Source: https://oll.libertyfund.org/pages/marcus-aurelius-and-the-scottish-enightenment
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 11:43:41+00:00

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Hutcheson’s letter raises a number of questions: (1) Which books of The Meditations contain Hutcheson’s translations and notes and which books should be attributed to Moor? (2) What considerations prompted Hutcheson to undertake this translation and edition, apart from his announced desire to be of assistance to Robert Foulis and the Foulis press? (3) What might be the significance of Hutcheson’s notes to the text? Do they make up a coherent set of ideas concerning human nature, morals, politics, and religion? And what may be the relevance of these notes for our understanding of his other writings? (4) Why was Hutcheson determined that his name should not appear in the volume and that no one in Glasgow and its environs apart from Foulis should know the identity of the persons responsible for the translation and the notes? (5) And, finally, what was the significance of Hutcheson’s adaptation of The Meditations for the Enlightenment in Scotland?
There is a prima facie problem concerning the respective contributions of Hutcheson and Moor to The Meditations. There are three pieces of external evidence, and they do not agree. The first is Hutcheson’s letter to Drennan, with his claim that he had done “the greater half . . . and more”; a claim complicated by the circumstance that Hutcheson originally wrote “the first half and more” and then struck through “first” and substituted “greater.” Clearly Hutcheson was reluctant to be specific and preferred to make a game of it with Drennan. The second bit of evidence is found in The Foulis Catalogue of Books (Glasgow, 1777), where it is reported that the first two books were by James Moor and the remainder by Hutcheson.5 This record of the matter has been accepted by many later scholars. 6 It has the merit of consistency with Hutcheson’s claim that he had done “one or two books,” and Moor, “one or two”; and it leaves Hutcheson with responsibility for the “greater half,” although not for the “first” half, as he had originally written.
In the notes for books IX and X there are a number of references to Greek terminology and to Thomas Gataker’s translation of The Meditations from the Greek into Latin. A preoccupation with the original Greek of Marcus and with the quality of the translation by Gataker is not a conspicuous feature of the notes found in the other books. It is a concern, however, that might be expected of someone like Moor, who was renowned for the accuracy of his command of ancient Greek. In every one of the other books there are extensive notes that expand upon and interpret the philosophy of the Stoics, with the exception of the first book, which is concerned not with ideas but with individuals who influenced Marcus (many of them Stoics). The term Stoic is never used in books IX and X. Finally, in books IX and X, there is an abundance of citations to writers of the New Testament: fourteen in all; twice as many as are found in the notes to all of the other books combined. In light of these considerations, we conclude that Reid’s record of his conversation with Moor may be taken as the most authoritative of the three pieces of external evidence: books IX and X by Moor; the rest by Hutcheson.
What prompted Hutcheson and Moor to undertake this translation and edition of The Meditations? One of their expressed motivations was stylistic. They were dissatisfied with the two translations then available in English. One was the translation by Meric Casaubon (1599–1671) published in 1634, 8 described by Hutcheson as “the old English translation”: it “can scarce be agreeable to any reader; because of the intricate and antiquated stile” (“Life of the Emperor,” p. 3). The other translation, published in 1701 (and reissued in 1714 and 1726), was by Jeremy Collier (1650–1726), a nonjuring Anglican clergyman best known for his attack on the English stage.9 This edition was described by Hutcheson as an exercise that “seems not to preserve the grand simplicity of the original.” Hutcheson tells us that his translation is “almost intirely new” and has been made “according to Gataker’s edition of the original, and his Latin version” (“Life of the Emperor,” p. 4). Thomas Gataker (1574–1654) was an Anglican clergyman with Puritan sympathies, who maintained good relations with Presbyterians and was a member of the Westminster Assembly. Gataker’s edition of The Meditations10 in Greek, with a translation and commentary on the text in Latin, has been described by a modern classical scholar as “a monument of vast and fastidious erudition,” which “has long been and will always remain, the principal authority for any one undertaking to study or edit the Meditations.”11 An enlarged version was published in London in 1697,12 with a dedication by George Stanhope (1660–1728) to Lord John Somers and a translation into Latin by Stanhope of a life of Marcus Aurelius, composed in French, by André Dacier (1652–1722).
It will also be evident that the language of Hutcheson’s translation remains very much his own. A. S. L. Farquharson, the editor of The Meditations,18 renders the first sentence of bk. II, art. 1, as follows: “I shall meet today inquisitive, ungrateful, violent, treacherous, envious, uncharitable men.” 19 Hutcheson translates the same sentence in his own idiom: “to day I may have to do with some intermeddler in other mens affairs, with an ungrateful man; an insolent, or a crafty, or an envious, or an unsociable selfish man” (p. 33).
As Hutcheson presents The Meditations, Marcus’s reflections are designed to directly affect the sensibility of the reader and excite a desire to contribute to the happiness of others. Marcus’s soliloquies, he tells us, “contain some of the plainest, and yet most striking considerations, to affect the hearts of those who have any sense of goodness”; they cannot fail to inspire in us “a constant inflexible charity, and good-will and compassion toward our fellows, superior to all the force of anger or envy, or our little interfering worldly interests” (p. 3). Marcus’s language, in short, posed no obstacle to Hutcheson’s discovering in The Meditations a moral philosophy very much congenial to and in harmony with his own. His reading of The Meditations may also have been influenced by the recognition that moralists whom he very much admired had discovered in the reflections of Marcus Aurelius insights of great relevance for themselves.
Again, in A System of Moral Philosophy, Hutcheson drew upon the work of Marcus to explain the meaning of true piety, as he understood it. True piety was not to be found in the asceticism of the early Christians nor in the perpetuation of their “melancholy notions of sanctity” in the absurd provisions of the canon law: “piety is never more sincere and lively than when it engages men in all social and kind offices to others, out of a sense of duty to God: and just philosophy, as well as religion, could teach that true devotion, tranquility, resignation, and recollection too, may be practiced even in a court or camp, as well as in a wilderness. . . . See Marc Antonin in a variety of passages.”32 In this connection it may be recalled that Hutcheson was also diffident about revealing his authorship of the System; it was circulated only privately in his lifetime.
How should we understand the significance of Hutcheson’s notes to the text? Hutcheson’s notes typically provide short explanatory discourses or exegeses of the ideas of the Stoics. It is remarkable that the same notes also illuminate Hutcheson’s own moral philosophy. This will become evident as we consider his treatment in The Meditations of Stoic theories of human nature, the rational soul, the law, the citizen, God, and divine providence.
A central theme of Hutcheson’s moral philosophy, from the earliest to the last of his publications, had been that human nature is so constituted that mankind is naturally sociable. This theme was the subject of his inaugural lecture following his appointment as Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Glasgow.33 It was also the professed position of the Stoics, or so Hutcheson reminds the reader of The Meditations: “The Stoics always maintained, that by the very constitution of our nature, all men are recommended to the affectionate good-will of all: which would always appear, were it not for the interfering of falsely imagined interests” (bk. III, art. 5, p. 42, note). In a passage of the text where Marcus writes of “the peculiar structure and furniture of human nature,” Hutcheson notes: “This, as it was often mentioned already, is such as both recommends to us all pious veneration and submission to God, and all social affections; and makes such dispositions our chief satisfaction and happiness” (bk. XI, art. 5, p. 134, note).
Hutcheson had maintained, in his inaugural lecture and elsewhere in his writings, that it is the presence of kind affections, a natural desire to perform good offices for others, public spirit—benevolence, in a word—that disposes us to be naturally sociable. He was at pains to remind readers, in An Essay and in A System of Moral Philosophy, that the Stoics, “the avowed enemies of the passions,” had made provision for the passions and affections, for desire and aversion, joy and sorrow.34 But the Stoics had also recognized that the lower passions, the appetites of the body, desires for external things, must be subordinated to the more noble desires, the kind affections, etc.35 Hutcheson found a similar ordering of the passions and affections in the thought of Marcus Aurelius. Marcus had reminded himself not to be misled by the passions: “suffer not that noble part to be enslaved, or moved about by unsociable passions, without its own approbation” (bk. II, art. 2, p. 34).
Hutcheson noted that Marcus was employing “a metaphor from puppets, mov’d by others. Such are men when led by their passions against what their higher faculties incline to and recommend.” Marcus invoked the puppet metaphor later in the text (bk. X, art. 38, p. 132; bk. XII, art. 19, p. 148). The “noble part” that must direct the passions and not be enslaved by them was, in Marcus’s mind, the intellect, the spark of divinity within us, the rational soul. “Won’t you, at last, perceive, that you have something more excellent and divine within you, than that which raises the several passions, and moves you, as the wires do a puppet, without your own approbation? What now is my intellectual part? Is it fear? Is it suspicion? Is it lust? Is it any such thing?” (bk. XII, art. 19, p. 148).
The Stoic conception of reason and the rational soul was not subject to those objections: it was a faculty capable of immediate perception of virtue and vice, moral good and evil. Hutcheson provided the following note to a reference by Marcus to “that divinity which is within us”: “Thus the Stoics call the rational soul, the seat of knowledge and virtue: deeming it a part of the divinity, ever pervaded, attracted, and inspired by it to all moral good, when the lower passions are restrained” (bk. II, art. 13, p. 37, note). The rational soul was conceived by “the Stoics, after Plato . . . to be a being or substance distinct both from the gross body, and the animal soul, in which are the sensations, lower appetites and passions” (bk. V, art. 19, p. 65, note).
This article and note are cited elsewhere (e.g., at bk. VII, art. 28, p. 87, and bk. VII, art. 55, p. 90). The rational soul so conceived was the faculty that distinguished virtue and vice, perceived moral good and evil: considered in this light, “the rational soul” was synonymous with “the heart”: “they [the Stoics], and the Platonists too, . . . endeavoured to make virtue eligible, from the very feelings of the heart, . . . ” (bk. VI, art. 24, pp. 75–76, the daggered note). Also, “the most important practical truths are found out by attending to the inward calm sentiments or feelings of the heart: And this constitution of heart or soul is certainly the work of God, who created and still pervades all things; . . . ” (bk. XI, art. 12, p. 137, the double-daggered note).
The law of nature is the law of God; indeed, according to Marcus, the law is God. In bk. X, art. 25, p. 127, he wrote of “these things which are ordered by him who governs all: Who is the law, appointing to every one what is proper for him.” Moor noted that “this passage clears up many others where the same word occurs obscurely. See, [bk.] VII. [art.] 31.” He also referred the reader to “the book de Mundo, which goes under Aristotle’s name; chap. 6. ‘For our law, exactly impartial to all, is God.’?” Hutcheson agreed (bk. XI, art. 1, p. 133, note; bk. XII, art. 1, p. 144, note). But Hutcheson had earlier observed that God is also present in every human being: “such is the divine goodness that he is ever ready to communicate his goodness and mercy, in the renovation of the heart, and in forming in it all holy affections, and just apprehensions of himself, to all minds which by earnest desires are seeking after him” (bk. VIII, art. 54, p. 105, note). Hutcheson was employing the scholastic language of the communicable attributes of the deity: that God communicates to or shares with human beings some but not all of the attributes of divinity. He was also contending that the notion that God is present in the heart or soul of everyone who, “by earnest desires,” is “seeking after him” is consistent with the Stoic idea that there is a part of God, a spark of the divine fire, that is present in every human being.
Hutcheson’s enthusiastic acceptance of Marcus Aurelius’s conception of divine providence is consistent with the views expressed in A System, A Short Introduction, and in “A Synopsis of Metaphysics,” part III. Hutcheson had not replaced the Stoic doctrine of fate or predestination with benevolence. He thought rather that acting in a manner consistent with the divine plan was the most effective way to promote benevolence. He considered it “an amiable notion of providence, that it has ordered for every good man that station of life, and those circumstances, which infinite wisdom foresaw were fittest for his solid improvement in virtue, according to that original disposition of nature which God had given him” (bk. XI, art. 7, p. 135, note).
One may see in the Stoicism of Marcus Aurelius and Hutcheson’s enthusiastic endorsement of it the possibility of a benign redescription of the predestinarian doctrine of Calvinists and the Presbyterian or Reformed Church. The crucial difference between Hutcheson and more orthodox Calvinists did not turn on predestination: it was rather that Hutcheson, unlike Calvin (and St. Augustine and St. Paul), did not think that mankind was naturally sinful. He thought that mankind was naturally kind, benevolent, good. In his inaugural lecture, he had placed particular emphasis on the state of innocence, which Reformed theologians attributed only to Adam and Eve before the Fall. In Hutcheson’s mind, this “original disposition of nature” applied to every human being. Insofar as men were presently to be found in a condition of sinfulness and depravity, it was as a result of bad education, confused imaginations, the pursuit of external things, property and riches, love of fame: these were the dispositions, the passions which were productive of moral evil. Marcus had written: “Look inwards; within is the fountain of good; which is ever springing up, if you be always digging in it” (bk. VII, art. 59, p. 91). Hutcheson considered this excellent advice. “The author of this advice, had the best opportunities of trying all the happiness which can arise from external things. The dissipating pursuits of external things, stupify the nobler powers. By recollection we find the dignity of our nature: the diviner powers are disentangled, and exert themselves in all worthy social affections of piety and humanity; and the soul has an inexpressible delight in them” (bk. VII, art. 59, p. 91, note).
It is clear then that Hutcheson was refashioning Christian doctrine, notably the Presbyterian or Reformed doctrine of original sin, by substituting for it a particular variant of Stoicism, the version represented in The Meditations, in which the original or natural constitution of human nature contains something divine within: a heart or a soul that is oriented toward affection for others, good offices, benevolence. Was it a view consistent with the life and teachings of Christ? Hutcheson and Moor clearly thought so. They celebrated again and again in their notes the exhortation of Christ to his followers to return good for evil. They were also observing, however, in every case, that Marcus had given the same advice to himself and to anyone who might read his Meditations. Moor also perceived in Marcus’s pleas that we should attempt to imitate the gods “the same with the grand Christian doctrine of the divine life” (bk. X, art. 8, p. 123, note). Hutcheson thought that Marcus’s reference to his own “publick service to the Gods” expressed “the same divine sentiment with the Apostle; that whatever we do in word or deed, we should do it as to God” (bk. V, art. 31, p. 68, the asterisked note).
Hutcheson and Moor were pleased to discover in the teachings of Christ expressions of kindness, forgiveness, service to God, piety properly understood as service to God and mankind in general. Their references to the writers of the New Testament typically provide confirmation and endorsement of the Stoic morality of Marcus and Epictetus. They were also pleased to enclose “Gataker’s Apology,” which similarly discovered an equivalence between the ethical teachings of Christ and the reflections of Marcus Aurelius: “All these same precepts [of Christ] are to be found in Antoninus, just as if he had habitually read them” (“Gataker’s Apology,” below, p. 162).
At the same time, there is much that Hutcheson found objectionable in the doctrines and in the conduct of Christians. He was unimpressed by the Christian doctrine of repentance after vice. “A continued innocence of manners is preferable to even the most thorough repentance after gross vices. . . . To this refer many thoughts in the former books, about the advantage of ‘being always straight and upright, rather than one rectified and amended’?” (bk. XI, art. 8, p. 136, note). He was pointedly critical of what he took to be the desire for martyrdom among the early Christians: “It is well known that their ardour for the glory of martyrdom was frequently immoderate; and was censured even by some of the primitive fathers.” He goes on to make an apology for their weakness. Christianity could not have been expected to “extirpate all sort of human frailty. And there is something so noble in the stedfast lively faith, and the stable persuasion of a future state, which must have supported this ardour, that it makes a sufficient apology for this weakness, and gives the strongest confirmation of the divine power accompanying the Gospel” (bk. XI, art. 3, p. 134, note).
The number of churchmen and churches who are included in this indictment of Christian practices and Christian dogmas would appear to be very extensive indeed: ecclesiastics who insist on rituals and pageantry and dissenters who oppose them; scholastics of all denominations who insist on their understanding of the divine attributes, even though one of those attributes of God was widely deemed to be his incomprehensibility; those philosophers who quibble about liberty and predestination and, most seriously, those who would consign their neighbors to eternal damnation for failure to subscribe to the correct dogma concerning sin and redemption. But it was particularly the dogmas and practices of the Church of Scotland, as Hutcheson knew it from direct acquaintance, in its churches and in its universities that appear to have been foremost in his mind as he penned his concluding peroration: “Christians may be ashamed to censure our author on this account; considering how rashly, arrogantly, and presumptuously, they are cursing one another in their synodical anathemas; and in their creeds, pronouncing eternal damnation on all who are not within the pale, or hold not the same mysterious tenets or forms of words” (p. 22).
[1. ]The Meditations were reprinted in Glasgow by Robert and Andrew Foulis in 1749 (2nd ed.), 1752 (3rd ed.), and 1764 (4th ed.). Another “4th ed.” was printed in Dublin for Robert Main in 1752.
[2. ] Robert Foulis (1707–76) was appointed printer to the University of Glasgow in 1743. In partnership with his brother Andrew, he was responsible for the publication of many attractive and accurate editions of classical texts.
[3. ] James Moor (1712–79) was appointed university librarian of the University of Glasgow in 1742 and professor of Greek in 1746. He edited many of the classical texts published by Robert and Andrew Foulis. Robert Foulis married Moor’s sister Elizabeth in September 1742. Moor and the Foulis brothers witnessed Hutcheson’s will on June 30, 1746.
[4. ] Letter of Francis Hutcheson to the Reverend Mr. Thomas Drennan in Belfast, Glasgow, May 31, 1742. MS: Glasgow University Library, MS Gen 1018 no. 11.
[5. ] Duncan, Notices and Documents, 49.
[6. ] Scott, Francis Hutcheson, 144; Hutcheson, On Human Nature, 176.
[7. ] Bodleian Library, Oxford, Vet A4 f. 505 (9). See Stephen, “Francis Hutcheson and the Early History of the Foulis Press,” 213–14. The editors are grateful to Dr. Daniel Carey for bringing this item to their attention.
[8. ]Marcus Aurelius Antoninus the Roman Emperor, His Meditations Concerning Himselfe.
[9. ]The Emperor Marcus Antoninus His Conversation with Himself.
[10. ]Markou Antoninou tou Autokratoros t?n eis heauton biblia 12 (1652).
[11. ]The Meditations of the Emperor Marcus Antoninus, ed. Farquharson, xlvi, xlix.
[12. ]Markou Antoninou tou Autokratoros t?n eis heauton biblia 12 (1697).
[14. ]Markou Antoninou tou Autokratoros t?n eis heauton biblia 12 (1704).
[15. ]Markou Antoninou tou Autokratoros t?n eis heauton biblia 12 (1744).
[16. ] See Moore and Silverthorne, “Hutcheson’s LLD,” 10–12.
[17. ] Hadot, The Inner Citadel, 52, discusses the significance of these technical terms in the vocabulary of the Stoics.
[18. ] See n11, above.
[19. ]The Meditations of the Emperor Marcus Antoninus, ed. Farquharson, vol. 1, p. 21.
[20. ] Shaftesbury, “Sensus Communis, an Essay on the Freedom of Wit and Humour,” in Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times, 48–49, n19.
[23. ] Shaftesbury, “Soliloquy, or Advice to an Author,” in Characteristics, 113.
[24. ] Shaftesbury, “Miscellany IV, Chapter I,” in Characteristics, 423.
[25. ] More’s Enchiridion ethicum (1667) was translated in 1690 as An Account of Virtue: or, Dr. Henry More’s Abridgment of Morals.
[26. ] More, An Account of Virtue, II.5.VII, p. 120.
[27. ] Ibid., I.2.VII, p. 95.
[28. ] Ibid., II.8.XVI, p. 143.
[29. ] Ibid., I.3.VII, p. 17.
[30. ]An Essay on the Nature and Conduct of the Passions and Affections, sec. 2, art. 5, p. 44 (1728 ed.) or p. 40 (2002 ed.).
[31. ]A System of Moral Philosophy, I.5.VII, vol. I, pp. 93–94.
[32. ] Ibid., III.1.XII, vol. II, p. 182.
[33. ] “On the Natural Sociability of Mankind,” in Logic, Metaphysics, and the Natural Sociability of Mankind.
[34. ]An Essay (1728), sec. III, pp. 58–59, or pp. 49–50 (2002); A System I.1.V, vol. I, p. 8.
[35. ]A System I.4.VI, vol. I, p. 61.
[36. ]Illustrations on the Moral Sense, secs. I, II, III.
[37. ] Hutcheson, Inquiry into the Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue (1725; 2004 ed.), sec. I, art. IV, p. 94.
[38. ]Inquiry, sec. VII, pp. 176ff. (2004 ed.).
[39. ] Rivers, Reason, Grace, and Sentiment, vol. 2, p. 160. The term badge seems particularly apposite in this connection, inasmuch as it indicates a connection between the systems of Hutcheson and Marcus that was rarely made explicit by Hutcheson’s followers or by his critics. The reason seems clear: Hutcheson and Moor and the Foulises were careful to preserve the anonymity of the translators and editors of the Glasgow edition of The Meditations. Even the Glasgow translator of Hutcheson’s A Short Introduction to Moral Philosophy (Glasgow, 1747, p. 69) referred to chapter numbers in The Meditations (I, 17 and IX, 48) that do not appear in the Hutcheson-Moor translation, although these chapter numbers do appear in Gataker’s Latin translation, also published by the Foulis Press in 1744. See also note 47, below.
[40. ] Fordyce, Dialogues Concerning Education, II, pp. 340–41, and see Rivers, Reason, Grace, and Sentiment, vol. II, pp. 181–84.
[41. ] See Riversa, Reason, Grace, and Sentiment, vol. 2, pp. 188–89.
[42. ] Ibid., p. 189.
[44. ] Hume, “The Platonist,” in The Philosophical Works, vol. III, p. 212.
[46. ] Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, VII.2.1, pp. 288–91 (1982 ed.). This summary dismissal of The Meditations is taken from the 6th ed. published in 1790. In earlier editions (from the 2nd ed. published in 1761 to the 5th published in 1784) Smith had concluded his discussion of the Stoics on a more positive note: “Such was the philosophy of the stoics. A philosophy which affords the noblest lessons of magnanimity, is the best school of heroes and patriots, and to the greater part of whose precepts there can be no other objection, except that they teach us to aim at a perfection altogether beyond the reach of human nature” (Theory of Moral Sentiments, I.iii.2, p. 60n).
[47. ] Untitled manuscripts: National Library of Scotland MSS 3955 and 3979. Dugald Stewart reported that Robertson had been preparing his own translation of The Meditations “when he was anticipated by an anonymous publication at Glasgow.” “Account of the Life and Writings of William Robertson, D.D.,” p. 106. See also Sher, Church and University in the Scottish Enlightenment, pp. 30 and 181.
[48. ]Dissertatio philosophica inauguralis de fundamentis et obligatione legis naturae.
[50. ] The Hutcheson-Moor translation of Marcus Aurelius was reprinted a number of times and retained its reputation into the twentieth century. A late Victorian translator of Marcus, Gerald H. Rendall, described it as “the choicest alike in form and contents” (Marcus Aurelius Antoninus to Himself, p. iii); and C. R. Haines, the Loeb translator, in a review of English translations, declared it to be “certainly the best translation previous to Long’s, for accuracy and diction, and superior to that in spirit” (The Communings with Himself of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, p. xviii; his reference is to The Thoughts of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, translated by George Long, 1862).

References: art. 1
 art. 5
 art. 5
 art. 2
 art. 38
 art. 19
 art. 19
 art. 13
 art. 19
 art. 28
 art. 55
 art. 24
 art. 12
 art. 25
 art. 1
 art. 1
 art. 54
 art. 7
 art. 59
 art. 59
 art. 8
 art. 31
 art. 8
 art. 3
 art. 5