Francis Hutcheson Quotes on Knowledge
Francis Hutcheson was an Irish-born philosopher and the leading figure of the early Scottish Enlightenment. This page collects quotes attributed to Francis Hutcheson on the topic of knowledge, drawn from across the philosopher's works.
Quotes
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“Wisdom is the pursuit of the best ends by the best means.”
An Inquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue (1725), Treatise I, Sect. V -
“Whence this secret Chain between each Person and Mankind? How is my Interest connected with the most distant Parts of it?”
An Inquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue (1725), Treatise II: An Inquiry concerning Moral Good and Evil, Sect. I -
“Letter to the Author of the Dublin Journal, published in The Dublin Weekly Journal , No. 12 (19 June 1725), p. 46; later published in Reflections Upon Laughter (1750); and in Thoughts upon Laughter, and Observations on the Fable of the Bees (1758), p. 50”
Another valuable purpose of ridicule is with relation to smaller vices, which are often more effectually corrected by ridicule, than by grave admonition. Men have been laughed out of faults which a sermon could not reform ; nay, there are many little indecencies which are improper to be mentioned in such solemn discourses. Now ridicule with contempt or ill-nature, is indeed always irritating and o -
“The Dublin Weekly Journal , No. 12 (19 June 1725)”
Wikiquote -
“Book II, Ch. III, § I”
A good man deliberating which of several actions proposed he shall choose, regards and compares the material goodness of them, and then is determined by his moral sense invariably preferring that which appears most conducive to the happiness and virtue of mankind.