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IV. JAMES ARBUCKLE AND HIS RELATION TO THE MOLESWORTH-SHAFTESBURY SCHOOL. BY W. B. SCOTT. SIB JAMES MACKINTOSH, in writing of Hutcheson's life at Dublin, says that Ireland "is truly incuriosa suorum" 1 and this remark applies with greater force to the work of James Arbuckle, the contemporary and friend of Hutcheson ; though in introducing it one is liable to make an Irish " bull," since Arbuckle, though he lived in Dublin, was of Scotch extrac- tion, and had been educated at Glasgow. It would scarcely be necessary to rake together the ashes of the past to form an estimate of an obscure minor thinker such as Arbuckle, were it not that his work constitutes a few pages in what might be described as a lost chapter in the history of British Philosophy. Whether Hutcheson's title as " father " or " founder " of the " Scottish Philosophy " be accepted or not, his connexion with Shaftesbury needs some fuller explanation than it has yet received. All historians of Philosophy, who treat of Hutcheson, show that there was a more or less close connexion between his system and the ethical " virtuosoship" of Shaftesbury. Now Shaftesbury was essentially English, by birth, residence and mode of thought, while Hutcheson was, of course, best known as a celebrated and influential Professor at Glasgow. Yet Hutcheson's views are generally taken as having been fully formed prior to his arrival at Glasgow, and there is abundant evidence to show that he received his main philosophic impetus while living as a young man at Dublin. How exactly this came about could scarcely be explained within the limits of a single article, and one must be content with a bare mention of the interesting fact that in Shaftesbury we have the germ of what is known as the " Scottish Philosophy" that is, the germ may be said to be English this germ was developed by Hutcheson and others at Dublin, and the complete pro- duct gained academic expression and popular recognition in Scotland. Were we not growing familiar with the somewhat 1 Dissertation on Ethical Philosophy, p. 204.