The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Foreword
• A Note On the Text
• Preface
• A Letter, &c.
• An Essay, &c.
• Advice, &c.

A NOTE ON THE TEXT

This edition of Shaftesbury’s Characteristicks is based upon the 1732 edition. The Characteristicks was first published in 1711, but was revised in 1713 by Shaftesbury before his death. The 1714 edition is therefore the edition most often considered as the reference point for other editions. It includes Shaftesbury’s emblematic images and “A Notion of the Historical Draught or Tablature of the Judgment of Hercules.” Despite its inclusion in the 1714 edition, it seems not to be the case that the “Judgment of Hercules” was meant for the Characteristicks. The emblematic images, however, certainly were, for they were carefully designed in detail by Shaftesbury himself. The “Judgment of Hercules” along with the “Letter Concerning Design” were meant for a separate publication, but the latter gets included for the first time in the 1732 edition and remains through the 1790 edition. The reason we have chosen to include these two pieces in this Liberty Fund edition has to do with our presentation of the emblematic images. The images were designed to be part of the text of the Characteristicks, but have been virtually invisible since the eighteenth century. To include them now would seem to raise some interest in Shaftesbury’s aesthetic views and thus in any direct statements he may have made about that matter. These two pieces offer some insight to the modern reader who is now rather distant from Shaftesbury himself. Moreover, these works (along with the images) were very much a part of the eighteenth century’s familiarity with this work.

A guiding principle of this edition has been to invite the modern reader into it. Shaftesbury’s main audience may have been those who were educated but who may not have been specialists or scholars. We therefore sought to produce an attractive “readable” edition. Apart from modernizing the letters, we have taken some other steps to make the text accessible to modern readers. The text of the Characteristicks contains many Latin and Greek quotations. Today, even scholarly audiences, unless specially trained, are not able to read through these easily. In the Robertson edition—the most familiar English-language edition of the twentieth century—most of these passages have been translated in footnotes. We have done the opposite. We have moved the Robertson translations to the body of the text and the original language quotations to the footnotes. Because Robertson was the most extant edition of the twentieth century, we have kept his translations. However, Dr. Evanthia Speliotis reviewed the translations of the Greek, and Daniel Mahoney and Kathleen Alvis reviewed the translations of the Latin to see if there were any egregious errors. They also did the translations for those passages that Robertson somehow failed to translate. Unless we found a serious error or other fatal flaw, we retained the Robertson translation even if a “better” or more literal rendering could be imagined.

This edition of the Characteristicks is in three volumes, as the original was. Included is Shaftesbury’s original index. This index has sometimes been abandoned in later editions on the grounds that it was an inadequate and outmoded search device. It was, however, an index Shaftesbury did himself. It is often rather unusual in its entries (see for example what he has listed under “philosophy”), and for that reason may be useful as a tool of interpretation. Rather than transfer Shaftesbury’s page numbers listed in the index into our own, we have inserted them in brackets in the margins, with the precise point where the page begins indicated by an inverted caret in the text. Shaftesbury’s footnote cross-references also refer to these pages. Including the original page numbers has an additional advantage when it comes to the images. With each image that began an essay, Shaftesbury offered the page numbers where passages could be found that help to explain the meaning of the image. Retaining the original page numbers allows this referencing to be more easily accomplished.

Finally, we have sought to keep the text as free as possible from scholarly apparatus and commentary. There are recent scholarly editions of the Characteristicks in English, most notably the one by Lawrence Klein for Cambridge University Press and the one by Philip Ayres for Oxford University Press. These editions are well worth consultation. The Liberty Fund publishing mission, however, is one that generally seeks to minimize such insertions whenever possible. In the end, our hope—somewhat like Shaftesbury’s own—is to have an edition that engages any educated reader as well as the scholar.

volume i

A Letter concerning Enthusiasm.

Sensus Communis; an Essay on the Freedom of Wit and Humour.

Soliloquy, or Advice to an Author.

volume ii

An Inquiry concerning Virtue and Merit.

The Moralists; a Philosophical Rhapsody.

volume iii

Miscellaneous Reflections on the said Treatises, and other critical Subjects.

A Notion of the Historical Draught, or Tablature of the Judgment of Hercules. With a Letter concerning Design.

Characteristicks

volume i

A Letter concerning Enthusiasm.

Sensus Communis; an Essay on the Freedom of Wit and Humour.

Soliloquy, or Advice to an Author.

Printed in the Year M.DCC.XXXII.