TUCKER, ABRAHAM (1705-1774)

This article appears in Volume V27, Page 361 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

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TUCKER, ABRAHAM (1705-1774) , English moralist, was born in London, of a Somerset family, on the 2nd of September 1705, son of a wealthy city merchant. His parents dying during his infancy, he was brought up by his uncle, Sir Isaac Tillard. In 1721 he entered Merton College, Oxford, as a gentle;nan commoner, and studied philosophy, mathematics, French, Italian and music. He afterwards studied law at the Inner Temple, but was never called to the bar. In 1727 he bought Betchworth Castle, near Dorking, where he passed the remainder of his life, He took no part in politics, and wrote a pamphlet, " The Country

Gentleman

GENTLEMAN (from Lat. gentilis, " belonging to a race or gens," and " man "; Fr. gentilhomme, Span. gentil hombre, Ital. gentil huomo, in its
original
- ORIGINAL
and strict signification, a term denoting a man of good family, the Lat. generosus (its invariable transl

's Advice to his Son on the Subject of Party Clubs " (1755), cautioning

young

men against its snares. In 1736 Tucker married Dorothy, the daughter of Edward Barker of East Betchworth, cursitor baron of the exchequer. On her death in 1754, he occupied himself in collecting together all the letters that had passed between them, which, we are told, he transcribed twice over under the title of " The Picture of Artless Love." From this time onward he occupied himself with the composition of his

chief

CHIEF (from Fr. chef, head, Lat. caput)

work

WORK

, The Light of Nature Pursued, of which in 1763 he published a specimen under the title of " Free Will." The strictures of a critic in the Monthly Review of July 1763 drew from him a pamphlet called Man in Quest of Himself, by Cuthbert Comment (reprinted in Parr's Metaphysical Tracts, 1837), " a defence of the individuality of the human mind or self." In 1765 the first four volumes of his

work

WORK

were published under the pseudonym " Edward Search." The remaining three volumes appeared posthumously. His eyesight failed him completely in 1771, but he contrived an ingenious apparatus which enabled him to write so legibly that the result could easily be transcribed by his daughter. In this way he completed the later volumes, which were ready for publication when he died on the loth of November 1774.
His work embraces in its scope many psychological and more strictly metaphysical discussions, but it is chiefly in connexion with ethics that Tucker's speculations are remembered. In some impor-tant points he anticipates the

utilitarianism

UTILITARIANISM (Lat. utilis, useful)

afterwards systematized by Paley, who expresses in the amplest terms his obligations to his predecessor. " Every man's own

satisfaction

SATISFACTION (Lat. salisfacerc, to satisfy)

" Tucker holds to be the ultimate end of action; and

satisfaction

SATISFACTION (Lat. salisfacerc, to satisfy)

or pleasure is one and the same in kind, however much it may vary in degree. This universal

motive

MOTIVE (from Lat. movere, to move)

is further connected, as by Paley, through the will of God, with the " general good, the root where out all our rules of conduct and sentiments of honour are to branch."
The Light of Nature was republished with a biographical sketch by Tucker's grandson, Sir H. P. St John Mildmay (1905), 7 vols. (other editions 1834, 1836, &c.), and an abridged edition by W. Hazlitt appeared in 1807. See James Mackintosh, Dissertation on the Progress of Ethical Philosophy (Edinburgh, 1832) ; and specially Sir Leslie Stephen, English Thought in the z8th Century, iii. 119-130.' TUCKER, CHARLOTTE MARIA (1821-1893), English author,
who wrote under the pseudonym "A.L.O.E." (a Lady of England),
was born near Barnet,

Middlesex

MIDDLESEX
MIDDLESEX, LIONEL CRANFIELD, 1ST
EARL
- EARL
OF (1575-1645)

, on the 8th of May 1821, the daughter of Henry St George Tucker (1771-1851), a distinguished official of the East India Company. From 1852 till her death she wrote many stories for children, most of them allegories with an obvious moral, and devoted the proceeds to charity. In 1875 she left England for India to engage in missionary work, and died at Amritsar on the 2nd of December 1893.

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