His pen was so unequal to his tongue that Stewart applies to Hutcheson what Quintilian said of Hortensius: “apparet placuisse aliquid eo dicente quod legentes non invenimus.”—“He gave a pleasure to his hearers which his readers miss.” Hutcheson’s work in Glasgow (1730-1746) was of the utmost importance to Scotland. “I am called the New Light here,” he said. He stood for reform of the universities, for the criticism of abuses and privileges, for free thought, free speech, and the spirit of inquiry. He took a lively interest in his pupils, and tried to keep them abreast of the times. He set Adam Smith to write an analysis of Hume’s _Treatise of Human Nature_ as soon as it appeared, and the lad of seventeen did his exercise so well that Hume got it printed in London and had a copy of the _Treatise_ sent him by way of reward. Hutcheson has been called an eclectic. Certainly he had read widely and thought deeply upon the difficulties and perplexities of a new age, an age of scientific discovery and philosophic doubt, an age tired of the syllogism, disdainful of divine right, eager to find natural principles of morality, law, and government. From the _System of Moral Philosophy_, published after his death, we get a clear notion of the range of his lectures. He considered man as a social animal, and accordingly refused to divorce the science of individual ethics from the science of politics. He followed Aristotle in including chapters on jurisprudence and economics in his scheme of moral philosophy. It has been well said that the same natural liberty and optimism which served Smith as assumptions were the theses of Hutcheson, who himself learned much from Shaftesbury. Hutcheson and Smith were both reformers, and were more hopeful, if less cheerful, than Hume. Hume was a genial cynic without any zeal for reform, who found repose in Butler’s doctrine that things are what they are, and that their consequences will be what they will be. But with Hutcheson and Smith it was a real religion to see that society should be better governed; they made it the supreme object of their lives to increase the happiness of mankind by diffusing useful truths and exposing mischievous errors. In the scope of his philosophy, in temper and practical aim, Smith may be called the spiritual descendant of Hutcheson. There are also marked resemblances in their subject matter and even in some minor points of doctrine, as a careful comparison recently instituted by a very competent writer abundantly shows.[2] We find Smith using the same authorities as his predecessor and quoting them to much the same purpose. Even Hutcheson’s crude and fragmentary economics offered many suggestions that were afterwards developed and harmonised by Smith in his lectures. The Sunday lectures on Natural Theology, by which Hutcheson sought to reduce the intolerance and soften the harshness of Scottish orthodoxy, made a lasting impression upon the mind of his great pupil.