Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times

Introduction

In 1711 Shaftesbury collected five earlier treatises in three volumes and added “Miscellaneous Reflections” on them. They include “A Letter Concerning Enthusiasm” (1708), the essay on the freedom of wit and humour “Sensus Communis” (1709), the dialogue “The Moralists” and “An Inquiry Concerning Virtue, or Merit”, in which the term “moral sense” appears. The second edition of 1714 was illustrated with engravings planned by Shaftesbury himself. The work was reprinted many times in the eighteenth century; Diderot translated the Inquiry into French, and the German Enlightenment read Shaftesbury intensively.

Connections

Criticizes

• Leviathan1651 · Thomas Hobbes

Taken up in

• An Inquiry into the Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue1725 · Francis Hutcheson