Francis, the father, or at least the reviver, of speculative philosophy in Scotland, was born, August 8, 1694, in Ireland, but in what part of that country is unknown. His father was a minister of the Presbyterian Church, and Hutcheson himself studied theology in Glasgow with the view of following out his father's career. On taking licence he became pastor of a Presbyterian congregation in the synod of Ulster, and while there published his Inquiry into the Original of our Ideas on Beauty and Virtue, a work which made his name widely known, and introduced him to the notice of King, the archbishop of Dublin, himself well known in his day as a writer on ethical subjects. In 1728 Hutcheson published his essay on the Nature and Conduct of the Passions and Affections, in virtue of which he was in the following year promoted to the chair of moral philosophy in Glasgow. His next works were mere text-books for the use of his classes, and were respectively entitled Synopsis Metaphysicae Ontologiae et Pneumatologiae Complectens; and Philosophiae Moralis institutio Compendiaria, Ethices et Jurisprudentiae Naturalis principia Complectens. The work on which his chief fame as an ethical writer depends, however, did not appear till after his death, which took place at Glasgow in 1747. It was published in 2 vols. 4to, under the title of System of Moral Philosophy, by his son Dr F. Hutcheson, and was prefaced with an excellent biographical sketch of the author by Dr Leechman. For analyses of Hutcheson's system, and the place it holds in the history of speculative philosophy, see Preliminary Dissertations I. and II. prefixed to this work, by Dugald Stewart and Sir James Mackintosh respectively.