regarded only truly spiritual persons as having a ''truly spiritual sense or virtuous taste.''
∑Ω∂ Notes to Pages 466–70
14. Cf. Roy Porter, The Creation of the Modern World: The Untold Story of the British Enlightenment (New York, 2000), 175–76. The idea that private vices beget public benefits was suggested by Bernard Mandeville and even by Alexander Pope in the first half of the century, well before one finds it in David Hume and Adam Smith.
15. Cf. Taylor, Sources of the Self, 248–302. 16. Ned Landsman, From Colonials to Provincials: American Thought and Culture, 1680–1760 (New York: Twayne, 1997), 3–4. See also Ned Landsman, Scotland and Its First American Colony, 1683–1765 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985); Henry May, The Enlightenment in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976), 342–50. William Small, a Scottish advocate of Hutcheson's thought, came to the College of William and Mary in 1758 where he was Thomas Je√erson's most influential teacher. Garry Wills, Inventing America: Je√erson's Declaration of Independence (New York: Doubleday, 1978), 176–80. John Witherspoon, an orthodox Presbyterian Scottish moralist, became president of Princeton in 1766, taught James Madison, and was himself an influential signer of the Declaration of Independence.
17. Edwards to John Erskine, December 11, 1755, Works, 16: 679. 18. The Nature of True Virtue, Works, 8: 539, 560, 557, 551. Edwards recognized that almost all the contemporary philosophers included some mention of duty to God. Yet he regarded them as simply adding that on theories based ''on benevolence to the created system.'' ''If true virtue consists partly in a respect to God,'' he countered, ''then doubtless it consists chiefly in it.'' Ibid., 552–53.
19. Ibid., 540. 20. Francis Hutcheson, An Essay on the Nature and Conduct of the Passions and A√ections (London, 1728), 210–11, quotation p. 211.
21. True Virtue, Works, 8: 611. 22. Ibid., 540. 23. Ibid., 568–72. On the subtle distinctions between Edwards' and other eighteenthcentury formulations, see Fiering, Jonathan Edwards's Moral Thought, e.g., 345.
24. True Virtue, Works, 8: 613–14. Justice is an objective concept having to do with proportion, so anyone might appreciate it as a ''secondary beauty,'' and even evil persons may promote justice. True virtue, on the other hand, has ultimately to do with motive. True benevolence to being in general will entail a hearty approval of all justice and benevolence. The di√erence is that true virtue is based on the most extensive love for persons, whereas a love for justice, without true virtue, is more like a love for the proportions of the shapes of nature or of music. Ibid., 568–73.
25. Ibid., 555–56. 26. Edwards made this point in the context of pointing out that ''self-love'' is not bad if it simply means to love our own happiness, which is simply to love what we love. The question is whether our happiness, or our disposition, is ultimately defined by private or selfish interests or by God's universal interests. Ibid., 576–77.
27. Whereas Hutcheson argued that natural humans had a moral sense, Edwards regarded only truly spiritual persons as having a ''truly spiritual sense or virtuous taste.'' Ibid., 596. Edwards argued, for instance, that a gang of robbers will have a natural sense of gratitude to someone who warns them that the sheri√ is about to raid their hideaway. So their natural moral sentiments are not to be relied upon to approve of that which is in the public interest. Ibid., 583.