David Hartley.

The work of Dr. Hartley, entitled “Observations on Man,” is distinguished by an uncommon union of originality with modesty, in unfolding a simple and fruitful principle of human nature. It is disfigured by the absurd affectation of mathematical forms then prevalent; and it is encumbered and deformed by a mass of physiological speculations,—groundless, or at best uncertain, and wholly foreign from its proper purpose,—which repel the inquirer into mental philosophy from its perusal, and lessen the respect of the physiologist for the author’s judgment. It is an unfortunate example of the disposition predominent among undistinguishing theorists to class together all the appearances which are observed at the same time, and in the immediate neighbourhood of each other. At that period, chemical phenomena were referred to mechanical principles; vegetable and animal life were subjected to mechanical or chemical laws: and while some physiologists ascribed the vital functions of the Understanding, the greater part of metaphysicians were disposed, with a grosser confusion, to derive the intellectual operations from bodily causes. The error in the latter case, though less immediately perceptible, is deeper and more fundamental than in the other; since it overlooks the primordial and perpetual distinction between the being which thinks and the thing which is thought of,—not to be lost sight of, by the mind’s eye, even for a twinkling, without involving all nature in darkness and confusion. Hartley and Condillac, who, much about the same time, but seemingly without any knowledge of each other’s speculations, began in a very similar mode to simplify, but also to mutilate the system of Locke, stopped short of what is called “materialism,” which consummates the confusion, but touched the threshold. Thither, it must be owned, their philosophy pointed, and thither their followers proceeded. Hartley and Bonnet, still more than Condillac, suffered themselves, like most of their contemporaries, to overlook the important truth, that all the changes in the organs which can be likened to other material phenomena, are nothing more than antecedents and prerequisites of perception, bearing not the faintest likeness to it,—as much outward in relation to the thinking principle, as if they occurred in any other part of matter; and that the entire comprehension of those changes, if it were attained, would not bring us a step nearer to the nature of thought. They who would have been the first to exclaim against the mistake of a sound for a colour, fell into the more unspeakable error of confounding the perception of objects, as outward, with the consciousness of our own mental operations. Locke’s doctrine, that “reflection” was a separate source of ideas, left room for this greatest of all distinctions; though with much unhappiness of expression, and with no little variance from the course of his own speculations. Hartley, Condillac, and Bonnet, in hewing away this seeming deformity from the system of their master, unwittingly struck off the part of the building which, however unsightly, gave it the power of yielding some shelter and guard to truths, of which the exclusion rendered it utterly untenable. They became consistent Nominalists; in reference to whose controversy Locke expresses himself with confusion and contradiction: but on this subject they added nothing to what had been taught by Hobbes and Berkeley. Both Hartley and Condillac have the merit of having been unseduced by the temptations either of scepticism, or of useless idealism; which, even if Berkeley and Hume could have been unknown to them, must have been within sight. Both agree in referring all the intellectual operations to the “association of ideas,” and in representing that association as reducible to the single law, “that ideas which enter the mind at the same time, acquire a tendency to call up each other, which is in direct proportion to the frequency of their having entered together.” In this important part of their doctrine they seem, whether unconsciously or otherwise, to have only repeated, and very much expanded, the opinion of Hobbes. In its simplicity it is more agreeable than the system of Mr. Hume, who admitted five independent laws of association; and it is in comprehension far superior to the views of the same subject by Mr. Locke, whose ill-chosen name still retains its place in our nomenclature, but who only appeals to the principle as explaining some fancies and whimsies of the human mind. The capital fault of Hartley is that of a rash generalization, which may prove imperfect, and which is at least premature. All attempts to explain instinct by this principle have hitherto been unavailing: many of the most important processes of reasoning have not hitherto been accounted for by it. It would appear by a close examination, that even this theory, simple as it appears, presupposes many facts relating to the mind, of which its authors do not seem to have suspected the existence. How many ultimate facts of that nature, for example, are contained and involved in Aristotle’s celebrated comparison of the mind in its first state to a sheet of unwritten paper! The texture of the paper, even its colour, the sort of instrument fit to act on it, its capacity to receive and to retain impressions, all its differences, from steel on the one hand to water on the other, certainly presuppose some facts, and may imply many, without a distinct statement of which, the nature of writing could not be explained to a person wholly ignorant of it. How many more, as well as greater laws, may be necessary to enable mind to perceive outward objects! If the power of perception may be thus dependent, why may not what is called the “association of ideas,” the attraction between thoughts, the power of one to suggest another, be affected by mental laws hitherto unexplored, perhaps unobserved?

But, to return from this digression into the intellectual part of man, it becomes proper to say, that the difference between Hartley and Condillac, and the immeasurable superiority of the former, are chiefly to be found in the application which Hartley first made of the law of association to that other unnamed portion of our nature with which Morality more immediately deals;—that which feels pain and pleasure,—is influenced by appetites and loathings, by desires and aversions, by affections and repugnances. Condillac’s Treatise on Sensation, published five years after the work of Hartley, reproduces the doctrine of Hobbes, with its root, namely, that love and hope are but transformed “sensations,” (by which he means perceptions of the senses,) and its widespread branches, consisting in desires and passions, which are only modifications of self-love. “The words ‘goodness’ and ‘beauty,’ ” says he, almost in the very words of Hobbes, “express those qualities of things by which they contribute to our pleasure.” In the whole of his philosophical works, we find no trace of any desire produced by association, of any disinterested principle, or indeed of any distinction between the percipient and what, perhaps, we may venture to call the emotive or the pathematic part of human nature, for the present, until some more convenient and agreeable name shall be hit on by some luckier or more skilful adventurer.

To the ingenuous, humble, and anxiously conscientious character of Hartley himself, we owe the knowledge that, about the year 1730, he was informed that the Rev. Mr. Gay of Sidney-Sussex College, Cambridge, then living in the west of England, asserted the possibility of deducing all our intellectual pleasures and pains from association; that this led him (Hartley) to consider the power of association; and that about that time Mr. Gay published his sentiments on this matter in a dissertation prefixed to Bishop Law’s Translation of King’s Origin of Evil. No writer deserves the praise of abundant fairness more than Hartley in this avowal. The dissertation of which he speaks is mentioned by no philosopher but himself. It suggested nothing apparently to any other reader. The general texture of it is that of homespun selfishness. The writer had the merit to see and to own that Hutcheson had established as a fact the reality of moral sentiments and disinterested affections. He blames, perhaps justly, that most ingenious man, for assuming that these sentiments and affections are implanted, and partake of the nature of instincts. The object of his dissertation is to reconcile the mental appearances described by Hutcheson with the first principle of the selfish system, that “the true principle of all our actions is our own happiness.” Moral feelings and social affections are, according to him, “resolvable into reason, pointing out our private happiness; and whenever this end is not perceived, they are to be accounted for from the association of ideas.” Even in the single passage in which he shows a glimpse of the truth, he begins with confusion, advances with hesitation, and after holding in his grasp for an instant the principle which sheds so strong a light around it, suddenly drops it from his hand. Instead of receiving the statements of Hutcheson (his silence relating to Butler is unaccountable) as enlargements of the science of man, he deals with them merely as difficulties to be reconciled with the received system of universal selfishness. In the conclusion of his fourth section, he well exemplifies the power of association in forming the love of money, of fame, of power, &c.; but he still treats these effects of association as aberrations and infirmities, the fruits of our forgetfulness and shortsightedness, and not at all as the great process employed to sow and rear the most important principles of a social and moral nature.

This precious mine may therefore be truly said to have been opened by Hartley; for he who did such superabundant justice to the hints of Gay, would assuredly not have withheld the like tribute from Hutcheson, had he observed the happy expression of “secondary passions,” which ought to have led that philosopher himself farther than he ventured to advance. The extraordinary value of this part of Hartley’s system has been hidden by various causes, which have also enabled writers, who have borrowed from it, to decry it. The influence of his medical habits renders many of his examples displeasing, and sometimes disgusting. He has none of that knowledge of the world, of that familiarity with Literature, of that delicate perception of the beauties of Nature and Art, which not only supply the most agreeable illustrations of mental philosophy, but afford the most obvious and striking instances of its happy application to subjects generally interesting. His particular applications of the general law are often mistaken, and are seldom more than brief notes and hasty suggestions;—the germs of theories which, while some might adopt them without detection, others might discover without being aware that they were anticipated.—To which it may be added, that in spite of the imposing forms of Geometry, the work is not really distinguished by good method, or even uniform adherence to that which had been chosen. His style is entitled to no praise but that of clearness, and a simplicity of diction, through which is visible a singular simplicity of mind. No book perhaps exists which, with so few of the common allurements, comes at last so much to please by the picture it presents of the writer’s character,—a character which kept him pure from the pursuit, often from the consciousness of novelty, and rendered him a discoverer in spite of his own modesty. In those singular passages in which, amidst the profound internal tranquillity of all the European nations, he foretells approaching convulsions, to be followed by the overthrow of states and Churches, his quiet and gentle spirit, elsewhere almost ready to inculcate passive obedience for the sake of peace, is supported under its awful forebodings by the hope of that general progress in virtue and happiness which he saw through the preparatory confusion. A meek piety, inclining towards mysticism, and sometimes indulging in visions which borrow a lustre from his fervid benevolence, was beautifully, and perhaps singularly, blended in him with zeal for the most unbounded freedom of inquiry, flowing both from his own conscientious belief and his unmingled love of Truth. Whoever can so far subdue his repugnance to petty or secondary faults as to bestow a careful perusal on the work, must be unfortunate if he does not see, feel, and own, that the writer was a great philosopher and a good man.

To those who thus study the work, it will be apparent that Hartley, like other philosophers, either overlooked or failed explicitly to announce that distinction between perception and emotion, without which no system of mental philosophy is complete.—Hence arose the partial and incomplete view of Truth conveyed by the use of the phrase “association of ideas.” If the word “association,” which rather indicates the connection between separate things than the perfect combination and fusion which occur in many operations of the mind, must, notwithstanding its inadequacy, still be retained, the phrase ought at least to be “association” of thoughts with emotions, as well as with each other. With that enlargement an objection to the Hartleian doctrine would have been avoided, and its originality, as well as superiority over that of Condillac, would have appeared indisputable. The examples of avarice and other factitious passions are very well chosen; first, because few will be found to suppose that they are original principles of human nature; secondly, because the process by which they are generated, being subsequent to the age of attention and recollection, may be brought home to the understanding of all men; and, thirdly, because they afford the most striking instance of secondary passions, which not only become independent of the primary principles from which they are derived, but hostile to them, and so superior in strength as to be capable of overpowering their parents. As soon as the mind becomes familiar with the frequent case of the man who first pursued money to purchase pleasure, but at last, when he becomes a miser, loves his hoard better than all that it could purchase, and sacrifices all pleasures for its increase, we are prepared to admit that, by a like process, the affections, when they are fixed on the happiness of others as their ultimate object, without any reflection on self, may not only be perfectly detached from self-regard or private desires, but may subdue these and every other antagonist passion which can stand in their way. As the miser loves money for its own sake, so may the benevolent man delight in the well-being of his fellows. His good-will becomes as disinterested as if it had been implanted and underived. The like process applied to what is called “self-love,” or the desire of permanent well-being, clearly explains the mode in which that principle is gradually formed from the separate appetites, without whose previous existence no notion of well-being could be obtained.—In like manner, sympathy, perhaps itself the result of a transfer of our own personal feelings by association to other sentient beings, and of a subsequent transfer of their feelings to our own minds, engenders the various social affections, which at last generate in most minds some regard to the well-being of our country, of mankind, of all creatures capable of pleasure. Rational Self-love controls and guides those far keener self-regarding passions of which it is the child, in the same manner as general benevolence balances and governs the variety of much warmer social affections from which it springs. It is an ancient and obstinate error of philosophers to represent these two calm principles as being the source of the impelling passions and affections, instead of being among the last results of them. Each of them exercises a sort of authority in its sphere; but the dominion of neither is co-existent with the whole nature of man. Though they have the power to quicken and check, they are both too feeble to impel; and if the primary principles were extinguished, they would both perish from want of nourishment. If indeed all appetites and desires were destroyed, no subject would exist on which either of these general principles could act.

The affections, desires, and emotions, having for their ultimate object the dispositions and actions of voluntary agents, which alone, from the nature of their object, are co-extensive with the whole of our active nature, are, according to the same philosophy, necessarily formed in every human mind by the transfer of feeling which is effected by the principle of Association. Gratitude, pity, resentment, and shame, seem to be the simplest, the most active, and the most uniform elements in their composition. It is easy to perceive how the complacency inspired by a benefit may be transferred to a benefactor,—thence to all beneficent beings and acts. The well-chosen instance of the nurse familiarly exemplifies the manner in which the child transfers his complacency from the gratification of his senses to the cause of it, and thus learns an affection for her who is the source of his enjoyment.—With this simple process concur, in the case of a tender nurse, and far more of a mother, a thousand acts of relief and endearment, the complacency that results from which is fixed on the person from whom they flow, and in some degree extended by association to all who resemble that person. So much of the pleasure of early life depends on others, that the like process is almost constantly repeated. Hence the origin of benevolence may be understood. and the disposition to approve all benevolent, and disapprove all malevolent acts. Hence also the same approbation and disapprobation are extended to all acts which we clearly perceive to promote or obstruct the happiness of men. When the complacency is expressed in action, benevolence may be said to be transformed into a part of Conscience. The rise of sympathy may probably be explained by the process of association, which transfers the feelings of others to ourselves, and ascribes our own feelings to others,—at first, and in some degree always, in proportion as the resemblance of ourselves to others is complete. The likeness in the outward signs of emotion is one of the widest channels in this commerce of hearts. Pity thereby becomes one of the grand sources of benevolence, and perhaps contributes more largely than gratitude: it is indeed one of the first motives to the conferring of those benefits which inspire grateful affection.—Sympathy with the sufferer, therefore, is also transformed into a real sentiment, directly approving benevolent actions and dispositions, and more remotely, all actions that promote happiness. The anger of the sufferer, first against all causes of pain, afterwards against all intentional agents who produce it, and finally against all those in whom the infliction of pain proceeds from a mischievous disposition, when it is communicated to others by sympathy, and is so far purified by gradual separation from selfish and individual interest as to be equally felt against all wrongdoers,—whether the wrong be done against ourselves, our friends, or our enemies,—is the root out of which springs that which is commonly and well called a “sense of justice”—the most indispensable, perhaps, of all the component parts of the moral faculties.

This is the main guard against Wrong. It relates to that portion of Morality where many of the outward acts are capable of being reduced under certain rules, of which the violations, wherever the rule is sufficiently precise, and the mischief sufficiently great, may be guarded against by the terror of punishment. In the observation of the rules of justice consists duty; breaches of them we denominate “crimes.” An abhorrence of crimes, especially of those which indicate the absence of benevolence, as well as of regard for justice, is strongly felt; because well-framed penal laws, being the lasting declaration of the moral indignation of many generations of mankind, as long as they remain in unison with the sentiments of the age and country for which they are destined, exceedingly strengthen the same feeling in every individual; and this they do wherever the laws do not so much deviate from the habitual feelings of the multitude as to produce a struggle between law and sentiment, in which it is hard to say on which side success is most deplorable. A man who performs his duties may be esteemed, but is not admired; because it requires no more than ordinary virtue to act well where it is shameful and dangerous to do otherwise. The righteousness of those who act solely from such inferior motives, is little better than that “of the Scribes and Pharisees.” Those only are just in the eye of the moralist who act justly from a constant disposition to render to every man his own. Acts of kindness, of generosity, of pity, of placability, of humanity, when they are long continued, can hardly fail mainly to flow from the pure fountain of an excellent nature. They are not reducible to rules; and the attempt to enforce them by punishment would destroy them. They are virtues, of which the essence consists in a good disposition of mind.

As we gradually transfer our desire from praise to praiseworthiness, this principle also is adopted into consciousness. On the other hand, when we are led by association to feel a painful contempt for those feelings and actions of our past self which we despise in others, there is developed in our hearts another element of that moral sense. It is a remarkable instance of the power of the law of Association, that the contempt or abhorrence which we feel for the bad actions of others may be transferred by it, in any degree of strength, to our own past actions of the like kind: and as the hatred of bad actions is transferred to the agent, the same transfer may occur in our own case in a manner perfectly similar to that of which we are conscious in our feelings towards our fellow-creatures. There are many causes which render it generally feebler; but it is perfectly evident that it requires no more than a sufficient strength of moral feeling to make it equal; and that the most apparently hyperbolical language used by penitents, in describing their remorse, may be justified by the principle of Association.

At this step in our progress, it is proper to observe, that a most important consideration has escaped Hartley, as well as every other philosopher. The language of all mankind implies that the Moral Faculty, whatever it may be, and from what origin soever it may spring, is intelligibly and properly spoken of as One. It is as common in mind, as in matter, for a compound to have properties not to be found in any of its constituent parts. The truth of this proposition is as certain in the human feelings as in any material combination. It is therefore easily to be understood, that originally separate feelings may be so perfectly blended by a process performed in each mind, that they can no longer be disjoined from each other, but must always co-operate, and thus reach the only union which we can conceive. The sentiment of moral approbation, formed by association out of antecedent affections, may become so perfectly independent of them, that we are no longer conscious of the means by which it was formed, and never can in practice repeat, though we may in theory perceive, the process by which it was generated. It is in that mature and sound state of our nature that our emotions at the view of Right and Wrong are ascribed to Conscience. But why, it may be asked, do these feelings, rather than others, run into each other, and constitute Conscience? The answer seems to be what has already been intimated in the observations on Butler. The affinity between these feelings consists in this, that while all other feelings relate to outward objects, they alone contemplate exclusively the dispositions and actions of voluntary agents. When they are completely transferred from objects, and even persons, to dispositions and actions, they are fitted, by the perfect coincidence of their aim, for combining to form that one faculty which is directed only to that aim.

The words “Duty” and “Virtue,” and the word “ought,” which most perfectly denotes duty, but is also connected with Virtue, in every well-constituted mind, in this state become the fit language of the acquired, perhaps, but universally and necessarily acquired, faculty of Conscience. Some account of its peculiar nature has been attempted in the remarks on Butler; for a further one a fitter occasion will occur hereafter. Some light may however now be thrown on the subject by a short statement of the hitherto unobserved distinction between the moral sentiments and another class of feelings with which they have some qualities in common. The “pleasures” (so called) of imagination appear, at least in most cases, to originate in association: but it is not till the original cause of the gratification is obliterated from the mind, that they acquire their proper character. Order and proportion may be at first chosen for their convenience: it is not until they are admired for their own sake that they become objects of taste. Though all the proportions for which a horse is valued may be indications of speed, safety, strength, and health, it is not the less true that they only can be said to admire the animal for his beauty, who leave such considerations out of the account while they admire. The pleasure of contemplation in these particulars of Nature and Art becomes universal and immediate, being entirely detached from all regard to individual beings. It contemplates neither use nor interest. In this important particular the pleasures of imagination agree with the moral sentiments: hence the application of the same language to both in ancient and modern times;—hence also it arises that they may contemplate the very same qualities and objects. There is certainly much beauty in the softer virtues,—much grandeur in the soul of a hero or a martyr: but the essential distinction still remains; the purest moral taste contemplates these qualities only with quiescent delight or reverence; it has no further view; it points towards no action. Conscience, on the contrary, containing in it a pleasure in the prospect of doing right, and an ardent desire to act well, having for its sole object the dispositions and acts of voluntary agents, is not, like moral taste, satisfied with passive contemplation, but constantly tends to act on the will and conduct of the man. Moral taste may aid it, may be absorbed into it, and usually contributes its part to the formation of the moral faculty; but it is distinct from that faculty, and may be disproportioned to it. Conscience, being by its nature confined to mental dispositions and voluntary acts, is of necessity excluded from the ordinary consideration of all things antecedent to these dispositions. The circumstances from which such states of mind may arise, are most important objects of consideration for the Understanding; but they are without the sphere of Conscience, which never ascends beyond the heart of the man. It is thus that in the eye of Conscience man becomes amenable to its authority for all his inclinations as well as deeds; that some of them are approved, loved, and revered; and that all the outward effects of disesteem, contempt, or moral anger, are felt to be the just lot of others.

But, to return to Hartley, from this perhaps intrusive statement of what does not properly belong to him: he represents all the social affections of gratitude, veneration, and love, inspired by the virtues of our fellow-men, as capable of being transferred by association to the transcendent and unmingled goodness of the Ruler of the world, and thus to give rise to piety, to which he gives the name of “the theopathetic affection.” This principle, like all the former in the mental series, is gradually detached from the trunk on which it grew: it takes separate root, and may altogether overshadow the parent stock. As such a Being cannot be conceived without the most perfect and constant reference to His goodness, so piety may not only become a part of Conscience, but its governing and animating principle, which, after long lending its own energy and authority to every other, is at last described by our philosopher as swallowing up all of them in order to perform the same functions more infallibly.

In every stage of this progress we are taught by Dr. Hartley that a new product appears, which becomes perfectly distinct from the elements which formed it, which may be utterly dissimilar to them, and may attain any degree of vigour, however superior to theirs. Thus the objects of the private desires disappear when we are employed in the pursuit of our lasting welfare; that which was first sought only as a means, may come to be pursued as an end, and preferred to the original end; the good opinion of our fellows becomes more valued than the benefits for which it was at first courted; a man is ready to sacrifice his life for him who has shown generosity, even to others; and persons otherwise of common character are capable of cheerfully marching in a forlorn hope, or of almost instinctively leaping into the sea to save the life of an entire stranger. These last acts, often of almost unconscious virtue, so familiar to the soldier and the sailor, so unaccountable on certain systems of philosophy, often occur without a thought of applause and reward;—too quickly for the thought of the latter, too obscurely for the hope of the former; and they are of such a nature that no man could be impelled to them by the mere expectation of either.

The gratitude, sympathy, resentment, and shame, which are the principal constituent parts of the Moral Sense, thus lose their separate agency, and constitute an entirely new faculty, co-extensive with all the dispositions and actions of voluntary agents; though some of them are more predominant in particular cases of moral sentiment than others, and though the aid of all continues to be necessary in their original character, as subordinate but distinct motives of action. Nothing more evidently points out the distinction of the Hartleian system from all systems called “selfish,”—not to say its superiority in respect to disinterestedness over all moral systems before Butler and Hutcheson,—than that excellent part of it which relates to the “rule of life.” The various principles of human action rise in value according to the order in which they spring up after each other. We can then only be in a state of as much enjoyment as we are evidently capable of attaining, when we prefer interest to the original gratifications; honour to interest; the pleasures of imagination to those of sense; the dictates of Conscience to pleasure, interest, and reputation; the well-being of fellow-creatures to our own indulgences; in a word, when we pursue moral good and social happiness chiefly and for their own sake. “With self-interest,” says Hartley, somewhat inaccurately in language, “man must begin. He may end in self-annihilation. Theopathy, or piety, although the last result of the purified and exalted sentiments, may at length swallow up every other principle, and absorb the whole man.” Even if this last doctrine should be an exaggeration unsuited to our present condition, it will the more strongly illustrate the compatibility, or rather the necessary connection, of this theory with the existence and power of perfectly disinterested principles of human action.

It is needless to remark on the secondary and auxiliary causes which contribute to the formation of moral sentiment;—education, imitation, general opinion, laws, and government. They all presuppose the Moral Faculty: in an improved state of society they contribute powerfully to strengthen it, and on some occasions they enfeeble, distort, and maim it; but in all cases they must themselves be tried by the test of an ethical standard. The value of this doctrine will not be essentially affected by supposing a greater number of original principles than those assumed by Dr. Hartley. The principle of Association applies as much to a greater as to a smaller number. It is a quality common to it with all theories, that the more simplicity it reaches consistently with truth, the more perfect it becomes. Causes are not to be multiplied without necessity. If by a considerable multiplication of primary desires the law of Association were lowered nearly to the level of an auxiliary agent, the philosophy of human nature would still be under indelible obligations to the philosopher who, by his fortunate error, rendered the importance of that great principle obvious and conspicuous.