeded in obtaining a parliamentary repeal of the Acts which required all persons to resort to their parish church every Sunday, and imposed a fine of £100 upon the dissenting minister who officiated in any congregation. But the young teacher had to suffer two prosecutions in the archbishop's court for daring to teach youth without subscribing the canons and obtaining a license. These attacks upon him came to nothing, as they were discouraged by the Archbishop. Dr. King, author of the metaphysical work on the "Origin of Evil," who, though he had been a determined opponent of the relaxation allowed by law to dissenters, was unwilling to oppress so accomplished a man and well-disposed a citizen as Hutcheson. In Dublin he had laborious duties to discharge, which left him, he complained, little time for literature and mental culture; but he seems to have met with congenial society. The Presbyterians and Independents were the representatives of the English Non-conformists, who had been a considerable body there when Henry Cromwell was vice-regent, and when Winter and Charnock preached to them in Christ's Church Cathedral; and they had among them families of standing and influence. His literary accomplishments opened other circles to him. There seems to have been at that time a considerable taste for learning and philosophy in the metropolis of Ireland. From a I very early date after its publication, the "Essay on the Human

gude and benevolent God, and that the sauls o' the heathens themsels will gang to heeven, if they follow the light of their own consciences. Not a word does the daft boy ken, speer, nor say, about the gude auld comfortable doctrine of election, reprobation, original sin, and faith. Hoot, mon, awa' wi' sic a fellow !'" The only members who waited for the end of the sermon were Mr. Johnson of Knappa, Mr. M'Geough, and the clerk. (Stuart's "History of Armagh.") This story may be made somewhat more pointed in the telling, but is, we have no doubt, substantially correct. It will be remembered that Professor Simson held similar views in regard to the heathen; and, in the Introduction to the Translation of Antoninus by Hutcheson and Moor, the authors maintain: ""Tis but a late doctrine in the Christian church that the grace of God and all divine influences were confined to such as knew the Christian history, and were by profession in the Christian church."

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ART. VII.] HIS FIRST PHILOSOPHIC WORKS.

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Understanding,” had been most enthusiastically welcomed by Molyneux, who corresponded with Locke, and expressed his excessive admiration of him. Berkeley, the tutor of Molyneux's son, began in 1707 to give to the world his ingenious speculations on mathematical and philosophical subjects. It does not appear that Hutcheson was acquainted with Berkeley, who, we rather think, would not appreciate the views of Hutcheson: he has certainly condemned the opinions of Shaftesbury. But he enjoyed the friendship of a number of eminent men, including Viscount Molesworth and Dr. Synge afterwards Bishop of Elphin; both of whom encouraged him to publish his first work, and assisted him in preparing it for the press. The former connects him historically with Shaftesbury, who had written letters to Molesworth, which were published in 1721. When

in Dublin, Hutcheson and some others formed a club in which papers were read by the members on philosophic themes. It is an interesting circumstance, that in the next age some of the more important works of Gerard, Reid, Beattie, and Campbell sprang out of a similar society in Aberdeen.

It was in 1725 that he published in London his first work, "An Inquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue." The treatise was published anonymously, as (so he tells us in the second edition) he had so little confidence of success that he was unwilling to own it. The subject, the thoughts, and the style were suited to the age; and the work was favorably received from the first. Lord Granville (afterwards Lord Carteret), the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, sent his private secretary to inquire at the bookseller's for the author; and when he could not learn his name he left a letter to be conveyed to him, in consequence of which Hutcheson became acquainted with his Excellency and was treated by him with distinguished marks of esteem. A second edition, corrected and enlarged, was called for in 1726.

This was the age of serial literary essays which had commenced in England with the " Tatler" and "Spectator." There was such a periodical set up in the metropolis of Ireland called the "Dublin Journal" conducted by Hibernicus (Dr. Arbucle), and to this paper Hutcheson sent two letters, of date June 5th. and June 12th, 1725, on "Laughter," in opposition to the views of Hobbes, who attributed men's actions to selfish motives, and

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represented laughter as nothing else but sudden glory arising from some sudden conception of some eminency in ourselves, by comparison with the infirmity of others or our own formerly. He characterizes Hobbes as "having fallen into a way of speaking which was much more intelligible than that of the Schoolmen," and "so becoming agreeable to many wits of his age;" and as "assuming positive, solemn airs, which he uses most when he is going to assert some solemn absurdity or some illnatured nonsense." He finds it difficult to treat the subject of laughter "gravely," but gives his theory of the cause of laughter, which is "the bringing together of images which have contrary additional ideas, as well as some resemblance in the principal idea; this contrast between ideas of grandeur, dignity, sanctity, perfection, and ideas of meanness, baseness, profanity, seems to be the very spirit of burlesque, and the greater part of our raillery and jest are founded on it." Some such view as this has ever since been given of wit. Samuel Johnson describes it as a sort of concordia discors or concors discordia. Hutcheson ventures to specify the use of laughter: "Our passions are apt to lead us into foolish apprehensions of objects both in the way of admiration and honor, and ridicule comes in to temper our minds." This moderate view falls considerably short of that given by Shaftesbury, who represents ridicule as a test of truth.

Mandeville, in "The Fable of the Bees," had advanced some curious and doubtful speculations as to private vices being public benefits; showing that the power and grandeur of any nation depend much upon the number of people and their industry, which cannot be procured unless there be consumption of manufactures; and that the intemperance, luxury, and pride of men consume manufactures, and promote industry. The author has here caught hold of a positive and important truth, the explanation of which carries us into some of the deepest mysteries of Providence, in which we see good springing out of vice, and God ruling this world in spite of its wickedness, and by means of its wickedness, but without identifying himself with it. But Mandeville was not able to solve the profound problem, and in dealing with it he uses expressions which look as if he intended to justify, or at least to palliate vice. Hutcheson hastens to save morality, and writes letters on the subject to Hibernicus,

and easily shows that virtue tends to private and public happiness, and vice to private and public misery; and that there "would be an equal consumption of manufactures without these vices and the evils which flow from them."

Hutcheson had now tasted the draught of authorship, and must drink on. In the "London Journal" for 1728, there appeared some Letters signed" Philaretus," containing objections to the doctrine of the "Inquiry into the Ideas of Beauty and Virtue," which is represented as not giving a sufficiently deep view of virtue as founded on the nature of things and perceived by reason. Hutcheson replies in the same journal. In that same year he published his second great work, being "An Essay on the Nature and Conduct of the Passions and Affections, with illustrations of the Moral Sense." In the Preface he says, "Some Letters in the London Journal,' in 1728, subscribed. 'Philaretus,' gave occasion to the Fourth Treatise (on the Moral Sense); the answer given to them in these weekly papers bore too visible marks of the hurry in which they were wrote, and therefore the author declined to continue the debate that way, choosing to send a private letter to Philaretus to desire a more private correspondence on the subject of our debate. He was soon after informed that his death disappointed the author's great expectations from so ingenious a correspondent." Philaretus turned out to be Gilbert Burnet (second son, I believe, of the bishop), and the correspondence was published in 1735, with a postscript written by Burnet shortly before his death. Burnet examines Hutcheson from the stand-point of Clarke, and fixes on some of the weak points of the new theory.

At this time there was a keen controversy in Ulster as to whether the Presbyterian Church should require an implicit subscription to the Westminster Confession of Faith, and this issued in those who refused to subscribe forming themselves into a separate body called the Antrim Presbytery, the members of which published a "Narrative of the Proceedings of the Seven Synods," which led to their separation. The work of replying to this document was committed to Mr. Hutcheson, of Armagh, whose paper, however, was not published till after his decease, which took place in February, 1729. The old man had anxieties about his son, lest he should be tempted by the flattering attentions paid him in Dublin to conform to the Estab

lished Church, and wrote a letter expressing his fears. We have the reply of the son, of date Aug. 4, 1726. In this he avows that he did not regard the "government or externals of worship so determined in the gospel as to oblige men to one particular way in either: " that he looks upon the established form as an "inconvenient one;" that he reckons the dissenters' cause "in most disputed points the better;" that he believes the original of both civil and ecclesiastical power is from God; he denounces those religious penal laws which "no magistrate can have a right to make;" but he would not blame any man of his own principles who did conform, if the "ends proposed were such as would over-balance the damage which the more just cause would sustain by his leaving, particularly if he had any prospect of an unjust establishment being altered," of which, he confesses, he does not see the least probability. He says, that both Lord Cathcart and the Bishop of Elphin had professed their desire to have him brought over "to the Church, to a good living;" that he kept his mind "very much to himself in these matters, and resolved to do;" but that he had no intention whatever to depart from his present position, and that he would feel it his duty continually to promote the cause of dissenters. I rather think that this frank but expediency letter would not altogether satisfy the good old father, who had stood firm on principle in trying times. I have referred to these transactions, because they exhibit the struggles which were passing in many a bosom in those times of transition from one state of things to another. Hutcheson never conformed, as his contemporary Butler did, to the Church. His Presbyterian friends were soon relieved from all anxieties in this direction by his being appointed, after he had been seven or eight years in Dublin, to an office altogether congenial to his tastes, in Glasgow University, where, however, he exercised a religious influence which his father, provided he had been spared to witness it, would have viewed with apprehension and disapproval.

He was chosen to succeed Carmichael, Dec. 19, 1729, by a majority of the Faculty, over Mr. Warner, favored at first by the principal, and over Mr. Frederick Carmichael, son of Gershom, supported by five of the professors. His appointment could be justified on the ground of merit ; but he owed it mainly