My essay about Francis Hutcheson has been printed as a booklet by the Reclaim the Enlightenment group in Belfast and I’m pretty pleased. Ever since I read Damian Smyth’s seminal Fortnight supplement in 1992, I’ve been fascinated by the man. That’s thirty years of reading his work, undertaking talks about him, arguing his relevance and supporting those keen friends in Dublin and in Saintfield, Co.Down who have tried to create some kind of overdue Irish legacy. That’s whether it be a regular walking tour and plaque in the Irish capital or a plaque and (someday) a statue in the heart of Saintfield.
I guess that there is something vital about finding that a man (or woman) of immense intellectual stature was born, grew up and was educated in the part of the world where you did the same, centuries later. It’s kind of re-affirming, especially when you experienced your boyhood landscape as a place clouded by the demeaning shadow of the Troubles.
However there is also much appeal for me in Hutcheson’s belief in the positive, the good and the beautiful within human affairs. He writes about the ‘secret chain’ that links human beings together with ties of affection and asserts the primacy of a moral sense inside us all. He considers children to be very capable of goodness and kindness. Such a vision is no mere bland optimism. Hutcheson inherited an Irish and Scottish world that had been mired in 17th century conflict, disputation, sectarianism and terrible bloodshed. Like several other thinkers and writers, I think that he chose to emphasise the power of love, healing, kindness and hope despite and because of such darkness.
In that regard I am especially drawn to how St Julian of Norwich conceived of a God of love in the midst of the Black Death and I am struck by Etty Hillesum’s Jewish testimony to joy and worship even in the midst of the Nazi horror that would end up swallowing her and her family.
I recommend you buy my booklet if you want to know more! It’s only £4 and although my website is set up to sell The Illustrated History of Flight rather than The Secret Chain, we can work out a transaction. The money goes to the Reclaim the Enlightenment group, not to me.