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SHAFTESBURY, ANTHONYASHLEY COOPER, 3R...

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Originally appearing in Volume V24, Page 765 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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SHAFTESBURY, ANTHONYASHLEY See also:COOPER, 3RD See also:EARL OF (1671-1713) , was See also:born at See also:Exeter See also:House in See also:London on the 26th of See also:February 167o/1. He was See also:grandson of the first and son of the second earl. His See also:mother was See also:Lady Dorothy See also:Manners, daughter of See also:John, earl of See also:Rutland. According to a curious See also:story, told by the third earl himself, the See also:marriage between his See also:father and mother was negotiated by John See also:Locke, who was a trusted friend of the first earl. The second See also:Lord Shaftesbury appears to have been a poor creature, both physically and mentally. At the See also:age of three his son was made over to the formal guardianship of his grandfather. Locke, who in hiscapacity of medical attendant to the See also:Ashley See also:household had already assisted in bringing the boy into the See also:world, though not his instructor, was entrusted with the superintendence of his See also:education. This was conducted according to the principles enunciated in Locke's Thoughts concerning (education, and the method of teaching Latin and See also:Greek conversationally was pursued with such success by his instructress, Mrs See also:Elizabeth See also:Birch, that at the age of eleven, it is said, Ashley could read both See also:languages with ease. In See also:November 1683, some months after the See also:death of the first earl, his father entered him at See also:Winchester as a See also:warden's boarder. Being shy and constantly taunted with the opinions and See also:fate of his grandfather, he appears to have been rendered miserable by his schoolfellows, and to have See also:left Winchester in 1686 for a course of See also:foreign travel. He was brought thus into contact with those See also:artistic and classical associations which exercised so marked an See also:influence on his See also:character and opinions. On his travels he did not, we are told by the See also:fourth earl, " greatly seek the conversation of other See also:English See also:young gentlemen on their travels," but rather that of their tutors, with whom he could converse on congenial topics.

In 1689, the See also:

year after the Revolution, Lord Ashley returned to See also:England, and for nearly five years he appears to have led a quiet and studious See also:life. There can be no doubt that the greater See also:part of his See also:attention was directed to the perusal of classical authors, and to the See also:attempt to realize the true spirit of classical antiquity. He had no intention, however, of becoming a recluse, or of permanently holding himself aloof from public life. Accordingly he became a See also:candidate for the See also:borough of See also:Poole, and was returned the 21st of May 1695. He soon distinguished himself by a speech in support of the See also:Bill for Regulating Trials in Cases of See also:Treason, one See also:provision of which was that a See also:person indicated for treason or See also:misprision of treason should be allowed the assistance of counsel. But, though a Whig, alike by descent, by education and by conviction, Ashley could by no means be depended on to give a party See also:vote; he was always ready to support any propositions, from whatever See also:quarter they came, that appeared to him to promote the See also:liberty of the subject and the See also:independence of See also:parliament. Unfortunately, his See also:health was so treacherous that, on the See also:dissolution of See also:July 1698, he was obliged to retire from See also:parliamentary life. He suffered much from See also:asthma, a complaint which was aggravated by the London See also:smoke. Lord Ashley now retired into See also:Holland, where he became acquainted with Le Clerc, See also:Bayle, See also:Benjamin Furly, the English Quaker See also:merchant, at whose house Locke had resided during his stay at See also:Rotterdam, and probably See also:Limborch and the See also:rest of the See also:literary circle of which Locke had been a cherished and honoured member nine or ten years before. To Lord Ashley this society was probably far more congenial than his surroundings in England. Unrestrained conversation on the topics which most interested him—See also:philosophy, politics, morals, See also:religion—was at this See also:time to be had in Holland with less danger and in greater abundance than in any other See also:country in the world. To the See also:period of this sojourn in Holland must probably be referred the surreptitious impression or publication of an imperfect edition of the Inquiry concerning Virtue, from a rough See also:draught, sketched when he was only twenty years of age.

This liberty was taken, during his See also:

absence, by See also:Toland. After an absence of over a twelvemonth, Ashley returned to England, and soon succeeded his father as earl of Shaftesbury. He took an active part, on the Whig See also:side, in the See also:general See also:election of 1700-1701, and again, with more success, in that of the autumn of 1701. It is said that See also:William III. showed his appreciation of Shaftesbury's services on this latter occasion by offering him a secretaryship of See also:state, which, however, his declining health compelled him to decline. Had the See also:king's life continued, Shaftesbury's influence at See also:court would probably have been considerable. After the first few See also:weeks of See also:Anne's reign, Shaftesbury, who had been deprived of the See also:vice-See also:admiralty of See also:Dorset, returned to his retired life, but his letters to Furly show that he retained a keen See also:interest in politics. In See also:August 1703 he again settled in Holland, in the See also:air of which he seems, like Locke, to have had See also:great faith. At Rotterdam he lived, he says in a See also:letter to his steward Wheelock, at the See also:rate of less than £200 a year, and yet had much " to dispose of and spend beyond convenient living." He returned to England, much improved in health, in August 1704. But, though he had received immediate benefit from his stay abroad, symptoms of See also:consumption were constantly alarming him, and he gradually became a confirmed invalid. His occupations were now almost exclusively literary, and from this time forward he was probably engaged in See also:writing, completing or revising the See also:treatises which were afterwards included in the Characteristics. He continued, however, to take a warm interest in politics, both See also:home and foreign, and especially in the See also:war against See also:France, of which he was an enthusiastic supporter. Shaftesbury was nearly See also:forty before he married, and even then he appears to have taken this step at the urgent instigation of his See also:friends, mainly to See also:supply a successor to the See also:title.

The See also:

object of his choice (or rather of his second choice, for an earlier project of marriage had shortly before fallen through) was a See also:Miss Jane Ewer, the daughter of a See also:gentleman in See also:Hertfordshire. The marriage took See also:place in the autumn of 1709, and on February 9, 1710/I, was born at his house at See also:Reigate, in See also:Surrey, his only See also:child and See also:heir, the fourth earl, to whose See also:manuscript accounts we are in great part indebted for the details of his father's life. The match appears to have been happy, though Shaftesbury had little sentiment on the subject of married life. With the exception of a See also:Preface to the Sermons of Dr See also:Whichcote, one of the See also:Cambridge Platonists or latitudinarians, published in 1698, Shaftesbury appears to have printed nothing himself till 1708. About this time the See also:French prophets, See also:Camisards (q.v.), as they were called, attracted much attention by their extravagances and follies. Various repressive remedies were proposed, but Shaftesbury maintained that fanaticism was best encountered by " raillery " and " See also:good-See also:humour." In support of this view he wrote a letter Concerning See also:Enthusiasm to Lord See also:Somers, dated See also:September 1707, which was published anonymously in the following year, and provoked several replies. In May 1709 he returned to the subject, and printed another letter, entitled Sensus Communis, an See also:Essay on the Freedom of Wit and Humour. In the same year he also published The Moralists, a Philosophical Rhapsody, and in the following year Soliloquy, or See also:Advice to an Author. None of these pieces seems to have been printed either with his name or his See also:initials. In 1711 appeared the Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times, in three volumes, also without any name or initials on the title-See also:page, and without even the name of a printer. These volumes contain in addition to the four treatises already mentioned, See also:Miscellaneous Reflections, now first printed, and the Inquiry concerning Virtue or II chit, described as " formerly printed from an imperfect copy, now corrected and published intire," and as " printed first in the year 1699." The declining state of Shaftesbury's health rendered it necessary for him to seek a warmer See also:climate, and in July 1711 he set out for See also:Italy. He settled at See also:Naples in November, and lived there considerably over a year.

His See also:

principal occupation at this time must have consisted in preparing for the See also:press a second edition of the Characteristics, which appeared in 1713, soon after his death. The copy, carefully corrected in his own See also:handwriting, is preserved in the See also:British Museum. He was also engaged, during his stay at Naples, in writing the little See also:treatise (afterwards included in the Characteristics) entitled A Notion of the See also:Historical Draught or Tablature of the See also:Judgment of See also:Hercules, and the letter concerning See also:Design. A little before his death he had also formed a See also:scheme of writing a Discourse on the Arts of See also:Painting, See also:Sculpture, See also:Etching, &c., but when he died he had made but little progress with it. " Medals, and pictures, and antiquities," he writes to Furly, " are our See also:chief entertainments here." His conversation was with men of See also:art and See also:science, " the virtuosi of this place." The events preceding the See also:peace of See also:Utrecht, which he regarded as preparing the way for a See also:base See also:desertion of our See also:allies, greatly troubled the last months of Shaftesbury's life. He did not, however, live to see the actual conclusion of the treaty (See also:March 31, 1713)i as he died the See also:month before, February 4, 1712/3. He had not completed his forty-second year. His See also:body was brought back by See also:sea to England and buried at St See also:Giles's, the See also:family seat in See also:Dorsetshire. His only son, See also:Anthony Ashley, succeeded him as 4th earl, and his great-grandson was the famous philanthropist, the 7th earl. Shaftesbury's amiability of character seems to have been one of his principal characteristics. Like Locke he had a See also:peculiar See also:pleasure in bringing forward young men. Among these may be especially mentioned See also:Michael See also:Ainsworth, a native of See also:Wimborne St Giles, the young See also:man who was the recipient of the Letters addressed to a student at the university, and was maintained by Shaftesbury at University See also:College, See also:Oxford.

The interest which Shaftesbury took in his studies, and the See also:

desire that he should be specially fitted for the profession which he had selected, that of a clergyman of the See also:Church of England, are marked features of the letters. Other proteges were See also:Crell, a young See also:Pole, the two young Furlys and Harry See also:Wilkinson, a boy who was sent into Furly's See also:office at Rotterdam, and to whom several of the letters still extant in the See also:Record Office are addressed. In the popular mind, Shaftesbury is generally regarded as a writer hostile to religion. But, however See also:short his orthodoxy might fall if tried by the See also:standards of any particular church, his temperament was pre-eminently religious. This fact is shown in his letters. The belief in a See also:God, all-See also:wise, all-just and all-merciful, governing the world providentially for the best, pervades all his See also:works, his See also:correspondence and his life. Nor had he any wish to undermine established beliefs, except where he conceived that they conflicted with a truer religion and a purer morality. To the public ordinances of the church he scrupulously See also:con-formed. But, unfortunately, there were many things both in the teaching and the practice of the ecclesiastics of that. See also:day which were calculated to repel men of sober judgment and high principle. These evil tendencies in the popular presentation of See also:Christianity undoubtedly begot in Shaftesbury's mind a certain amount of repugnance and contempt to some of the doctrines of Christianity itself; and, cultivating, almost of set purpose, his sense of the ridiculous, he was too See also:apt to assume towards such doctrines and their teachers a See also:tone of raillery. But, whatever might be Shaftesbury's speculative opinions or his mode of expressing them, all witnesses See also:bear testimony to the See also:elevation and purity of his life and aims. As an See also:earnest student, and ardent See also:lover of liberty, an enthusiast in the cause of virtue, and a man of unblemished life and untiring beneficence, Shaftesbury probably had no See also:superior in his See also:generation.

His character and pursuits are the more remarkable, considering the See also:

rank of life in which he was born and the circumstances under which he was brought up. In many respects he reminds us of the imperial philosopher See also:Marcus Aurelius, whose works he studied with avidity, and whose influence is stamped upon his own productions. Most of Shaftesbury's writings have been already mentioned. In addition to these there have been published fourteen letters from Shaftesbury to See also:Molesworth, edited by Toland in 1721; some letters to Benjamin Furly, his sons, and his clerk Harry Wilkinson, included in a See also:volume entitled See also:Original Letters of Locke, See also:Sidney and Shaftesbury, which was published by Mr T. Fcrster in 183o, and again in an enlarged See also:form in 1847; three letters, written respectively to Stringer, Lord Oxford and Lord See also:Godolphin, which appeared, for the first time, in the General See also:Dictionary; and lastly a letter to Le Clerc, in his re-collections of Locke, first published in Notes and Queries, Feb. 8, 1851. The Letters to a Young Man at the University (Michael Ainsworth), already mentioned, were first published in 1716. The Letter on Design was first published in the edition of the Characteristics issued in 1732. Besides the published writings, there are several memoranda, letters, rough drafts, &c., in the Shaftesbury papers in the Record Office. Shaftesbury took great pains in the elaboration of his See also:style, and he succeeded so far as to make his meaning transparent. The thought is always clear. But, on the other See also:hand, he did not equally succeed in attaining elegance, an object at which he seems equally to have aimed.

There is a curious affectation about his style—a falsetto See also:

note—which, notwithstanding all his efforts to please, is often irritating to the reader. Its See also:main characteristic is perhaps best See also:hit off by See also:Charles See also:Lamb when he calls it " genteel." He poses too much as a See also:fine gentleman, and is so anxious not to be taken for a See also:pedant of the vulgar scholastic See also:kind that he falls into the hardly more attractive pedantry of the aesthete and virtuoso. But he is easily read and understood. Hence, probably, the wide popularity which his works enjoyed in the 18th See also:century; and hence the agreeable feeling with which, notwithstanding all their false See also:taste and their tiresome digressions, they impress the See also:modern reader. Shaftesbury's philosophical importance (see See also:ETHICS) is due mainly to his ethical speculations, in which his See also:motive was primarily the refutaticn of See also:Hobbes's egoistic See also:doctrine. By the method of empirical See also:psychology, he examined man first as a unit in himself and secondly in his wider relations to the larger See also:units of society and the universe of mankind. His great principle was that of See also:Harmony or See also:Balance, and he based it on the general ground of good taste or feeling as opposed to the method of See also:reason. (I) In the first place man as an individual is a complex of appetites, passions, affections, more or less perfectly controlled by the central reason. In the moral man these factors are duly balanced. " Whoever," he says, " is in the least versed in this moral kind of See also:architecture will find the inward fabric so adjusted, . that the barely extending of a single See also:passion too far or the continuance . . . of it too See also:long, is able to bring irrecoverable ruin and misery " (Inquiry concerning Virtue or Merit, Bk. II. ii. r).

(2) As a social being, man is part of a greater harmony, and, in See also:

order that he may contribute to the happiness of the whole, he must order his extra-regarding activities so that they shall not clash with his environs. Only when he has regulated his See also:internal and his social relations by this ideal can he be regarded as ruly moral. The egoist and the altruist are both imperfect. In the ripe perfection of humanity, the two impulses will be perfectly adjusted. Thus, by the criterion of harmony, Shaftesbury refutes Hobbes, and deduces the virtue of benevolence as indispensable to morality. So also he has See also:drawn a See also:close parallel between the moral and the aesthetic criteria. Just as there is a See also:faculty which apprehends beauty in the See also:sphere of art, so there is in the sphere of ethics a faculty which determines the value of actions. This faculty he described (for the first time in English thought) as the Moral Sense (see H UTC HESON) or See also:Conscience (cf. See also:BUTLER). In its essence, it is primarily emotional and non-reflective; in See also:process of development it becomes rationalized by education and use. The emotional and the rational elements in the " moral sense " Shaftesbury did not fully analyse (see HOME). From this principle, it follows (r) that the distinction between right and wrong is part of the constitution of human nature; (2) that morality stands apart from See also:theology, and the moral qualities of actions are determined apart from the arbitrary will of God; (3) that the ultimate test of an See also:action is its tendency to promote the general harmony or welfare; (4) that appetite and reason concur in the determination of action; and (5) that the moralist is not concerned to solve the problem of freewill and See also:determinism.

From these results we see that Shaftesbury, opposed to Hobbes and Locke, is in close agreement with See also:

Hutcheson (q.v.), and that he is ultimately a deeply religious thinker, inasmuch as he discards the moral See also:sanction of public See also:opinion, the terrors of future See also:punishment, the authority of the See also:civil authority, as the main incentives to goodness, and substitutes the See also:voice of conscience and the love of God. These two alone move men to aim at perfect harmony for its own See also:sake in the man and in the universe. Shaftesbury's philosophical activity was confined to ethics, See also:aesthetics and religion. For See also:metaphysics, properly so called, and even psychology, except so far as it afforded a basis for ethics, he evidently had no taste. See also:Logic he probably despised as merely an See also:instrument of pedants—a judgment for which, in his day, and especially at the See also:universities, there was only too much ground. The main object of the Moralists is to propound a See also:system of natural theology, and to vindicate, so far as natural religion is concerned, the ways of God to man. The articles of Shaftesbury's religious creed were few and See also:simple, but these he entertained with a conviction amounting to enthusiasm. They may briefly be summed up as a belief in one God whose most characteristic attribute is universal benevolence, in the moral See also:government of the universe, and in a future state of man making up for the imperfections and repairing the inequalities of the See also:present life. Shaftesbury is emphatically an optimist, but there is a passage in the Moralists (pt. ii. See also:sect. 4) which would See also:lead us to suppose that he regarded See also:matter as an indifferent principle, coexistent and coeternal with God, limiting His operations, and the cause of the evil and imperfection which, notwithstanding the benevolence of the Creator, is still to be found in His See also:work. If this view of his optimism he correct, Shaftesbury, as See also:Mill says of See also:Leibnitz, must be regarded as maintaining, not that this is the best of all imaginable but only of all possible worlds. This brief See also:notice of Shaftesbury's scheme of natural religion would be conspicuously imperfect unless it were added that it is popularized in See also:Pope's Essay on Man, several lines of which, especially of the first See also:epistle, are simply statements from the Moralists done into See also:verse.

Whether, however, these were taken immediately by pope from Shaftesbury, or whether they came to him through the papers which See also:

Bolingbroke had prepared for his use, we have no means of determining. The influence of Shaftesbury's writings was considerable both at home and abroad. His ethical system was reproduced, though in a more precise and philosophical form, by Hutcheson, and from him descended, with certain See also:variations, to See also:Hume and See also:Adam See also:Smith. Nor was it without its effect even on the speculations of Butler. Ofthe so-called deists Shaftesbury was probably the most important, as he was certainly the most plausible and the most respectable. No sooner had the Characteristics appeared than they were welcomed, in terms of warm See also:commendation, by Le Clerc and Leibnitz. In 1745 See also:Diderot adapted or reproduced the Inquiry concerning Virtue in what was afterwards known as his Essai sur le Merite et la Vertu. In 1769 a French See also:translation of the whole of Shaftesbury's works, including the Letters, was published at See also:Geneva. See also:Translations of See also:separate treatises into See also:German began to be made in 1738, and in 1776–1779 there appeared a See also:complete German translation of the Characteristics. See also:Hermann See also:Hettner says that not only Leibnitz, See also:Voltaire and Diderot, but See also:Lessing, Mendelssohn, See also:Wieland and See also:Herder, See also:drew the most stimulating nutriment from Shaftesbury. " His charms," he adds, " are ever fresh. A new-born See also:Hellenism, or divine cultus of beauty presented itself before his inspired soul." Herder is especially eulogistic.

In the Adrastea he pronounces the Moralists to be a See also:

composition in form well-nigh worthy of Grecian antiquity, and in its contents almost superior to it. The interest See also:felt by German literary men in Shaftesbury was revived by the publication of two excellent monographs, one dealing with him mainly from the theological side by Dr See also:Gideon Spicker (See also:Freiburg in See also:Baden, 1872), the other dealing with him mainly from the philosophical side by Dr Georg von Gizycki (See also:Leipzig, 1876). (T. F.; J. M. M.) AUTFIoRITIES.—In Dr See also:Thomas See also:Fowler's monograph on Shaftesbury and Hutcheson in the See also:series of " English philosophers " (1882) he was able largely to supplement the printed materials for the Life by extracts from the Shaftesbury papers in the Record Office. These include, besides many letters and memoranda, two Lives of him, composed by his son, the fourth earl, one of which is evidently the original, though it is by no means always closely followed, of the Life contributed by Dr Birch to the General Dictionary. For a description and See also:criticism of Shaftesbury's philosophy reference may also be made to See also:James See also:Mackintosh's Progress of Ethical Philosophy, W. See also:Whewell's See also:History of Moral Philosophy in England, See also:Jouffroy's Introduction to Ethics (See also:Channing's translation), See also:Sir See also:Leslie See also:Stephen's English Thought in the Eighteenth Century, See also:Martineau's Types of Ethical Theory, Windclband's History of Philosophy (Eng. trans., 1893) ; W. M. See also:Hatch's unfinished edition with appendices of the Characteristics (187o); J. M.

See also:

Robertson's edition of the Characteristics (1900); B. See also:Rand's Life (1900). For his relation to the religious and theological controversies of his day, see, in addition to some of the above works, J. See also:Leland,View of the Principal Deistical Writers, V. See also:Lechler, Geschichte See also:des Englischen Deismus, J. See also:Hunt, Religious Thought in England, C. J. See also:Abbey and J. H. Overton, English Church in the Eighteenth Century and A. S. See also:Farrar's See also:Bampton Lectures; G.

Zart, Einfiuss der englischen Philosophen seit See also:

Bacon auf See also:die deutsche Philosophic des 18ten Jahrhunderts (See also:Berlin, 1881).

End of Article: SHAFTESBURY, ANTHONYASHLEY COOPER, 3RD EARL OF (1671-1713)

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