Читать книгу An Inquiry into the Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue - Francis Hutcheson - Страница 12

THE PREFACE

There is no part of Philosophy of more importance, than a just Knowledge of Human Nature, and its various Powers and Dispositions. Our late Inquirys have been very much employ’d about our Understanding, and the several Methods of obtaining Truth. We generally acknowledge, that the Importance of any Truth is nothing else than its Moment, or Efficacy to make Men happy, or to give them the greatest and most lasting Pleasure; and Wisdom denotes only a Capacity of pursuing this End by the best Means. It must surely then be of the greatest importance, [x] to have distinct Conceptions of this End it self, as well as of the Means necessary to obtain it; that we may find out which are the greatest and most lasting Pleasures, and not employ our Reason, after all our laborious Improvements of it, in trifling Pursuits. It is to be fear’d indeed, that most of our Studys, without this Inquiry, will be of very little use to us; for they seem to have scarce any other tendency than to lead us into speculative Knowledge it self. Nor are we distinctly told how it is that Knowledge, or Truth is pleasant to us.

This Consideration ||⁵put|| the Author of the following Papers ||⁶upon|| inquiring into the various Pleasures which Human nature is capable of receiving. We shall generally find in our modern philosophick Writings, nothing ||⁷further|| on this Head, than some bare Division of them into Sensible, and Rational, and some trite [xi] Common-place Arguments to prove the ||⁸latter more|| valuable than the former. Our sensible Pleasures are slightly pass’d over, and explain’d only by some Instances in Tastes, Smells, Sounds, or such like, which Men of any tolerable Reflection generally look upon as very trifling Satisfactions. Our rational Pleasures have had much the same kind of treatment. We are seldom taught any other Notion of rational Pleasure than that which we have upon reflecting on our Possession, or Claim to those Objects, which may be Occasions of Pleasure. Such Objects we call advantageous; but Advantage, or Interest, cannot be distinctly conceiv’d, till we know what ||⁹those|| Pleasures are which advantageous Objects are apt to excite; and what Senses or Powers of Perception we have ||¹⁰with respect to|| such Objects. We may perhaps ||¹¹find|| such an Inquiry of more importance in Morals, to prove what we call the Reality of Virtue, or [xii] that it is the surest Happiness of the Agent, than one would at first imagine.

In reflecting upon our external Senses, we plainly see, that our Perceptions of Pleasure, or Pain, do not depend directly on our Will. Objects do not please us, according as we incline they should. The presence of some Objects necessarily pleases us, and the presence of others as necessarily displeases us. Nor can we by our Will, any otherwise procure Pleasure, or avoid Pain, than by procuring the former kind of Objects, and avoiding the latter. By the very Frame of our Nature the one is made the occasion of Delight, and the other of Dissatisfaction.

The same Observation will hold in all our other Pleasures and Pains. For there are many other sorts of Objects, which please, or displease us as necessarily, as material Objects [xiii] do when they operate upon our Organs of Sense. There ||¹²is scarcely any Object which our Minds are employ’d about, which is|| not thus constituted the necessary occasion of some Pleasure or Pain. Thus we ||¹³find|| our selves pleas’d with a regular Form, a piece of Architecture or Painting, a Composition of Notes, a Theorem, an Action, an Affection, a Character. And we are conscious that this Pleasure necessarily arises from the Contemplation of the Idea, which is then present to our Minds, with all its Circumstances, although some of these Ideas have nothing of what we ||¹⁴call|| sensible Perception in them; and in those which have, the Pleasure arises from some Uniformity, Order, Arrangement, Imitation; and not from the simple Ideas of Colour, or Sound, or mode of Extension separately consider’d.

These Determinations to be pleas’d with ||¹⁵any Forms, or Ideas [xiv] which occur to our Observation,|| the Author chuses to call Senses; distinguishing them from the Powers which commonly go by that Name, by calling our Power of perceiving the Beauty of Regularity, Order, Harmony, an Internal Sense; and that Determination to ||¹⁶be pleas’d with the Contemplation of those|| Affections, Actions, or Characters of rational Agents, which we call virtuous, he marks by the name of a Moral Sense.

His principal Design is to shew, “That Human Nature was not left quite indifferent in the affair of Virtue, to form to it self Observations concerning the Advantage, or Disadvantage of Actions, and accordingly to regulate its Conduct.” The weakness of our Reason, and the avocations arising from the ||¹⁷Infirmity|| and Necessitys of our Nature, are so great, that very few ||¹⁸Men could ever have|| form’d those [xv] long Deductions of Reason, which ||¹⁹shew|| some Actions to be in the whole advantageous to the Agent, and their Contrarys pernicious. The Author of Nature has much better furnish’d us for a virtuous Conduct, than ||²⁰our|| Moralists seem to imagine, by almost as quick and powerful Instructions, as we have for the preservation of our Bodys. ||²¹He has made Virtue a lovely Form, to excite our pursuit of it; and has given us strong Affections to be the Springs of each virtuous Action.||

This moral Sense of Beauty in Actions and Affections, may appear strange at first View. Some of our Moralists themselves are offended at it in my Lord Shaftesbury,ⁱⁱⁱ so much ||²²are they|| accustom’d to deduce every Approbation, or Aversion, from rational Views of ||²³Interest||, (except it be merely in the simple Ideas of the external Senses) and have such a Horror at innate Ideas, [xvi] which they imagine this borders upon. But this moral Sense has no relation to innate Ideas, as will appear in the second Treatise. ²⁴Our Gentlemen of good Taste can tell us of a great many Senses, Tastes, and Relishes for Beauty, Harmony, Imitation in Painting and Poetry; and may not we find too in Mankind a Relish for a Beauty in Characters, in Manners? ||^25aI doubt we have made Philosophy, as well as Religion, by our foolish management of it, so austere and ungainly a Form, that a Gentleman cannot easily bring himself to like it; and those who are Strangers to it, can scarcely bear to hear our Description of it. So much ||^26bit is^b|| changed from what was once the delight of the finest Gentlemen among the Antients, and their Recreation after the Hurry of publick Affairs!^a||

In the first Treatise, the Author perhaps in some Instances has gone too far, in supposing a greater Agree-[xvii]ment of Mankind in their Sense of Beauty, than Experience ||²⁷will|| confirm; but all he is solicitous about is to shew, “That there is some Sense of Beauty natural to Men; ||²⁸that we find|| as great an Agreement of Men in their Relishes of Forms, as in their external Senses which all agree to be natural; and that Pleasure or Pain, Delight or Aversion, are naturally join’d to their Perceptions.” If the Reader be convinc’d of ||²⁹such Determinations of the Mind to be pleas’d with Forms, Proportions, Resemblances, Theorems,|| it will be no difficult matter to apprehend another superior Sense, natural ||³⁰also|| to Men, determining them to be pleas’d with Actions, Characters, Affections. This is the moral Sense, which makes the Subject of the second Treatise.

The proper Occasions of Perception by the external Senses, occur to us as soon as we come into the [xviii] World; ||³¹whence|| perhaps we easily look upon these Senses to be natural: but the Objects of the superior Senses of Beauty and Virtue generally do not. It is probably some little time before Children ||³²reflect||, or at least let us know that they reflect upon Proportion and Similitude; upon Affections, Characters, Tempers; or come to know the external Actions which are Evidences of them. ||³³Hence|| we imagine that their Sense of Beauty, and their moral Sentiments of Actions, must be entirely owing to Instruction, and Education; whereas it ||³⁴is as|| easy to conceive, how a Character, a Temper, as soon as they are observ’d, may be constituted by Nature the necessary occasion of Pleasure, or an Object of Approbation, as a Taste or a Sound; ||³⁵tho it be sometime before these Objects present themselves to our Observation.|| [xix]

||³⁶The first Impression of these Papers was so well receiv’d, that the Author hopes it will be no offence to any who are concern’d in the Memory of the late Lord Viscount Molesworth,^iv if he lets his Readers know that he was the Noble Person mention’d in the Preface to the first Edition, and that their being published was owing to his Approbation of them. It was from him he had that shreud Objection, which the Reader may find in the first Treatise;^* besides many other Remarks in the frequent Conversations with which he honour’d the Author; by which that Treatise was very much improved beyond what it was in the Draught presented to him. The Author retains the most grateful Sense of his singular Civilitys, and of the Pleasure and Improvement he received in his Conver-[xx]sation; and is still fond of expressing his grateful Remembrance of him: but,

Id cinerem, & Manes credas curare sepultos.^v

To be concern’d in this Book can be no honour to a Person so justly celebrated for the most generous Sentiments of Virtue and Religion, deliver’d with the most manly Eloquence: yet it would not be just toward the World, should the Author conceal his Obligations to the Reverend Mr. Edward Syng;^vi not only for revising these Papers, when they stood in great need of an accurate Review, but for suggesting several just Amendments in the general Scheme of Morality. The Author was much confirm’d in his Opinion of the Justness of these Thoughts, upon finding, that this Gentleman had fallen into the same way of thinking before him; and will ever look upon his Friendship [xxi] as one of the greatest Advantages and Pleasures of his Life.

To recommend the Lord Shaftesbury’s Writings to the World, is a very needless Attempt. They will be esteemed while any Reflection remains among Men. It is indeed to be wished, that he had abstained from mixing with such Noble Performances, some Prejudices he had receiv’d against Christianity; a Religion which gives us the truest Idea of Virtue, and recommends the Love of God, and of Mankind, as the Sum of all true Religion. How would it have moved the Indignation of that ingenious Nobleman, to have found a dissolute set of Men, who relish nothing in Life but the lowest and most sordid Pleasures, searching into his Writings for those Insinuations against Christianity, that they might be the less restrained from their Debaucherys; when at the same time their low Minds are [xxii] incapable of relishing those noble Sentiments of Virtue and Honour, which he has placed in so lovely a Light!||

Whatever Faults the Ingenious may find with ||³⁷this Performance, the Author|| hopes no body will find any thing in it contrary to Religion or good Manners: and he shall be well pleased if he gives the learned World an occasion of examining more thorowly these Subjects, which are, he presumes, of very considerable Importance. The chief Ground of his Assurance that his Opinions in the main are just, is this, That as he took the first Hints of them from some of the greatest Writers of Antiquity,^vii so the more he has convers’d with them, he finds his Illustrations the more conformable to their Sentiments.

||³⁸In the former Edition of this Book there were some Mistakes in one or two of the Instances borrowed [xxiii] from other Sciences, to a perfect Knowledge of which the Author does not pretend; nor would he now undertake that this Edition is every way faultless. He hopes that those who are studious of the true measures of Life, may find his Ideas of Virtue and Happiness tolerably just; and that the profound Connoisseurs will pardon a few Faults, in the Illustrations borrow’d from their Arts, upon which his Arguments do not depend.|| [xxiv]