Hutcheson

Hutcheson, Dr. Francis (1694-1747), a distinguished metaphysician of the Shaftesbury school, was the son of a Presbyterian minister in the north of Ireland. In 1710 he entered the university of Glasgow, where he studied Latin, Greek, and general literature, and then theology. On his return to Ireland he opened an academy in Dublin. The issue of his Inquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue gained him high repute, and returning in 1729 to Glasgow as professor of moral philosophy, he proved a very successful lecturer. He is the best known upholder of the doctrine that moral and eesthetic distinctions are perceived by an innate "sense." His most important work, A System of Moral Philosophy, was published in 1755 by his son, Francis Hutcheson, M.D.