HUTTON, JAMES (b. Edinburgh, Scotland, 3 June 1726; d. Edinburgh, 26 March 1797), geology, agriculture, physical sciences, philosophy.

    claimed that phlogiston was actually formed by vegetative matter and decomposed during the processes of breathing and burning.

Thomas Thomson, when discussing Hutton's views on phlogiston, described him as “a man of undoubted genius,” but stated also that his views were set out in a “manner so peculiar, that it is scarcely more difficult to procure the secrets of science from Nature herself, than to dig them from the writings of this philosopher.”9 Fortunately Hutton's conception of the nature and function of phlogiston has been discussed by J. A. Partington and D. McKie in sufficient detail to meet the needs of most readers.

Part 3 of the Dissertations on ... Natural Philosophy, entitled “Physical Dissertations on the Powers of Matter, and Appearances of Bodies,” constitutes more than half the book and contains Hutton's theory of matter. Briefly summarized, this theory suggests that to describe a body as made of small particles does not explain its nature, because if we suppose these particles to possess magnitude, we do no more than say large bodies are made of smaller bodies. Therefore the elements of a body must be something unextended. To these elements he gave the name “matter,” reserving the name “body” to combinations of matter subject to powers or forces acting in various directions. He uses this conception to explain the various physical properties of bodies. Playfair emphasized the close affinity of Hutton's theory to that of Bošcović, but he states specifically there was no reason to suppose Hutton had derived his conclusions from the latter. According to Playfair, Bošcović's theory was hardly known in Scotland before 1770, whereas the earliest sketches of Hutton's theory were of much earlier date.10

Hutton continued his discussion of phlogiston in his last book, Philosophy of Light, Heat, and Fire (1794). Here he also raised the question whether there might be a species of light capable of producing heat in bodies without affecting the sense of sight. This idea, he stated, had been suggested to him by his own experience, and he hoped to test it accurately when suitable apparatus could be constructed. He proposed the use of either a prism or colored glass to produce both red and blue light, but the only experiment he actually carried out was a crude one. He adjusted the position of two sources of light, a coal fire for red light, and a flame for “compound” or white light, so that each source just permitted him to read, and he found that the amount of heat given off by the fire was much greater than that from the flame. He suggested, by analogy, that invisible light should exist, which would form a source of heat greater than that produced by the visible range of the spectrum. A few years later, William Herschel investigated the subject more thoroughly, confirming Hutton's suggestion.

Hutton's last contribution to chemistry was a paper on the “Sulphurating of Metals,” read to the Royal Society of Edinburgh by a friend on 9 May 1796. The subject is discussed in terms of Hutton's ideas about light, heat, and phlogiston, and a correction is made of a conclusion he had drawn in Light, Heat, and Fire.

Philosophy.

In 1794 Hutton published a three-volume treatise on metaphysics and moral philosophy entitled An Investigation of the Principles of Knowledge. This work followed on or arose out of his studies of the physical sciences. It received little notice when it first appeared, but Playfair discussed it in some detail and suggested that if the work were abridged and the obscurities removed it would deserve more attention. It has received little if any notice since Playfair's time. In the Principles of Knowledge Hutton acknowledged the existence of a God whom he defined as “the superintending mind ... a Being with perfect knowledge and absolute wisdom.” He considered nature as subordinate to God, and that the two terms were not synonymous, for God is infinite and unchangeable, but nature limited and changing. While he included the animal, vegetable, and mineral systems as part of nature's general design, the term “nature” properly meant the whole of that action from which, in necessarily inferring design, we learn the existence of a superintending being.

Although occasionally accused of impiety in his lifetime, Hutton was not an atheist, and may be described as a deist. In almost all that he wrote, not only on geology but on agriculture and physical subjects as well, he introduced his belief that in nature there is abundant evidence of benevolent wisdom and design. To Hutton the earth as a whole was “a machine constructed upon chemical as well as mechanical principles, by which its different parts are all adapted, in form, in quality, and in quantity, to a certain end ... an end from which we may perceive wisdom in contemplating the means employed” (“Theory” [1788], p. 216). The earth, in Hutton's view, was evidently made for man, and once the working of the machine is understood, man will be led “to acknowledge an order, not unworthy of Divine wisdom, in a subject which, in another view, has appeared as the work of chance, or absolute disorder and confusion” (ibid., p. 210).

Hutton's attitude toward the Christian religion was recorded in a brief (unpublished) manuscript entitled “Memorial Justifying the Present Theory of the Earth From the Suspicion of Impiety,” which was